Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast
The podcast is sponsored by Seydel harmonicas. Check out their great range of products at www.seydel1847.com.
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Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast
Jim Zeller interview
Jim Zeller joins me on episode 121.
Jim is from Montreal, Canada, and first starting playing harmonica at age twelve after stealing one from a school friend. He ran away from home at age fifteen and learnt harmonica as he hitch-hiked around North America.
Jim has a very distinctive energetic style of playing on both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica. He developed this style by emulating guitar riffs and the percussive elements of Indian music.
He has played with and supported some famous blues names, appeared in a Bob Dylan movie and has had a stellar career in the Canadian blues scene, being nominated for Maple Blues awards and appearing at the Montreal Jazz Festival over thirty times.
Links:
Jim's website:
https://jimzeller.wixsite.com/jimzeller
Yonberg harmonicas:
https://www.yonberg-harmonica.com/en
Videos:
Fright Train:
https://youtu.be/ITftta0SXRY?si=pjJyN2ChsFPCCsds
The Man With The Harmonica:
https://youtu.be/fcHhRSIMSzU?si=MJJuVgbA3Dsc6Ode
Playing The Godfather live at the Montreal Jazz Festival:
https://youtu.be/ajypG_32ij8
Wild Life:
https://youtu.be/7Dr2J2CNbak?si=e38mCvAppGPqsItp
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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Blue Moon Harmonicas: https://bluemoonharmonicas.com
Jim Zeller joins me on episode 121. Jim is from Montreal, Canada, and first started playing harmonica at age 12 after stealing one from a school friend. He ran away from home at age 15 and learned harmonica as he hitchhiked around North America. Jim has a very distinctive, energetic style of playing on both the diatonic and chromatic harmonica. He developed this style by emulating guitar riffs and the percussive elements of Indian music. He has played with and supported some famous blues names, appeared in a Bob Dylan movie, and has had a stellar career in the Canadian blues scene, being nominated for Maple Blues Awards and appearing at the Montreal Jazz Festival over 30 times. This podcast is sponsored by Zeidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.zeidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zeidel Harmonicas.
UNKNOWN:Bye.
SPEAKER_02:Well, actually,
SPEAKER_03:I speak English a bit better than French. I usually make a joke when I'm playing. Even if I sing a lot in English, I always play harmonica in French.
SPEAKER_02:Very good. So I believe he started playing harmonica at the age of 12. There's a legendary
SPEAKER_03:story. I was singing in little bands in Sherbrooke, Quebec, not far from here. And I was going to school. I went to this kid's friend at school's house for lunch, you know. And when I went up to his room, there was a bunch of harmonicas. And we were listening to albums. And as my friend went downstairs, I put one of the harmonicas in my pocket. And then eventually that's, the rest is history. But what is funny is this particular person that I hadn't seen in like 40 years, my son, I got him down through the internet and through Facebook. He got back in touch with me. He says, I've been following your career, Jim, for so long. He says, well, I have news for you. I gave you that harmonica. You didn't steal it. I said, well, it's much better that we keep the sexier story that I stole my first harmonica. But getting to answer the question, I started using it. I started practicing and playing it. In those days, you wanted to learn the riffs, but this was like put the needle on the record and take it off and put it back on, finally learn the riff, you know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so it's a great blues story that you stole your first harmonica. And I think similarly as well, I believe you ran away at age 15 from home in a similar sort of blues vein.
SPEAKER_03:Basically, you know, it was kind of a troubled atmosphere at my house. My father was a heavy drinker, so it was kind of a violent situation. I had to get away. I had two brothers that were older than me, and I took off with a neighbor. We headed off to Lake Erie in the Great Lakes. The idea was to go there and pick tobacco, make money. Eventually, it was a runaway story. I just kept going. I kept going. I kept going for about maybe a year and a half. I learned to play music because I was sort of a gypsy spirit. The best credit card you can find... And when you're just making your way into the world, there's a harmonica, it was like a credit card, you know. If you could play good, you would draw positive things. So it sort of became that. I traveled all over, hitchhiking though. In those days, hitchhiking was a common thing. It was the hippie days, you know. I went all the way down to... I eventually hitchhiked my way all across Canada, and I got to Vancouver, and then at one point I tried to cross into the United States, it's Seattle, go through the woods. I ended up in Seattle, I ran into this gang, it was sort of a hippie gang, and they had a little circus, and the circus, and one of the guys in the gang, a blues guy, he had a dobro and he played harmonica, so he started showing me riffs and stuff like that. I already knew how to play, But it was like a sort of a shortcut, you know. By running into this guy, he was really a great player. So he taught me a lot of things. It was going very well until I was hitchhiking to go back to the bus where I was staying, you know, squatting, basically. Got arrested by the police, and they deported me out of Seattle and sent me back to Canada. So I tried to get back in. It was difficult because it was sort of very police-stated. Washington State, which is Seattle West Coast. I decided instead of trying to get to my friends in Seattle, I decided to hitchhike up to Alaska. Whatever. I was hitchhiking. So I'd be hitchhiking on the highway, and at one point, I would be hitchhiking on both sides of the road. I didn't care whether I'd go north or south. I just wanted to get a ride because it was starting to get cold. So basically, this was the adventure that was beginning. It was wide open because it was a time where the youth, it was hippie days. There was peace and love, and it was calm and There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids hitchhiking all over the place. I don't think we went all the way up to Alaska. I remember being in Whitehorse, Yukon, on the side of the Yukon River. I remember clearly it was like in September. And I was sitting on the side of the river with these Indians. I was staying in an old abandoned steamboat from the Gold Rush days. but it was an abandoned riverboat on the way up, and I remember it started snowing, it was September, and I was staying with these Indians, you know, because they were all squatting there, basically, and I had a little transistor radio. The gang that were there, there was a transistor radio, there was no TV, there was nothing, we had nothing, you know. And basically, I heard in the transistor radio, it was like coming in and out, and the great American guitar players, Jimi Hendrix was found dead, so I remember that moment I said, Jimi Hendrix died and I'm sitting by the river. So I stayed there, it was quite an adventure. I started writing a book recently, so it's coming along. It's funny when you talk about stuff like that, what happens is it sort of branches out, it's like a tree, all of a sudden you start seeing, you start drawing in all kinds of things. Chronologically, I'm sort of, I can follow myself, knowing what basically happened to a certain extent. But being 70 years old, which I just turned on August 7th, means that there's a lot of mileage. And the journey goes on. Anyway, that's
SPEAKER_02:it. You mentioned Jimi Hendrix there, and so something that you said is that you wanted to be the Jimi Hendrix of the harmonica. Yes. Was that before you found out he died, or was it that moment by the Yukon River?
SPEAKER_03:No, I think it basically was just the way that I was using it. This was after, I believe. But when I came back and I started playing in bands and I was playing electric, I remember I had my first effects, the pedals and so on. I remember I was playing, at the time I was playing, I was using a Sun amplifier. a guitar head. And the first effects that I had was called an Echoplex. And an Echoplex is a tape echo, which eventually they made into space echo, which I used over the years. I still use delay like that. But all of these effects When I joined bands, I started trying, I was basically, there was always bands that were guitar trios in general, and I would be added to that as a singer. But as a side band, before I started to being a frontman singer. So as a harmonica player, I was always playing guitar-oriented and to become the second guitar player. Things like Hey Joe, a lot of the Yardbirds songs, playing basically so much with trios with guitar players, I was basically developing myself as a guitar player on the harmonica. So I was playing lots of guitar and using the echo and using different effects I would be able to put the harmonica into the band instead of it just being like riffs and leads.
UNKNOWN:It became a part of the band. I would play rhythm.
SPEAKER_03:Basically, I was trying to develop a way to be like the second guitar player in a guitar trio. Using effects, it hadn't really been done and exploited a lot at that point. My first roots, of course, were like Sonny Williamson, Little Walter, of course, which was the one of the first guys, James Cotton, the blues guys. Eventually had a good fortune of playing with a lot of them, you know. doing tours and so on, with Muddy Waters, touring with Willie Dixon. One of my friends, who was sort of a mentor to me, who sort of took me under his wing, was a great guy, terrific harmonica player, Gary Bell. He played with Muddy Waters, but he was with Willie Dickson. So I'm sure that in the sense of wanting to become the Jimi Hendrix of the harmonica, to a certain extent I have become that in the sense that I use the effects and electrifying the harmonica in a sense, in a way that I hadn't really heard. The reason I was trying to develop it was so that I could integrate my harmonica into a band situation, a power trio, where I would add the harmonica and it wouldn't sound like, I just wouldn't wait and do riffs. I could play parts. And that basically sort of also evolved into using ideas like horn section type parts, you know. So it was a developing, but obviously the thing was the music that inspired me at the time, just because of my age, was those pioneers, those icons. We're going back to the Led Zeppelin, we're going back to Cream. The Cream was a big influence. Jimi Hendrix was a big influence. as well so obviously by learning all those riffs and playing with guitar playing like guitar trios as bands I started singing I'd always been singing for a long time but I hadn't really got to the point where I was a lead singer I started developing that much later I'd say at the same time I was still singing all the time when I had the responsibility to put my own act together where I needed to be the front man as a singer, as the harmonica added to it. But there was a period of time where I had to The luxury of just being the harmonica player in the band, which I haven't had in, I say, 50 years, I haven't been just the harmonica player. Once in a while, somebody asks me to come and sit in with them and play with them, and I do it. do a couple of gigs, but of course I get on stage and then all of a sudden I can't hold back. I've got to be the tenor of it. That's just the way it is. But as far as development, for sure the guitar, the Jimi Hendrix guitar sound and a lot of the electric guitar is a great influence in what I do and the sound that I do. You can hear it a lot on albums if you listen to my albums. Yeah, you've
SPEAKER_02:got a very unique approach to the harmonica. The genres are quite varied, but sort of what you've described mostly as is kind of rock blues and, you know, that hard driving, very energetic style you have.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, for sure. I would say also there was a, I realized there was been around 1977, I guess around that time, I'd been playing with a keyboard player, a multi-instrumentalist named Alan Gerber. He was in a group, an American group. They were one of the first super groups. They were called Rhinoceros. And he was a partner. We became a partner. So we put together a duo. Then he played piano, he played guitar, great singer. We were doing duos like that at the time. But at one point, he was living in New York and in Montreal. I met him in Montreal, but we had a loft in Manhattan. So I moved to New York around 77. And when I got to New York, it was a time where the beginning of the whole boxing certainly influenced. And it's very intriguing because I'll listen to recordings that have been released. And let's say things that I've played on studio sessions over the years. I listened the other day, somebody sent me a track from an album I played on as an overdub harmonica guest on an album. Like, for example, Frank Marino from Mahogany Rush. I listened to some of the songs at the studio sessions that I was doing as a harmonica, invited harmonica guest. Some of the stuff that I was doing back in, all the way back to 76, 77, 78, I listened to it and I say, I would probably have done the same, almost the same, if they would have called me to do that session today, I would have played almost the same thing. And it was sort of a phenomenon at the time because it was this wild kid, you know. Nobody really played harmonica like that. So I found a way, I tried to cheat things, basically. What I was trying to do is I was trying to give myself a way to be not just like a typical cliche blues harmonica riffs here and there. I wanted to be in the band, to sort of innovate, reinvent the instrument to a certain extent.
SPEAKER_02:You mentioned that you were touring with Alan Gerber's part with Duo, and during this time it appeared in a Bob Dylan movie,
SPEAKER_03:yeah? Okay, that was an interesting thing. We were performing, I think, in Quebec City. We were playing in clubs, you know. It was a wild time, you know. It was very original. We did big concerts because we became quite popular. suddenly, and we had a big following. So we were playing in this club. It was like, oh, we finished the show, and the club was in the basement of a hotel in downtown Quebec City. And the first city, actually, that ever existed in North America was Quebec City. Just a little historical tidbit. And so, Quebec City, we were playing, and we finished the show, and we had a few Jack Daniels. We went up to the room. There's a knock on the door. It was about maybe at 2 o'clock, and a knock on the hotel room door. Jim, Jim. Jim Allen. Bob Dylan, ATC.
UNKNOWN:Jim.
SPEAKER_03:He says, you've got to come down, Bob Dylan and his gang, because they want you to play tomorrow night in the Coliseum. The Coliseum is like the arena. So we went down. We went on stage. We played another set. And I remember who was sitting. It was Bob Dylan was there. It was Joni Mitchell, Nick Ronson. I used to see him in New York when I moved to New York after that. we played one original song in French that we'd written, did a couple of songs in the concert. Of course it was filmed, the movie came out, Rinaldo and Clara, and they used some of the footage of our performance too. It was quite a night actually because After our show, it was sort of like in those days where nobody was wearing a watch. There was no time limit. You just go out. If it's four in the morning, it doesn't matter. Let's keep going. So we ended up at the Chateau Frontenac, which is this big hotel in Quebec City. And I remember sitting at the piano. sitting side by side at the piano, the grand piano in the lobby of the hotel, playing songs with Joni Mitchell, who I eventually saw many years later. But it was very exciting, it was lots of fun, and it was great. Actually, somebody sent me, he had a ticket from the show. Like somebody on the internet the other day, somebody on Facebook, he sent a picture of the Rolling Thunder review, and it happened to be in 1976. That means I was 22 years old. I made jokes to my friends. I said, I should have quit then.
SPEAKER_02:yeah he did some amazing stuff through the 70s as you say you know you you got some tips from carrie bell you played with willie dixon and muddy waters and and um some bb king as well so so let's talk about um getting into your album so i've got down here your first album came out at least in your name cards on the table in 1979 so
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's actually the first album that was in my name. Actually, what happened with that album is interesting because at the time I was performing with Alan Gerber, we were in New York. We were working with a producer who wanted to produce an album with us in New York. And his name was Giorgio Gomelsky. And Giorgio Gomelsky was the first manager of the Rolling Stones. And he also produced the Yardbirds. He produced this crazy Russian guy. He got us a deal somehow. He saw us play somewhere. And he got us a deal to do demos for a company called Capricorn Records, which is the same company that had the Allman Brothers. They're out of Georgia. And so we went into the, I think it was the Power Station studio in New York, and we did some demos at that time. Gerberzella, and we recorded a bunch of songs with session guys in New York. And the idea was to get us a record deal and get us on the road. What happened is the demo, he presented it, and this guy, Giorgio Ganofsky, he was very, very highly reputed producer, manager guy.
UNKNOWN:He goes way back in England, all the way back to the days of the Yardbirds.
SPEAKER_03:Even is the one who produced some of the first albums by Sonny Boy Williamson when he went to England. And basically, he's a monument. But anyway, somehow, he had a whole scene happening in New York. At the time, there was a punk scene. But this was more like a universe and more avant-garde gift was the... So a lot of the young musicians that came all over the United States were hanging out and we were doing like sort of, you know, very progressive, but blues oriented. And at that time we did these demos and we were going to have a, we were trying to get a deal with Capricorn Records. I remember even having a meeting with Chas Chandler, who was with the Animals, of course. It happened, funny that it goes around to that, but he also had the Somehow they claimed that he was the one who got Jimi Hendrix his deal in England originally, but he was the bass player of the Animals, Chaz Chandler, who had a record company with another company in New York. Anyway, somehow we did the demos, and we tried to make a deal, and we were going to try to set up a deal, but Alan Gerber didn't want to give away the publishing. And somehow it made a big conflict, and the deal fell apart. So what I did, basically, because I was sort of let down by the situation, so I came back to Quebec. And when I came back to Quebec, there was a management company up here who wanted to do an album with me anyway. It became Jim Zeller. And that album in 1979 came from when we had been writing those days together. We'd been together maybe about seven, eight years.
UNKNOWN:¶¶
SPEAKER_03:But that album was fun because of that. I'd always been surrounded by, I was always been this sort of like featured guy in the picture, you know, this little chord gesture within, in different scenes with the different bands and the artists. So I always had partners, but in this case, the partner in Long Long was there.
UNKNOWN:And all of a sudden, the record company wanted to sign me up anyway.
SPEAKER_03:So I went in the studio and we recorded that album. The exclusive lead singer. Because I'd been singing a lot with Gerber. It was like a duo. And these were songs that I'd been writing and doing with this guy Gerber at the time. And all of a sudden it was my own album. Which I had a lot of support anyway because I was very well known in Montreal. I had a good name. But I was a young kid still, you know. When you figure I was 25 years old. So 25 years old. You're willing to go and go for it. It's time to go for it.
SPEAKER_01:What's happening, y'all? Jason Ritchie from Blue Moon Harmonicas. And I'm here to tell you that Blue Moon Harmonicas are the way. You can customize them yourself or you can get Tom to do them. The website is a rabbit hole. We're talking about custom combs, custom cover plates, throwbacks, refurbished pre-wars, double re-plates, anything you can imagine, aluminum, ABS, plastic, phenolic resin, wood, any kind of comb you want, any kind of Covered Tom Halcheck's Your Man, He's Got You.
SPEAKER_02:An album you did in, I think, 1995, Fire to the Wire, features the Godfather movie thing, which has, I think, become quite an anthem for you. You play at the Montreal Jazz Festival, which you've appeared at, I think, 32 times. This song, you play it on the chromatic harmonica. So how did you pick up playing the Godfather movie thing, which just works so amazingly well in how you play it?
SPEAKER_03:Basically, I started playing chromatic harmonica from when I was... I remember when I was really young. I was maybe about 16, 15. And I was watching television. And I was watching television, French television. This is going back. We're going back, I figure, it was the late 60s, you know. And there was this harmonica player on one of these talk shows, and he was playing chromatic harmonica. I'd been playing blues harp for quite some time. But as I'm watching this show, I saw this guy, his name was Larry Adler. Larry Adler was on this talk show because he was living in England, but he came on the talk show. I think he was playing with the Symphony of Montreal. And I started watching him and I said, so basically I called, I think I was about 14 or 15 years old, and I called the radio, the TV show, the TV station, and somehow I got his address in England, Larry Adler. And basically I sent him a reel-to-reel tape I'd made of harmonica playing that I'd played at little jams with acoustic guitar and playing harmonica, and sent him, because I wanted him to hear what I was playing, and he wrote back to me. He actually wrote back, received my letter, wrote back, he says, yes, I've listened to the tape, and I said to myself at that point, if I wanted to be a harmonica player, I had to learn how to play the chromatic as well. Because I couldn't be a harmonica player complete if I didn't play chromatic harmonica. But chromatic harmonica is another instrument, it's another universe. I'm still to the point where, I've gotten to the point where I've really become, I sort of combined the two at first. Because chromatic, you don't do bending, you do, it's a completely different game. But it's a different game, but it requires work and practice and practice and practice. Over the last few years, I've really developed my chromatic playing a lot, especially during the time of the COVID because I had plenty of time. So I studied and I practiced. I even learned the Rhapsody in Blue completely. But Larry Adler himself wrote me a letter as a young kid. I listened to your tape, it was really great, however, and then he gave me all kinds of suggestions and advice, you know. What to listen to, what to, and he gave me suggestions of classical music to listen. So the chromatic harmonica, I'm using it a lot when I was playing with Gerber as well. And I had a 16-hole that I used because the low octave, I can play cello parts. A lot of the songs that we were writing in those days were on piano. So I would be playing accompaniment, but on chromatic, playing like a cello accompaniment, chamber orchestra type of accompaniment that I was creating and coming up with the style. So when I got to the point of playing in my shows, I started playing the Godfather theme because chromatic harmonica does that. If you know anything about harmonica, the thing is that when you start playing chromatic, you want to play every song, every melody that you hear, you know you can go and find it if you take the time. And if the inspiration of the melody brings you to it, you will take the time. And as you develop and you start to create and realize that you're capable of playing any melody that exists, which is different than on a diatonic harmonica where you have to find sort of cheap things, you know. You can still do it. There's a lot of things you can do with it. But in the old days, when it was just a basic diatonic harmonica, you had to do sort of basically... different positions open the whole universe of melody to you so because of that i would find songs that were i was using the chromatic more and more in my shows and i was i was using it and in the case of the godfather it just seemed to be a a theme that was uh that was a great theme and i played in shows and everybody it was great song it's very dynamic and then But on the most recent album that I've done, which was in 2019, you can look up the man with the harmonica. I did a version of that as well, which is Ennio Morricone. found different ones that I would use. Playing chromatic harmonica takes you to a different place. However, when you put chromatic harmonica and you put it into a rock and roll band situation, you have to find a way to drive it because it's not the same as comping on a diatonic harmonica where you can play chords, you can drive, you can bend, you're basically doing guitar bending riffs and so on. But chromatic harmonica is very, it's It's a delicate thing, but I found a way to play it. Because I guess somehow over the years I realized it was because I was able to Because I was so proficient at blues harmonica and diatonic harmonica when I applied it to chromatic harmonica using the same technique of power like the drive that I would have and I would find ways to play it loud enough to cut above the band and at the same time it wouldn't sound as linear as you would imagine it but I would still have I wouldn't bend it my first technique was diatonic harmonica but when I went to chromatic there's a great part of the diatonic harmonica blues harp playing in the style of the way that I play the chromatic, which chromatic, I mean, spoke about Carrie Bell. And this is like, he was always using octaves, and he would always play, basically, on a chromatic harmonica. A lot of the blues guys, you know, if you even go to guys like Charlie Musselwhite, who do play chromatic, but they play chromatic, but they stick to their secure, diatonic game, which is basically, they do most of the things in D minor. So by playing in D minor, you can do what you would do in a normal blues, the same type of figures that you're playing on a diatonic blues harp. Cary Bell, that was his thing, you know. So he showed me how to use it, and he was really proficient. The real chromatic harmonica players, my three favorite ones actually are, number one, Larry Adler, the first one who actually was kicked out of the United States in the, The communist situation with, he was a friend of George Gershwin and a friend of Charlie Chaplin. And they kicked him out of the States. So he ended up doing his career in Great Britain. So he was one of the great harmonica players, chromatic harmonica players. There was also the Belgian harmonica player, a fantastic, legendary harmonica player named Toots Spielmans.
UNKNOWN:He's a chromatic specialist as well. He played with Stéphane Grappelli. He was... He's a phenomenal harmonica player.
SPEAKER_03:And I would say that another great chromatic harmonica player is Stevie Wonder.
SPEAKER_02:So let's talk about your diatonic playing. You talked a lot about chromatic there, but your diatonic also brought some very fast... complex runs, quite, you know, lots of repetition in there to build up the energy and the dynamisms. You know, how did you develop your diatonic style?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's funny because I remember when I was about I remember I came back when I went on my journey as a hippie back in like, you know, about a year and a half I was gone. When I came back, when I first, I went back to school for one year living in the country somewhere with my grandmother. And at the same time, when I came back, I started, I moved to Montreal and I got an apartment and I was getting my act together. I guess in the early days, when I started with Gerber, I'd say maybe around 75, 76, and I used to put on albums of Indian music, and I used to play with them. I used to put them on, I used to put them on and just play, and play. And I would make basically tape loops with my Echoplex, but I was practicing all the time with Indian music. I was learning to play very percussive, you know. So speed became developed where I was learning to develop into the harmonica became, I played very percussive. So even when I'm playing in dual situations, playing with bands, I'm always playing the snare, you know, it's like a part of it. So the energy of percussiveness, spending hours and hours jamming along with reggae music, the Indian music, learning the rhythms and just playing. And it wouldn't be something conscious. It was very much percussive. It was very much the percussiveness. At the same time, I found that harmonica is an instrument of hyperventilation. It's the only instrument you do breathing in. So basically, you know, you're playing... I have students that I teach sometimes, and I teach them to use the diaphragm to always leave a reserve of air. It's funny, when I teach harmonica players, I've had students for a while, but I teach them, I said, you have to think of breathing backwards. When you're playing diatonic harmonica and blues harmonica, most of your work is breathing in. So when you breathe in, so when you're breathing in, you have to realize that when you're breathing and you're developing and you're always getting your reference point melodically and structurally, musically, the reference point is as you inhale. So when you're playing, you're not using what the normal apparatus of breathing is, where you blow out and then you breathe in. So you're always breathing in to catch your breath. In this case, it's the opposite when you play the harmonica. You use firing, blowing out, is to basically empty your lungs so that you can breathe in again. Another development is also that at one point, I realized when I started playing that... Most harmonica players would play up to the sixth hole. And they would go to the sixth hole because the thing is that diatonic one, two, three, four, five, six hits blow out and breathe in two notes higher. But when you get to seven, eight, nine, ten, it's the opposite. Most used, basically, the first six holes. But there were certain guys... point, like Howard Levy, who came along and they developed the overblow, which I never really got into the overblow because I admire it and I'm fascinated by it. But at the same time, because I played chromatic, I sort of could do all of that on chromatic. However, what I developed myself is that I use all 10 holes in my runs, where usually you would go up and you get up to the 9th or the 6th hole, you know. what to do on top of that because things go upside down you're not moves they're making is the opposite way now but somehow just by driving through and keep going and keep going found the ways that I could find I knew where I was exactly even as I got from 7, 8, 9, 10 so I knew where I was and I knew how to come back down and bend around and I was extending the scale with 4 more holes basically I was adding Eight notes to the vocabulary, so to speak.
SPEAKER_02:Touching on that, you're saying that you've done teaching there. 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing? If I had 10 minutes to
SPEAKER_03:practice, in many cases over the last, I would say over the last couple of few years, my practice is mostly on chromatic and working on different songs, melodies. and my practice is pretty much focused on mastery of the chromatic because it's so vast. However, as far as if I was to practice on diatonic, I would always be doing, because I use a lot of different, like for example, the other night I was playing at a club, I think it was Saturday night I was playing, and the club owner comes up to me, and I'm with my band, Okay, Jim, I really want, I have one thing to ask you, man. You're the greatest, da-da-da. But can you make them dance, you know? Because it's all young kids, okay? So I start playing, and I start playing. I said, okay. I look at my band members, you know, my bass player, and we start playing. We're playing Billie Jean, but I'm playing the theme on the blues harp, you know? So lots of things like that. I guess practice is more a question of choosing songs and choosing type of riffs. But as far as diatonic, the practice is mainly I jump on stage and I just drive it. But if there's a specific song that I want to master and find a way to play that melody and fit it in and put it into the context of the structure and the arrangement of the song, that would be a practice thing. As far as using practice, I would practice mostly on chromatic. Basically, I would take a song and I would try to break it down and practice it to the point where I could play it freely, dig in and really play it. Like a jet pack would play a theme and the theme would be, you make it your own, but you have to, as they say, when you grok, it means that you learn it to the point where you become what you're learning. So I guess that's what practicing I would focus on.
SPEAKER_02:Great. So, yeah, we're just getting to our session now. So first of all, what harmonicas do you like to play?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, basically the chromatic that I use is, I use two. I have a 12-ball Suzuki Chromatics, which I like. And I also have the same, but it's a C, the name of it is the GSX-48. They have also the CSX Chromatics Suzuki, and they make a 64 as well, which is four octaves. I find they're expensive, but... They give me what I need. I used to use a Horner a lot, but the model that I used to use years ago was black. But I find that I don't make them anymore anyway. So I find for what I use now, it's Chromatics by Suzuki. As far as blues harmonicas go, the ones that I use, because being on the road a lot and being a gladiator of the road, obviously... What is very interesting is the other day, maybe three, four years ago, I received a message from a company in France that's called Yonberg. And they basically, I'm sponsored by them. It's a company called Janberg, and they're very different because they make, the shape of the harmonicas are angled. The thing about them is that you take apart the casings, and if you want to switch the reed plates, you don't have to unscrew them. There's little switch, you just slide this thing over, and you pop out the reed plate. They're made with titanium. And they're cool. But I find that they give me harmonicas because they use my name as a... I don't know what you call it. I guess it's a spokesman for the company. So I use them, but I find that... that as far as they're a little bit, and they sell them very expensive in Europe. They're like 100 euro. They sell them. So I told them, I said, if you want to sell your harmonicas at that price, I said, I like your harmonicas, but they're too fragile. So I find for the price, and I find since quite a few years, I find that the Suzuki Bluesmaster is really fine. A cheap version of the Special 20. But I find they do the job, and for the price, they're real good, you know. Over the years, you find that if you know how to play, you drive because of me, I play like a machine gun. So I have to be very fast and efficient. always battling with the instruments of the instrument itself however I find that these harmonicas for the price do the job and they'll get me they'll get me a lot of gigs. I'd say a brand like A's. When you're playing guitar in a band, you're playing a lot of A's, you're playing a lot of D's, a lot of D harmonicas. You're playing G harmonicas, you're playing Fs. These are the keys that are pretty much guitar-oriented keys. I play many different positions. I usually play standard position, you know, D, B, you play on an A harp, and I'll also play, I can play on a C, I can play on a D, I can play on an E, I can play, I can play like five different positions pretty much. Sometimes when I'm in this, you know, I can explore it. But for basically meat and potatoes, blues masters, they do the job, I find it.
SPEAKER_02:What about your embouchure? Do you, like, your pucker, tone blocker, anything else? Oh, yeah, yeah,
SPEAKER_03:I do all of the different techniques, but obviously I do lots and lots of the office. When I'm using comping, like, it's a lot of... This gives you the percussion, the attack. It's like a pick, you know. But also, when you're doing comping on a blues harmonica and you want to sort of cheat it, and you want it to still sound like especially when you use a lot, let's say you're playing in minor keys on a major diatonic, you're always going to tongue block, which is going to cheat, and it'll give you the texture of the chording, but the notes that don't fit, that clash with the minor. What's funny is because when I play sometimes with the horn players, sax player, and I'll jump in, and I was playing a I run this jam in Quebec City last night, I was playing, and there's a sax player, so I'm always thinking in terms of when I'm playing accompaniment. When you play with a sax player, one horn, for example, what is unique, even if you listen to, if you listen to the album, it's called Jim Zeller Circus, and listen to the song, it's called Bad Girl. And Bad Girl packs a phone on it. But the horn section part that we wrote, I wrote on harmonica.
SPEAKER_04:He's done such a bad boy after all He's done such a
SPEAKER_01:Take a look at the bad guy
SPEAKER_03:And the funny thing about harmonica, diatonic harmonica, by using the tongue blocking, you give the illusion of a brass section with a harmonica and a saxophone. I guess we can go back to a friend of mine whose name is Lee Oscar, who sort of developed that when he was playing with the group War. But when you play octaves, the two notes sound, so it makes the saxophone and the two-note octave make it sound like there's three being played. But there's only two. It's a harmonica and a sax. So this is very unique. I found that it was developed by Lee Oscar. So tongue blocking is used a lot like that.
SPEAKER_02:Talking about the equipment you're using, what about your amplifiers and microphones of choice?
SPEAKER_03:Well, recently what I did, a friend of mine a couple of years ago gave me a wireless microphone, a Sennheiser wireless mic, top of the line digital wireless mic. So basically, when I set up, I run my wireless microphone, I run that into my pedal board, which I use a Behringer, it's a multiple distortion, so I can switch amplifiers, it can be a Marshall, whatever. And it's basically, I'll run into my pedal board from the output of the receiver of the wireless, and then I run into distortion, then out of the distortion I go through a chorus, and then out of the chorus I use an octaver. And then out of that, pedal board, I run that through my Roland Space Echo. But the Roland Space Echo that I have is the copy of the original Roland that I used to use with tape. Because when you go on the road, you don't want to take that. It's too delicate. It breaks down. And they did make a good copy. It's a Roland. It's a Boss, actually. Boss made a copy of the Roland Space Echo 201. So basically, that's the last in the line of the pedal of the line. I basically run my wireless receiver wire into my three pedals, which is distortion, chorus, and octave. Octaver out of that into the Space Echo, and then the Space Echo goes to the board. I don't use amplifiers. I can use them when I'm in the studio, but when I'm on the road, I just run straight into the PA system. And basically, the microphone that I have, I sing in as well. So I do everything in one mic. So basically, sometimes if I'm doing festivals and there's already a wireless mic in a big venue, take advantage of it, I'll be able to do both. But when I'm just playing pretty much, I do everything in one line. It simplifies everything. I don't break it down. I do have boost. with all the different toys that you can use, like the green bullets and so on, and this and that. I've been, years and years I've used that, but the thing is that it brings you always to the same place. And since I'm multitasking so much when I perform, singing, switching, and also I want that nice clean sound. I'm doing overdubs in the studio I'll run through my rig basically my pedal board and I'll run or I'll go through an app but the microphone of choice for studio sure SM57 is the You use that music on a snare and in front of the speaker of an amplifier. But the 57, when you play it, drive it with a harmonica, it gives you the bite that you want. But when you're on the road, in my case, I sing, I do the whole routine. So you have to have a versatility and not be sort of... So
SPEAKER_02:thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you very much, Jim. Great to speak to you. Thanks a lot. Lots of fun and have a good night.
SPEAKER_03:All right.
SPEAKER_00:Once again, thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast. Be sure to check out the great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks to Jim for joining me today. Apologies for the audio quality of this episode. The interview had to be done over the phone and the recording that came out was disappointing. I tried my utmost to improve the quality as much as I could. Nevertheless, I'm sure you'll agree that Jim has some great stories to tell from his life with the harmonica and his unique approach to playing. Watch out for his book coming out soon. Also thanks to Philip Jackson for the donation to the podcast. Remember to check out the Spotify playlist linked in the podcast notes where you can find most of the full tracks from the clips used in the episode. I'll sign off now with a track from the Zelly Live album, really capturing Jim's innovative and unrestrained use of the harmonica. This one is L'Egoe et B'ni.
UNKNOWN:L'Egoe et B'ni