Howard Levy with a Polyphonia and a bass.

[beads]

[Grizzly]

1930s cartoon music from Warner Brothers. 

No, seriously, the lack of precision especially on suck harp is either a bug or a feature.

Tom

[Gnarly He Man]

Fascinating.
Howard is having fun, perhaps it is not quite as contagious as he intended.

[Gnarly He Man]

1930s cartoon music from Warner Brothers. 

No, seriously, the lack of precision especially on suck harp is either a bug or a feature.

Tom

Grumpy Santa

[beads]

Fascinating.
Howard is having fun, perhaps it is not quite as contagious as he intended.

There are more videos of this same concert. More serious jazz. Howard playing harmonica and piano. More horn music.
I'm not a jazz person, but I did find it interesting enough that I listened to all of it.
https://www.youtube.com/user/cnord68/videos
I shared that particular video because of the polyphonia and bass. I recall some here were interested in those.
Tom has just a few weeks to get jolly!

[Grizzly]

Ho ho ho

Santa Tom

[Scotty]

While some can't get past the unmelodic quality of what Howard does on a diatonic, I agree that he is a brilliant musician - and
I personally prefer his piano playing. I do have to say there IS at least one diatonic player who can make those OB's as seam-less as humanly possible. While I don't like her at all as a person (we had issues when some of us chipped in to help pay to bring her to SPAH), I need to give credit where it's due to Christelle Berthon who plays/played (I don't keep up with her) - extremely melodic music on diatonics using OB's and garnering quite a following in  the process. She even wangled an on-stage appearance with Melody Gardot in France after sending her a video of one of Melody's very first songs, played beautifully on diatonic.

She owns custom harps and while I'm unsure if she works on them, she probably has others in France (and elsewhere) do so
for her.

scotty

[Gnarly He Man]

Poor Howard, so misunderstood.
Brilliant musician, brave adventurer into the sonic jungle.
Evidently the awkward artifacts of the overblow don’t bother him.
Let’s be fair—this forum is (truly) for chromatic harmonica players. But Howard could play chrom if he wanted to.
I am glad he shares his talent with the world. And thanks for sharing this clip!

[Scotty]

I don't think Howard is 'misunderstood' Gary. He plays how he plays and has avid fans and followers. What's to misunderstand?
I filmed him at a Convention when he came into a small room and gave an impromptu lesson to two young guys - one actually a
small boy, the other a teenager. SO many people crowded into the room just to see and hear what he had to say it was almost
impossible to move. In his diatonic world he's thought of as a 'superstar'.

Some people simply don't like the way he plays. Some people don't like the way every single musician (or singer) out there
performs/plays, even if they have millions of other fans. It isn't the end of the world and I'm sure it doesn't faze him in the least.
This IS the diatonic section so he's free to be discussed.

scotty

[BeauKim]

Thank you for sharing this video! This is the second time I've heard him play his 264 G bass, polyphonias, and a tremolo! Howard's one of the main reason why I ended up getting in bass and polyphonia harmonicas after I first heard him demonstrate them. Clearly, this song is done at such a blazing fast tempo and with comedic effects while using those orchestra harmonicas. I think also one thing to keep in mind is that it was also a live performance with comedy in mind.

As a player who's also playing diatonic harmonicas chromatically, it's interesting that so many think overblows are the, "problem." Often it's regular bends that have more issues with timbre and intonation. As you learn about them, actually regular bends and overblows (overbends) are almost the exact same thing functionally with how the reeds operate with the player's oral cavity resonance. I think if anything, more people are just accustomed to the various sound qualities of bends and just accept them as the norm.

I am one of Howard's students, so I also might be a little biased, but I think no musician will do everything 100% to performing a single phrase to even the biggest fan's preference. He's is much more than just the overblow technique, but a true musical genius that is always pushing his own limits. Here's another clip of Howard playing live. He plays some very beautiful musical phrases with a lot of appropriate baroque ornamentation, and a beautiful improvisation as well at 1:30.

https://youtu.be/rRfGJGsoXSc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRfGJGsoXSc


-Boaz

(Edited to try and get the YouTube video to show up in the post.   )

[John Broecker]

Hohner Polyphonias, Chromaticas and 2-deck bass harps
are chromatic harps.

Best Regards, Stay Healthy

JB