Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Jim Hughes interview 2

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 88

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Jim Hughes joins me (again) on episode 88.

Jim is a chromatic player who was last interviewed on the podcast in October 2020, back on episode 26. He is now at the grand age of 93 years young, and he shares the wisdom he has developed over many years of playing the chromatic harmonica.

Jim has has become blind since the last interview and after being a life long sight reader has now had to learn how to play by ear. He shares how he has adapted to these new challenges and is finding new joy in playing the harmonica.

Recently Jim has unearthed some recordings he made among the thousands he recorded with the BBC, and he talks us through some of the pieces and the approaches he took on the harmonica, and his life as a session musician with the BBC.

Links:
Previous interview with Jim:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com/jim-hughes-interview/

Serenade Radio:
https://www.serenade-radio.com/

The Archivist harmonica website, from Roger Trobridge:
http://www.the-archivist.co.uk/

NHL concert 1985: (or 1983)
http://www.the-archivist.co.uk/jim-hughes-1983/


Videos:

Adam Glasser in conversation with Jim Hughes, from 2022:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU59OUY-PjE&t=464s

Carol Axford playing at NHL concert 2004:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC5t-t8L4F4


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS

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SPEAKER_04:

Jim Hughes joins me again on episode 88. Jim is a chromatic player who was last interviewed on the podcast in October 2020, back on episode 26. He is now at the grand age of 93 years young, and he shares the wisdom he has developed over many years of playing the chromatic harmonica. Jim has become blind since the last interview and after being a lifelong sight reader has now had to learn how to play by ear. He shares how he has adapted to these new challenges and is finding new joy in playing the harmonica. Recently Jim has unearthed some recordings he made among the thousands he recorded with the BBC and he talks us through some of the pieces and the approaches he took on the harmonica and his life as a session musician with the BBC. This podcast is sponsored by Zeidel Harmonicas. visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Seidel Harmonicas. So hello Jim Hughes again and welcome to the podcast. Good morning Neil, nice to see you again. Great to have you back. So you're the first person that I've done a repeat interview with on the podcast and the first one was back in October 2020. Wow, I can't remember that far back. So what have you been doing with yourself since then? Well,

SPEAKER_03:

very little. I say very little, but I've been practicing a lot. The thing is, as you know, since I last spoke to you, I've become blind. So I've had to cope with that. And I didn't actually play for one year. I just didn't want to do it, you know. And then people started talking to me and said, pull yourself out of this and get going. I've started now really learning about the instrument. After 60-odd, 70-odd years, I'm learning new things about the harmonica, which is quite

SPEAKER_04:

astounding, really. Well, I'm sorry to hear about you losing your sight. That must be terrible. But, I mean, they say that if you lose your sight, that your sense is improving over areas. Have you noticed that, maybe, about the hearing?

SPEAKER_03:

Funnily enough, I've talked about this with Susie West. You probably know Susie West. Susie Colclough who has been blind for many years and she befriended me when I became blind and helped me actually through it and we spoke about this developing extra senses but got no evidence of it to be honest I mean I apply my my mind more especially to music I'm thinking much more I'm thinking about pitch and stuff like this but my hearing's The same smell is the same. Balance is gone. But no. So how old are you now, Jim? I'm 93.

SPEAKER_04:

I shall be 94 at the end of this year. Wow. Congratulations. That's amazing. At least you're hearing still there, eh? Yeah, thank goodness. Well, so obviously the thing we talked about a lot in the previous interview and we'll touch on again today is sight reading. And that was a big thing that you took on. So that obviously going to be a struggle for you. Are you able to do any sort of sight reading? Is there ways around that? No, there's

SPEAKER_03:

none at all but I'm glad that I had the experience and I mean the thing was I was quite a regular working session musician and all I had to do was sight read. My life was just going into a studio, looking at the music on the stand and just dealing with it and out, you know. It was that. It's quite different to performing. This was just like work. You sit down, you read, and you deal with the thing. I got... pretty good at it but didn't develop ear playing which is what I'm doing now

SPEAKER_04:

yeah so tell us how you're approaching that you know and again in contrast like you say you've been sight reading for years so yeah it's been a

SPEAKER_03:

lengthy process it's a question of developing an instinct for where the note is. See, I only play a C harmonica. I play in every key without any problem. But I know the pitch of the sound according to where I am, what position I'm at with the instrument. And I hadn't developed that too well. I just let the dots, the music guide me as I read, which just worked fine. Now I've got to think like a singer would. I mean, when you sing, you hear a note in your head and you go for it, and mostly you'll find it. You know, it's there instinctively. And this is the sort of feeling I'm getting now with the harmonica.

SPEAKER_04:

When you're learning new pieces, are you listening to pieces and then learning those by ear? You've hit on

SPEAKER_03:

a very good point there, Neil. I'm finding it difficult to learn new pieces because my memory... isn't so good. I can deal with all the old standards which I've known all my life because I know the tunes. I know what they are and I can play them in any key without any problem at all.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_03:

If I've got to learn something new, which I'm learning, doing all the time, I take a long time over it. I have a go at it, and then I forget the notes. There you go. That's one of the difficulties.

SPEAKER_04:

So are you spending a lot of your time now playing existing pieces, or are you still spending time doing exercises and stuff like that?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I'll tell you what I do exactly. I... I practice scales. I practice arpeggios, modes, and things like that. And then I sit down, put the radio on. I listen to a program called Serenade Radio, which plays all the old standards, big band stuff, and all the great ballad singers are on. And so I sit there for hours and hours playing along with them. I accompany great artists like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. I'm developing improvisational skills.

SPEAKER_04:

So what do you think about playing in this way as opposed to all the years of sight reading you've spent? Are you enjoying it this way or do you think one's better than the other?

SPEAKER_03:

It's a whole different experience. The other one was work. This is now like relearning, but I'm enjoying and I feel free to have a go at things. I'm on my own. Any mistakes I make doesn't matter, you know, and I make a lot of mistakes. I don't always 100% hit the notes that I aim

SPEAKER_04:

for. Well, excuse your age, Jim. You're allowed a little bit of slack, I think. well no it's interesting though because lots of people obviously probably approach it from the other way they on harmonica you know they would learn by ear and then maybe start taking on the sight reading which i know you did it in your younger so it's quite interesting and

SPEAKER_03:

yeah

SPEAKER_04:

yeah so when you're playing are you thinking in ways almost as if you start reading like you know you're really thinking about the length of the notes and the rhythms as written or are you trying to

SPEAKER_03:

well now it's it's sort of instinct instinct I'm playing by instinct. I'm able, like if there's a tune playing, I can pick up the harmonica and I can hit the key note immediately or sometimes I can hit whatever note is actually being played, I'll hit it. My ear directs me to the position on the instrument. No, I'm enjoying this. It's quite different to sight reading and I think I'm just sort of letting myself go, you know. Yeah. As if I was whistling or singing. It's akin to that.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, it's very inspirational that, you know, You're still playing now and it gives us hope that a lot of people might think you might not be able to continue as you're getting older, but it's great to hear that you're still playing and enjoying it. Yeah, my brain's still working and my lungs are still working really well. So one thing we're going to talk about today is you unearthed some recordings from the archives. So tell us about, you know, some of the archives you've got of your recordings. I mean, our previous interview, we talked how you'd done thousands of sessions and you've got all this back catalysis. Do you have copies of all these previous sessions you'd done?

SPEAKER_03:

Unfortunately, no. I mean, this is a shame. And it's only because I've actually got a relative a younger my great nephew in fact who's interested in recording and doing we've been sifting through the mountain of cassette tapes that i have that were all uh recordings of broadcasts i was doing so I should tell you something about the session work, as I say, is when you go into a studio and deal with a piece of music at sight. That's session work to me. But a lot of the stuff on that record was not sight reading. It was live, but... It had been prepared because I was doing a lot of work as a resident BBC musician. I was working and doing slots with Harold Rich, pianist. We used to record about six pieces every week. So my problem was finding repertoire. I had to look and prepare for it. So I had to look for pieces and I had a great deal of... going with a shop, a local shop. They allowed me to sift through the music, all music, and just take away whatever I wanted, and they would just sign it out to me, and I would browse through and find stuff, and then get used to it, read it, learn to play it in an effective way. That was what I was delivering on the radio. So a lot of that wasn't true session work as I see it, you know. It was play in prepared pieces.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC

SPEAKER_04:

interesting point there about you sifting through all this music I think a lot of people so clearly you're a chromatic player so but a lot of chromatic players will you know sort of struggle to find pieces that work really well on the chromatic so what did you find what were the best instruments to use and you know what sort of range along the instruments

SPEAKER_03:

I found that Recorder music, you know, 18th century stuff was very good. Stuff written for flute, violin, for anything really, as long as it was within the range of the harmonica. I always used KC starting at middle C. So if it was within the range, I could deal with it. Otherwise, I would probably sift the notes around a bit and leap an octave here and there to encompass that. But the thing was to find these pieces was difficult it's nice i used to listen to the radio a lot and uh i'd hear tunes and i'd mark down the names i think yeah i'd like to do that like to do that but sifting through music i've discovered some real little gems beautiful stuff that you would never hear normally i mean there's loads and loads of serious music written that uh Nobody knows about. And are these pieces that particularly work well on the chromatic? Oh, yeah, they have to work well. Some are a little bit dodgy, but then you find something beautiful. Like amongst those recordings you've got, I found this gentle piece called a pastoral. Beautiful on the harmonica. I've forgotten what it was written for. I don't have any music anymore to that. But this is a typical example of what we're talking about, a gentle piece. soothing if you like mellow piece and i developed a tone to play this sort of music so

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and those gentle pieces work so well in the chromatic, don't they? What about some of the technical challenges, say, of violin music where you've got slurs? How would you approach playing a slur on the chromatic? Sorry, let me just explain for a slur. So a slur on the violin is played when you play a sequence of notes with one direction of the bow. So you get a very smooth legato sound from a slur, which is a very characteristic sound of a violin. So yeah, so how would you approach that on the chromatic? Now then,

SPEAKER_03:

I've started composing. Well, I've always composed little bits, but now I'm seriously composing stuff for the harmonica. I've written a piece, actually, for Susie which I've called Susie, believe it or not. And there's a lot of smooth legato playing required to do justice to this piece. And it means that you have to use, where you've got a succession of notes, if you like, two draw notes, three draw notes, use one breath and just move the harmonica. instead of hitting each note separately. Can I play something? Sure. Just to give you an idea, this is the introduction to this piece. So that's using one breath. Whatever you can, you use one breath for like several, blow or draw notes in a line. Where there isn't any of that, this is where real technique comes in, where you've got to make a draw to a blow note, sound smooth. And that's where the work comes in on a harmonica.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, but that's a great point, isn't it? You can get, of course, great legato by, as you say, keeping the breath in one direction over a sequence of notes, can't you? Yeah. But that would call for maybe composing pieces specifically for the harmonica, wouldn't it? Because some of the violin and flute, et cetera, wouldn't necessarily do that, would they?

SPEAKER_03:

No, that's right. But as I say, you can make a smooth progression from a blow note to a draw note. And if you get one that combines all the actions, that's a slide action, a movement of the harmonica, a change of air direction. And if you get all these together, there's a lot of coordination needed. That's where the real work comes in on a harmonica.

SPEAKER_04:

And so how about getting that legato sound from an in-breath to an out-breath?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, in what I just played you, there were some of that going on. I'm trying to think of... That's the sound of a piece by Michel Legrand, You Must Remember Spring.

SPEAKER_02:

HE PLAYS LEGATO

SPEAKER_03:

and there was a mixture of blows and draws there, but I'm sure that sounded pretty smooth,

SPEAKER_04:

didn't it? It did. No, he's still playing excellently, Jim. Great to hear it. I noticed, though, you're definitely putting in nice touches of vibrato, you know, not overdoing it. It's just coming in nice and subtly, so maybe talk about that a little.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, well, I've developed this vibrato thing on a harmonica. It's developed and developed through the years as I've played. and I play quite differently now than I did before. I used to have a wide vibrato, which I think I've mentioned to you. It was overdone. Everybody was into the throat vibrato, you know. Now I've got a, like, I use a very gentle, I always attack the note from the back of the throat, and I use a slight quiver of, like, Just a little gentle, like that, at the back of the throat.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, it's sounding great. And I think you're right. There's definitely a period where vibrato was overdone on the chromatic. But yes, I think that really subtle vibrato is really nice. So you mentioned that you're writing a composition for Susie. So obviously, we've talked about you're not able to really sight read now. So how are you capturing that? How are you getting that down? I've got

SPEAKER_03:

an arranger and we discuss the piano part of it. But these are essentially solo harmonica. I'm teaching Susie how to play it over the phone. And she's very bright and she is determined to be a good player. And she will be, there's no doubt. So I'm teaching her. Note by note, and how to work, how to use your breath, and how to release air mainly. This is one thing on a harmonica, as you probably know, is you get too much air in your lungs rather than fall out of breath. You have to release air. very subtly so all these things come into it so they'll say pause there release a little air you know and i'll show her how to do it and um it's working out well being asked please i hope she'll be able to perform it in in october

SPEAKER_04:

this is at the uh the annual harmonica uk festival yeah

SPEAKER_03:

And the other thing I had, do you know another player within the Harmonica UK band, Lena Freeman? Yeah, I know Lena, yeah. Well, she and I have a few phone calls, and she very kindly sent me some music from a film that she'd enjoyed watching, a French film, and it featured accordion. That inspired me to write a piece that sounds like an accordion. I thought, well... I'm going to dedicate this to Lena. So I said, can I call it Lena? And she said, well, I've got a much nicer middle name, Rosa. So it's called Rosa. Nice. I've completed it, sent it to her. It's a bit difficult, actually. I've got to modify the thing. But would you like to hear a bit of that? Yeah, sure, yeah. Now, the key I discovered, beautiful key to work in, is B flat minor. Beautiful key. man, this bitch slug.

SPEAKER_04:

and so on and so on. Beautiful, beautiful. Really nice playing again, Jim. So what about the characteristics of an accordion? How are you emulating that sound on the chromatic? Well, I'm

SPEAKER_03:

just doing it as good as I can, but I know when accordionists play this music, they do these little trills, and there's a bit in it that

SPEAKER_02:

goes...

SPEAKER_03:

It's just

SPEAKER_04:

messing around, really, with it within that scale. No, it sounds great. Well, Susie and Rosa are very lucky to have songs composed for them.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, well, I'm hoping that they'll both give a first performance in the same Harmonica Fest in October. That'd be nice.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, it's out on the podcast now, Jim. They're going to have to do it now. I'll make sure of it. I'll contact them. So, yes, beautiful. And so you're picking these pieces up just from ear, from the recording, well, this piece from ear, from this film music, are you? Yeah, well, I just get

SPEAKER_03:

an inspiration for a type of song. of notes and then I start messing about and the strange thing is when I first started doing this I got a little theme going and then my mind just blocked off nothing and I thought I just couldn't what they would call I suppose a writer's block and now I can't stop the thoughts flowing in. I lie in bed and I get permutations and notes going through my head. It's crazy, you know.

SPEAKER_04:

That's good. That's the mental representation of the music, eh? That's a very powerful thing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I'm glad that I've got this at least, you know. There's very little I can do with sight loss. It's so restrictive. It's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04:

Does it leave you very housebound, I

SPEAKER_03:

assume? I am her spouse, that's the problem. I have a wonderful carer in the shape of my daughter-in-law, Suzanne, who is married to my youngest son. She spends four hours a day here, keeps the house clean and tidy, cooks me a meal, does the washing and ironing and even does the garden. So she's looking after me so well, you know.

SPEAKER_04:

Sounds like an angel. Very lucky. Very lucky, yeah. So you're still doing some teaching then over the phone, as you say, with Susan and Lena, yeah? I

SPEAKER_03:

love teaching, and I will teach anybody. I don't charge anymore. I teach free of charge. So anybody that's got the determination, I will help. They've only got to contact me, you know? That's what I'm doing now, that-wise. I like teaching. But the pupil has to be determined and really want to do

SPEAKER_04:

it. Obviously, a lot of other instruments have formal teaching and there's a big history of teaching. How do you approach teaching the chromatic in the best way you can?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, it's all tied in with music theory. So we talk about music and then apply the playing to the music. We talk about scales and it's really, the more music theory you know, the better musician you'll be. You've got to know your scales and you've got to learn how music is constructed. There's so much to learn. You never stop learning. Never. But I tie it all in with that. And I used to do that in with the written notes. You see, I would write exercises and they were all logical, you know, starting from one note and then explain how a major scale is formed and go on. in the way that I think every instrument is being taught. But I've never had a lesson

SPEAKER_04:

myself. So do you apply patterns to scales and things like that, that sort of approach to the scales?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, we start with the scale of C and then we, you know, refer to the circle of C. And we just progress... One thing leads to another. It's hard to say exactly, but it's a question of gradually learning notes, learning the shape of the note and then the value of the note time-wise. And the hard thing to learn is rhythm, to teach, to get that right. And if a person has not got a natural rhythmic feel, they're never going to be a musician, which leads me to a point which I didn't mention with session work. The hard thing about session work is not when you're playing, it's when you're not playing. and counting through the rest. And that is harder than playing. And sometimes, you know, if it's a big orchestral thing, you'll be counting and counting and counting for a long time. And you have to be absolutely bang on all the time. You just set your mind like a clock. That is the hard thing.

SPEAKER_04:

Have you got any tips to help with the rhythm? Is it a case of, you know, practicing different rhythms and getting used to them?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, let's start off with one note, like a semi-breve. a whole note. See, notes have two names. Again, you've got the English name and you've got the American name. Whole note, semi-breed, four beats. So I explain all that. We go through that rhythm and then we add in minim or half note and then add in the crotchet or quarter note and go on from there and give demonstrations of how it goes, how to count. This is the hard thing, the rhythmic quality of music. When I did the session work, I used to concentrate more. I didn't worry about the notes. I knew that I would, whatever note I looked at, I would hit it. But I looked at the rhythmic patterns. And especially when I was working with Johnny Patrick, I learned to read jazz phrases, triplets over the bar and things like this.

SPEAKER_04:

Anyway, it's all experience, Neil. The more you do it, the better you get, eh?

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC

SPEAKER_03:

I'll tell you, I had a good tip. When I started working with Johnny Patrick, all the notes were written down, as I say, in these jazz phrases, which are unusual to look at at first while you're inexperienced. But I spoke to the drummer, Lionel Rubin, and we were talking about playing rhythms properly. And he said, I'm going to give you a tip now. He said, this will help you. And it did help me. And he said, mark in the beats. If you've got four beats in a bar, mark in where the beat is. is beat one, whether it's a rest on that beat or anything, or you might be in the middle of a noting, beat one, you make a mark on top of them, beat two, three, and four. And you see how the notes lie in relation to what you've marked, those four strokes above the bar. And after that, I noticed even real great musicians were doing that exactly on session work. They were marking in the beats.

SPEAKER_02:

And

SPEAKER_03:

I gave him an anchor. So that was a very useful tip.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, great. So let's get in now to one of the recordings that you've unearthed recently. This is called Selective Broadcasts of Jim Hughes. So this is a lot of the work that you've done with Harold Rich on piano, as well as some other band stuff. So tell us about this. When did you play with Harold Rich? What sort of time frame?

SPEAKER_03:

When I auditioned for the BBC, one of the first things they did was set me up with Harold, who as a resident BBC pianist and it was Harold and Jim or very twee, Harold and Jimmy. Now we have Harold and Jimmy. And we did a regular thing. We used to work for about a couple of years, Harold on the piano, Jim on the harmonica. And we recorded regularly. And this is where I had to find the repertoire to fit in with that. And when you've got to find new tunes all the time, you know, it's really difficult.

SPEAKER_04:

So, I mean, there's something about that combination of the chromatic and piano, isn't it? I think they're both quite gentle instruments and they go so well together don't they?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah and with Harold he's a wonderful accompanist he's just beautiful you know I've been spoiled by having the opportunity to work with great musicians and this is how I've developed as a musician is working with good musicians and the BBC have given me that opportunity

SPEAKER_04:

So how did Harold like playing with a chromatic harmonica player? No, he

SPEAKER_03:

was fine about it. Yeah, he liked it. We did a lot of stuff, a hell of a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so you did lots of TV appearances and radio appearances together?

SPEAKER_03:

No, I never worked with Harold on TV, but I did work with Johnny Patrick on TV.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Were these generally live performances or were they pre-recorded? Oh, the ones you've got there

SPEAKER_03:

were live performances, but they weren't, as I said before, that wasn't sight reading. That was prepared pieces.

SPEAKER_04:

So you'd practiced them beforehand, but were you still reading them as you played them or did you have them committed to memory?

SPEAKER_03:

Yes, I was. No, I didn't memorize. I still read them. Yeah. But I was familiar with what I was playing.

SPEAKER_04:

Great, and so most of these clips then were on radio, and there's great introductions in the old style of BBC Queen's English on quite a few of these recordings you've kept on, which are great.

SPEAKER_00:

The third piece in this group, played by James Hughes and Harold Rich, has vaguely athletic connotations. It's by another notable harmonica and piano duo, Tommy Riley and James Moody, and it's called Golden Girl.

UNKNOWN:

GOLDEN GIRL

SPEAKER_04:

So let's talk through a couple of the pieces then. Happy Barefoot Boy, which is a Henry Mancini song.

SPEAKER_03:

That's a little gem of a tune. Never heard it before. Just found it from browsing through a music shop and I see Happy Barefoot Boy. I think the film is called Two for the Road. But I'm sure it has been played, but I've never heard it played. But I think it absolutely suits how I want to go.

SPEAKER_02:

MUSIC PLAYS

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04:

You know, was it piano music that you bought?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, piano and lead, the normal format, like a ballad sheet.

SPEAKER_04:

You know, what was it about this song that worked so well on the chromatic? First of all, I

SPEAKER_03:

liked it. When I started playing it, I thought, well, it just fits nicely, you know?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. I just felt good about it. Yeah, great. And another set of songs on here, which there's a sort of set of dances. So there's a pixie dance and a Russian dance and a country dance. So what about these? The pixie

SPEAKER_03:

dance does a pianist called Bob Carter in Birmingham, who was a big friend of mine. When I started broadcasting, he said, oh, I'll write you a couple of little pieces. That's one of his pieces that he wrote for me. Not easy to play. And then he wrote another one with a girl's name, Julietta. There's one on there called No Limit. I bought that music from a shop. I think I've heard Tommy Riley play that.

SPEAKER_04:

You're kind of like sounding like a train at some point. So you've got like a train whistle going on.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. I just growl.

SPEAKER_04:

It's interesting because on the diatonic harmonica, certainly, as you know, a train imitation is like a huge part of playing the diatonic harmonica. So it's interesting to play it on the chromatic. And in fact, you know, you do get this on some blues chromatic, like All Aboard by Muddy Waters has this kind of train thing.

SPEAKER_03:

¶¶

SPEAKER_04:

And so there's a few compositions by Gordon Jacob on here. Were they specifically for the harmonica?

SPEAKER_03:

Gordon Jacob... a wonderful composer. He was inspired by Tommy Riley. He wrote this suite of five pieces for harmonica and piano. Since then, they were orchestrated and they were... But he wrote that specifically for Tommy Riley. And when that came out, that was in the 60s, I think, late 50s, 60s. I was very interested to get that and sort of made it part of my repertoire. Everybody likes the Russian dance because it's wild and lots of fast runs.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_04:

beautiful. Another song you've got on there is Harmonesque, which was written by carol blocks some but now now carol axford so she's a harmonica player yeah

SPEAKER_03:

she is a very good harmonica player and as a matter of fact i've just made contact with carol again because i sent her this cd when i made it i thought she's going to be surprised when she hears her name mentioned on it that piece it takes a bit of playing

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03:

a very, very fine player. She did become a member of the Ivy Benson all-girls band. This was a famous all-girls band. She joined it as a pianist and harmonica player and toured with them. Nice to make contact with her again.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, no doubt. I remember seeing Carol play years ago now. Yeah, she was a great player then, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Very good.

SPEAKER_04:

You've also got a couple of songs on this release which are played with a band. So you've got Stranger on the Shore, which is the Ackerbilt classic, which is played with a sort of Hammond organ and a full band.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_03:

That one, my very first television appearance, live television. I was working in a factory at the time, and this was a show called Lunchbox, presented by a lady called Noel Gordon. The band that played there was a Jerry Allen trio. Jerry Allen, a great jazz player on Hammond Organ. So my first attempt at playing jazz, I played Pick Yourself Up. Followed by the other one.

SPEAKER_04:

Must be pretty daunting playing live on television. What's that like? Well, funnily enough,

SPEAKER_03:

it never bothered me too much. Doing radio broadcasts was more difficult. Not with Harold, but I had to do How can I explain? Yeah, I was sort of approached by different producers with all sorts of music. One I remember, this producer phoned me up and said, I've got a piece here which is for harpsichord and harmonica. And it was very avant-garde. She says, I'll send you the music. If you'd like to play it, I'll give you a whole half-hour program of your own. You can play whatever you want, as long as you play this piece. So she sent me the music, and I looked at it, and I thought, oh, my God. It was horrendous to play. It was unpredictable, you know, wherever it went, and it was difficult. I kept it for about a week, and then she rang me up again and said, how are you getting on with that music? And I said, it's nothing. Not very easy. I said, it's not really playable. And she said, oh, what a shame. She said, well, you gave it to Larry Adler, and he said the same. He said it was impossible. So I said, right, I'm going to do it. And I did it.

SPEAKER_02:

MUSIC

SPEAKER_04:

Well, it's brilliant that you've unearthed these. And as you say, with your great nephew, you're still trying to get these old cassettes onto digital format and onto the computer. So how many more do you think you've got to unearth? I've

SPEAKER_03:

got a lot of stuff. We've just found, I worked in Israel a lot. I did a broadcast, a live broadcast one Sunday morning from a theatre in Israel. I have found that recording. It's in Hebrew and then translated into English, but I do a lot of playing on it. The playing has come out beautifully recorded. So that's another one that's

SPEAKER_04:

actually on tape now. Yeah, that'd be great. We'll have to get these down somewhere on the internet so people can listen to them. It'd be great to have them all.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I'll just keep going with this project.

SPEAKER_04:

Try and get the dates on as well if you can. That'd be really useful. As much as you can remember. I'm sure it's difficult to remember. So another one that you also sent through is you playing live at Stratford upon Avon in the second NHL National Harmonica League conference in the mid-80s. That's right. And that was with Harold Rich. And also with Richard Wright on guitar. You sort of split in two, yeah?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, Richard Wright came along. I played some Bach with him. And then a former pupil of mine happened to appear, Ivan Richards, who was a former world champion at the age of 18. I hadn't seen him for some time. And I'd got this music and he very bravely said, I said, let's do it, you know. And he said, okay, we'll have a go. And that's a Mozart flute duet, which is on there. So he was just completely sight-reading that, was he? Yeah, he knew it because we'd worked on that when he was a pupil, but I hadn't seen him in about two years, you know, and he appeared on that event. So what happened to Ivan, do you know? Ivan I'm very close to. He looks on me as a father figure, I think, because he was 11 when he first came to me for lessons. I'm now in touch with him again and we regularly telephone each other At least once a week.

SPEAKER_04:

Great. Are you still playing together, you two? No, we haven't done any of that. So this concert is all available on Roger Trowbridge's The Archivist site. So people can go and listen to the whole thing. I'll put a link onto that to the podcast page so people can hear the whole thing. So another song which is interesting to talk on there is the Serenade for Solo Harmonica, which is a Tommy Riley piece that he wrote and he used to compose as a completely solo chromatic harmonica piece. That's right. He wrote that for a test piece for the World Championships. So you perform this one in this concert, and that music's still widely available, is it? I mean, it's something that you think every chromatic player should learn?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I have copies of that music. It's a single sheet, and if anybody would like it, I will gladly send them a copy it was published by Hohner but I don't think it's available now I don't think they publish it anymore

SPEAKER_04:

what about that piece then and you know what Tommy Riley did with it is it something that obviously works really well in the chromatic harmonica

SPEAKER_03:

yeah I

SPEAKER_04:

mean

SPEAKER_03:

he opened our eyes do you want me to play you a little bit

SPEAKER_02:

yeah

SPEAKER_03:

But it goes on like that, and then you've got this bit in the middle, which goes... When that came in, they've got to

SPEAKER_04:

learn to play each side of the tongue. Yeah, there's a lot of double stops in the kind of chordal work on there, which is... I mean, you used to hear Larry Adler doing that a lot, but you don't really hear that so much on chromatics, do you? No,

SPEAKER_03:

no,

SPEAKER_04:

no.

SPEAKER_03:

Oddly enough, you know, talking about Adler, there was a bit on the... on the radio the other night all about Adler. Well, he was featured in this about film work, you know. He was an amazing player, Adler. I mean, everybody rated him, of course. His panache and the fervour in which he played was fantastic. And his sound was like a trumpet almost, belted it out. And then, well, he inspired me to start playing.

UNKNOWN:

PIANO PLAYS

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't meet him and became quite... In fact, we were in Israel together on one year. And then Tommy came along with his impeccable classical style.

SPEAKER_04:

Just a couple of more songs from this NHL concert with different styles. So you do one with Richard Wright on guitar, The Marcher, which is an Irish song. People play a lot of Irish music nowadays on the diatonic. So what about playing Irish music on the chromatic? Something, of course, which Brendan Power does play Irish music on the chromatic. But yeah, what about playing that Irish music on the chromatic?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it's not easy. Brendan Power is a wonderful player. I've got such a lot of admiration for him. But he does... make his harmonicas to suit a tune. He'll tune a harmonica just to play one tune so that it lies properly. But when you start playing this Irish stuff in the different keys, it's not easy.

SPEAKER_04:

Another thing you do, you know, quite a bit is play these kind of, you know, these jazz songs, which were all written jazz songs, right? So, for example, you do Star Eyes with Harold Rich on this concert.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_04:

What about that kind of written jazz

SPEAKER_03:

songs? Yeah, well, that is a standard. And it was a tune which I knew, but Haddle Rich suggested to play it. And so I had the music and then I knew the song and just learnt the arrangement. Yeah, that worked very well. The interesting stuff, I've sent you some stuff of Brenda Scott.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Quiet thoughts and quiet dreams Quiet So

SPEAKER_04:

you're playing with a singer on here, aren't you? So, I mean, what do you do to accompany a singer?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, you see, this is the beauty of Johnny Patrick. He wrote all the parts and he wrote... Every note that I played is written, but I could play it and make it sound like ad lib, because I could swing. I could always swing. People always said, oh, you have great fills, you do that. I said, yeah, but they weren't mine. I'm just reading them. But they were perfect. And if you listen to that, it sounds as if it's all ad lib, but every note was written.

SPEAKER_01:

I'll get my lovin' in the evening time When I'm with my baby What about

SPEAKER_04:

tips for people to develop their swing?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, you've either got it or you ain't, you know. It's getting this thing between a triplet and a dotted quaver.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC PLAYS

SPEAKER_03:

But this swinging and soft and loud coming to it, that's

SPEAKER_04:

playing in a swingy way. The 10-minute question is, I asked you last time, but I'll ask you this question again. If you advise 10 people to practice for 10 minutes on the chromatic, what would you advise they focus on?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, first of all, I would say practice slowly. The slower you play, it's like a magnifying glass being put onto... onto what you do and you're able to observe the way you move from one note to the next. Practice scales all the time. I can't stress this enough. Playing scales and arpeggios are so important. Practice in a very relaxed way. If you start to play intensely, as if you were doing a performance, you wear yourself out. I can play for hours and hours and feel absolutely fine at the end of it because I just practice very gently. So it made me say it there. I say I play very gently, just getting the notes in the right order. Be patient as well is my biggest advice. It's not going to happen overnight. The benefits of practice don't become manifest until... a long time afterwards. I've practiced in the old days and still not been able to do something. And I think, well, I've practiced this for hours and I still can't do it. But the next day I can do it. It sort of needs to settle in, you know. So which chromatic are you playing these days? I've got a few different makes of chromatic. I've got about 10 harmonicas here, and as I'm blind, they're spread all over the place, so that I can sit in any chair and reach out and find a harmonica. The one I love to play more than anything is the Suzuki, and that's what I was just playing now. Which of

SPEAKER_04:

the Suzuki's is that, do you know? Chromatics, is it? Okay, so one of the kind of standard chromatics, yeah, the one ending in I-X at the end, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I always played Hohner, the Hohner 270. I've got a Seidel, which keeps in tune remarkably well. Stainless steel reeds. And I've got my poly, you know,£6,000 job. I didn't buy, by the way. Great.

SPEAKER_04:

So are you still having them maintained by people for you, or are they all keeping in shape? Yeah. I've just found

SPEAKER_03:

this wonderful man called John Cook, who you must know. I do. And he does a remarkable job. Oh, God, I could have done with him years ago. So I send him three harmonicas at a time. So I've always got at least six harmonicas all tuned up and nice and ready to play. I'm never short of a good instrument.

SPEAKER_04:

Have you come across the MIDI chromatic, the DM-48? Well, it reminds me

SPEAKER_03:

of the Millionizer, developed by Walter, a Swiss guy. It was a fantastic device. He called it the Millionizer because he reckoned he'd spent at least a million pounds developing it.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03:

It was a 16-hole harmonica, but deep, you know, and it had all buttons on it. You could play any intervals together. You could impersonate any other instrument. It was just amazing. I remember seeing it demonstrated at Frankfurt at the trade fair there. It was just incredible. When I heard it, I thought I'd love one of those, but you've got to be more than just a harmonica player. You've got to know a little bit about sound and what have you. I'm not a technical man, you see. I'm just not technical.

SPEAKER_04:

But you're open to these sorts of advances in the harmonica. You're not thinking it has to be a harmonica. You're quite open to it, or you're the idea of MIDI.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's wonderful. But I think... The Suzuki says it all for me. It does it. It's beautiful. It's a nice feel. The mouthpiece is perfect. The sound is good. I would recommend that. Yeah,

SPEAKER_04:

and are

SPEAKER_03:

you playing 12 holes? I only play 12 holes, yeah. And I only play in the KFC. All keys, of course, but on the KFC. I can't play any other instrument. I remember trying to play one set in B flat, I think it was. Couldn't play it because the sound that was coming out was in the wrong position. I got the pitch of the sound relates exactly to where it is on the C harmonica. And I'm hooked on that. Even G, I can't play. A G harmonica.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, you saw use of the notes being where they are, which is a good thing in many ways, right? That's what pianos are like, right? So great. And so, I mean, are you planning on doing any more public performances or do you think that time's passed now?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I think it's gone, but I don't mind having a go at this. I'm going to approach Chris Collis and who I'm still closely attached to. We might do some charity work or fundraising stuff, you know. I would do that. I feel confident now to go out and play a concert by ear.

SPEAKER_04:

Are you not going to be able to make it to the Harmonica UK Festival in October? I don't think so this time, no. I mean, again, it's very inspiring to talk to you, Jim, that you've still got such a passion for the harmonica at age 93, almost 94. So it's tremendous. You know, what keeps you going in playing the harmonica?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, well, I guess music's my life, you know. And I think if I hadn't got music in my life, whatever form it happens to be harmonica, if I hadn't got that, I don't think I'd be around now. You know, it's the only thing that keeps me going. And being able to teach occasionally, Because that's the one thing I'm a bit sad about. I think all my life I've developed all these skills and got a massive amount of information. And when I go, that's going to go. Although I have left books behind and fortunately some recordings. Because I hate to think that that just all dies, you know.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, absolutely. It'll be great to get these recordings that you've made digitized, as you say, so that we can all enjoy them going for many years. Yeah, I'll keep going with that. yeah definitely yeah and of course you say you do have some material some books don't you that are available that people can can they still get hold of those

SPEAKER_03:

yes and I also have the entire collection of music by James Moody my son now looks after that I publish that and he now does it and that's for sale most of the stuff is sold abroad Japanese Malaya Chinese they love the giant smoothie music

SPEAKER_04:

and this of course is all written for the chromatic harmonica

SPEAKER_03:

yes it was he left it to me he gave it to me just before he died it was all unpublished handwritten and I proceeded at that point to copy it out by hand Massive job, but I was pretty good at copying. I did a bit for the Beeb, actually. I got it all done, and then along came this software on computer, and I thought, I've got to do that. So I got a Sibelius software and a computer, and I was learning how to work a computer and Sibelius at the same time. So it's one hell of a job. But that produced a really fine printed copy of music, but it took a long time. It's far quicker by hand

SPEAKER_04:

than So thanks so much again for joining me on the podcast, Jim Hughes. Thank you. Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. It was great to talk to Jim again, still as sharp as ever at age 93, and his chromatic playing is sounding great. Truly an inspiration to us all that we can keep learning and enjoying playing the harmonica for many years to come. Thanks to Roger Trowbridge for his help with the episode once again. Be sure to check out his harmonica archivist site, an essential source of material for any harmonica player. You can find the link on the podcast page. Also thanks to White Rock Lake Real Estate for another donation to the podcast. Sorry, I don't know your actual name. I'll leave you now with Jim playing us out with another recording from his BBC sessions, Angel Eyes.

UNKNOWN:

Angel Eyes