C Jazz Blues (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TOKYO IS A BLUES JAM PARADISE. You can probably go jamming every single night of the month if you want to. Over the last decade, bars hosting blues jams have mushroomed, perhaps because they have found it a good way to attract more customers in this bad economy. Some of the more popular spots in town include Black Sheep, Blue Heat, Bright Brown Checkerboard, Diglight, HotShot, Rooster Northside and Terraplane just to name a few. A few years ago, a monthly jam calendar called ‘Good Time Music Session’ was launched by Jam Port. You can pick up the flyer at any participating bar or check their online calendar at www.jamport.info . Given the fact that there were only a few jamming venues ten or so years ago, Tokyo’s blues community has certainly come a long way.

Furthermore, an interesting trend in today’s Tokyo blues scene is that every night, more and more young people are participating. Until recently, it seemed that a typical blues jam attracted only gray-haired guys who once dreamed of becoming rock stars as teenagers but never quite made it. And even some that did! Needless to say, their generation grew up listening to blues and blues-based rock.

One such blues fanatic is Blues’n’Curtain (BnC), 53. He is one of the best-known non-pro figures in the Tokyo blues community. He was first exposed to the blues when he was 17 and was soon possessed by the soulful nature of the music. “Buddy Guy influenced me the most and in terms of spirit, definitely Howling Wolf had the biggest impact on me,” says BnC. Combining the roles of a good family man and an excellent blues guitarist, he currently goes jamming about four times a month and has his own live gig about once a month. He says his music-family life is perfectly balanced: blues is part of his life and always with him. Why blues? BnC answers: “Blues is the kind of music that lets me really be myself. I don’t have to fake it.” Blues can satisfy our search for the real thing; maybe that is why the music is so universal and speaks even to the hearts of the Japanese.

It is not surprising that younger Japanese now share this idea and found a home in the blues music. BnC confirms the fact that the number of young players at jam sessions is on the increase. For example, the weekly Monday night jam at Rooster Northside in Ogikubo attracts more young musicians than before. Sometimes a jam session with novice players may not go as some of the older guys would like, but hey, we were all beginners once! Today, every venue warmly receives less experienced, young musicians and takes good care of them, which is good for both the survival of the venue and the growth of the blues community here in Tokyo. ?

(report by CK, Tokyo, Japan)

We have written before about the essential importance of high-quality video for bands serious about promoting themselves and their music.  YouTube video is the current-day “business card.”  If you don’t have video, you don’t exist.  And, mostly important, the quality of the video indicates the level of the band’s seriousness about its music.  While amateur home videos might fill the void, in the long run, they do NOT advance a band’s career.  Instead they simply underscore that the band is no more than a basement hobby that occasionally creeps out into the public.

But how does a band get high-quality video, especially without spending too much money.  Well, here’s a brief case study.

Dukesy and the Hazzards are a blues-funk band active in Australia, headed up by Nick Brown, aka Duke Hazzard.  By the way, what a great name for the band!  These guys are really serious about their music and are even at the stage of seeking out some overseas gigs.  Top-quality video is essential.

“The videos were done in a studio,” Duke told me, “so we had the advantage of studio sound (mics, pres, gear etc) and then 3 HD digital video cameras (2 fixed on tripods and one roaming). Everything was recorded live so we just did 2 takes of each song and picked the take we preferred. As everything was recorded to ProTools, it was easy to mix the sound and then sync with the video. It was done at Oaklands Studios – http://www.oaklandspro.com.au/modx/ and actually wasn’t super $$ and only took a few hours.”  Of course, the genius of the audio/video techie, Jarrad Gilson from Oaklands, was a key factor.  He organised/ran the shoot and mixed the audio.

Most larger cities and a lot of smaller ones have studios equipped to do this job.  Just shop around and find some trying to establish the reputation of their studio.  And show them Duke’s video as a sample of the quality you are after.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR BAND’S EXPERIENCE WITH VIDEO and its role in band promotion.

It’s not an easy task, of course.

In today’s program, we chart some specific actions that musicians, working together, can take to put Asia on the world blues map. Australia has already made great strides in this direction, and consequently many of its top blues artists have achieved fame world-wide. In today’s show, we conduct a five-part interview with US bluesman Michael Bourne, who came to our Manila studio on 8 January, following his concert the night before at Roadhouse Manila Bay. He shares with us his experiences, as a pro working on furthering his own music career, pointing to the important role of blues societies, the Blues Foundation and the International Blues Challenge [IBC].

Interspersed with the interview are performances by some of the teenage blues bands that will be competing in the IBC Youth Division on 3 February. All of these bands are sponsored by the blues society in their city or region. And many are the product of youth development programs run by these societies and their friends.

DO YOU THINK THEIR IS A FUTURE FOR THE BLUES IN ASIA? Share your comments below.

Thomas “Tomcat” Colvin & Arvin Austria, co-hosts
www.bluesasianetwork.com

By:   Dennis V. Gargantiel

Bebop – dead. Swing – dead. Sousa marches – dead. Surfer music, psychedelic rock, Bee Gees disco, glam rock, new wave punk, Manila sound, all dead. Sure, you can still hear some of them on retro radio, but as musical movements, they’re all as dead as Elvis. Fads and trends will have their 15 minutes, but as history shows, they all come and go.

Except for the mother of them all. Over a century after the intermarriage of West African rhythm and traditional American folk music gave birth to it, the Blues is today still alive and kicking, and continues to help shape modern popular music. One would think that after so many generations of siring so much of the music that’s out there, the blues should have been long gone and buried under all the jazz, gospel, soul, R&B, rock, fusion, even hip-hop music that it gave birth to. But, just like vampires and vampire movies, there’s just no killing the blues as it continues to maintain a fairly large listening base in America and smaller, mixed communities of die-hards and new converts all over the world, the Philippines included.

Second Renaissance

Blue Rats

There has been, in fact, a mild renaissance of sorts for the blues in the country of late. Blues-oriented bands now have more gigs as more and more music bars all over Metro Manila join the “blues night” bandwagon. Established Pinoy (Filipino) Rock, R&B and jazz artists such as Sino Sikat firecracker Kat Agarrado, and veteran vocalists Cooky Chua of Color It Red and Skarlet Brown of Put3ska have grown conscious of the market’s existence and duly diversified, with Kat donning the more bluesy persona of Katmagic Wuman as she soloes for Wally Gonzales and Friends and the latter two doing off-and-on gigs with Bluesviminda or the Blue Rats. Whatever their true musical leanings, you can be sure they all have a mean Janis Joplin piece or two in their repertoire.

Foreign artists have been coming over for blues fests, including the first-time ever blues music concert presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines in August of last year that featured local bands and Chicago Southside blues style artists Michael Bourne and Shun Kikuta. Two months before, Boy Katindig’s Kool Kat Productions and Blues Asia Network staged Blues Guitar Blowout, headlined by Atlanta Boogie guitarist Bourne jamming with two generations of home-grown blues axemen – Nitoy Adriano of Blues Train and Paul Marney Leobrera of Bleu Rascals, along with American guitarist/vocalist Brad Absher and Blues Train’s Rickie Cui on keyboards and Andre Cui on drums.

Wiz Kids & Young Guns

Arguably, the resurgence of local blues power was sparked in large part by the spotlight on young talents, some just in their teens, who have rediscovered the blues. Young blues and blues rock bands such as Plug, Half Baked and Snake Charmer have been drawing new listeners, but none have gained more new believers among young and old alike, as much as the Bleu Rascals, a trio of teenagers led by 18-year old guitar sensation Leobrera, who dish out covers of traditional Chicago blues, Jimi Hendrix blues rock classics and John Mayer favorites with the seeming maturity of grizzled bluesmen.

Plug

Renewed interest in the blues is clearly on the uptake, so much so that Blues Asia Network’s Tom Colvin has proclaimed the phenomenon a second “renaissance” for blues music in the country, after the music’s golden age of the 70s and a brief resurgence in the 90s. But Blues Train’s Rickie Cui thinks it’s too early to tell. “Sure, there are more blues bands coming up but as far as people watching are concerned, tayo-tayo pa rin, pare (It’s still the same crowd).”

Blues Train was playing at one such blues night event last November at Bluewood, one of the new and very few music bars along Aguirre Avenue in Paranaque that feature live bands on weekends, and before their first set, we talked with keyboardist and bandleader Rickie Cui and Pinoy blues guitar icon Nitoy Adriano at length about, what else, but the blues. While Nitoy was a founding member back in 1979 of one of the more successful and durable blues-oriented and alternative rock bands in the country – The Jerks, Rickie and Blues Train was a major part of the blues renaissance of the 90s. The two blues old timers, who have been in the business for over three decades, surely know what they’re talking about. Clearly the more vocal of the two, Rickie, in turns, waxed philosophical, poetic, whimsical, fatalistic, even political, but always passionate about our subject.

“The Blues is a Feeling”

How passionate?  “I’ve been doing this for quite some time, man. The blues is something I grew up with, and it’s something I always go back to. I played pop, don’t get me wrong. I played blues rock such as Led Zep, but I always come back to the blues because it’s here – in the heart. It’s a feeling. It’s never going to go away,” the veteran keyboardist and songwriter enthused, but further qualified, “I sing the blues, I play the blues. But when people come up to me and say, ‘You’re a bluesman.’ I say, ‘Me? Hell, no.’ B.B. King, Eric Clapton – they’re the bluesmen. Me, I just friggin’ sing the blues. As a guy who just sings the blues, it would be presumptuous of me to call myself a blues person.”

Blues Train: Rickie Cui & Nitoy Adriano

A banner on Rickie’s Hammond stresses the point for all to see, “The blues is a feeling.” You have to ‘feel’ the music to appreciate it, and once you do, it never goes away. That’s why majority of the crowd at local blues gigs were 60s and 70s kids (“Tayo-tayo pa rin,” as Rickie earlier said) who, like him, spent their childhoods with rock and roll playing constantly in the background, fussed over acne while listening to Cream and Canned Heat, and matured discovering the three Kings of the blues and consequently, that their rock heroes were all the while just ripping off the songs of real bluesmen of the American South.

For anyone younger, the blues would be a little harder to sell today, especially for Filipinos, Rickie opines. “Right now, we have a lot of blues bands or bands playing the blues (there’s a difference), but we still don’t have the crowds as big as of, say, Jolina Magdangal or Eraserheads,” he rues. “The Filipino people will not be falling in love with the blues. We’re a people who love to dance. We’re also a people who are pretty sentimental – about things like a girl or guy who was never good for you in the first place. We’re a people who like to sing about unrequited love. We’re hopeless romantics, which is a very big hindrance to liking the blues, because the blues is realistic,” explained our well-spoken musician.

 Ex-pat Blues Community

So, how do we explain the recent resurgence? “Appreciation of the blues among local crowds may not be growing as fast as we’d like, but we have an advantage – we have an ex-pat community. Ex-pats love the blues,” the keyboardist observed. True enough, the best gigs for blues bands are in Makati, where many of the country’s resident foreigners live and work. The blues mecca in Metro Manila’s premier business district for the moment appears to be The Handlebar, which, aside from having a regular “Blues and Rock & Roll Night” also regularly features blues and blues-oriented bands such as The Blue Rats, Wally Gonzalez and Friends and The Jerks.  Handlebar habitués include a number of ex-pat business executives who transform into biker types on weekends. Other blues-friendly bars in Makati are Capone’s at A-Venue, Heckle and Jeckle, Mandarin Oriental’s Martinis, and Glorietta’s Hard Rock Café.

Wally Gonzalez

But many true-blue local blues aficionados still prefer the traditional homes (literally, as most, if not all are converted residential structures) of blues and blues rock. In Manila, the Hobbit House in Malate [now in a new home in Ermita], which was a major host to both blues explosions of the 70s and 90s, and Mayric’s in Espana, where Nitoy and The Jerks paid their dues in the 80s. In Quezon City are the70s Bistro in Anonas , My Brother’s Moustache in Timog, and Conspiracy Garden Café along Visayas Avenue. Ten02, now Skarlet’s Jazz Kitchen, also in Timog, where Michael Bourne also jammed with the Bleu Rascals last year, and Backdoor Blues Café in Kalayaan have also become recent favourites among locals as well as foreigners. The atmosphere in these clubs is looser, homey, a lot more informal, where musicians seem, at least from our view, to be more like themselves. On blues nights, you can never tell. Unscheduled artists often make surprise appearances and spontaneous jams are encouraged. The brotherhood among blues enthusiasts is palpable, especially with the music bars’ Woodstock generation regulars. Of course, locals also love these places because while the music is just as great as the hangouts in Makati, they’re comparatively budget-friendly.

Future Blues

So, is the current Manila blues scene really going anywhere?  Or are we just in the midst of another fleeting zenith of a periodic 20-year cycle? It’s interesting how artists can be both so idealistic and yet just as pragmatic when forced to face such questions. With a twinkle in their eyes – and not just because of the pale pilsen, mind you – both Rickie and Nitoy revealed dreams of expanding the band. Both love Gospel music as much as the blues, and while Nitoy’s ideal set up would have a horn section, Rickie’s wish list includes “three or four women – big, busty, not necessarily pretty – but with voices like a guy.” Go figure.

But first, we have to keep the momentum going. This means having new listeners – fresh converts – to the blues. And if you think about it, the “tayo-tayo pa rin” blues lovers in the crowd – the generation that grew up with the blues and rock and roll – won’t be there forever. Without missing a beat, Rickie turned serious and presented his stone-cold sober analysis, stressing foremost that the blues movement needs to be promoted as a whole, and not just favour specific bands, saying, “If they really want to further the cause of the blues, they cannot concentrate on just one band.” He also harped back to the golden age of the 70s, when musicians really supported each other like a veritable band of brothers, reminiscing, “Before, we used to watch other bands, bring friends. There was friendly competition.”

As for increasing the music’s fan base, Rickie went on, “I think what is lacking is the education to explain what the blues is. If you ask the ordinary person – not musicians – what the blues is, they’re going to say it’s ‘sad music.’ So, they really don’t know what the blues is. You have to educate people. The easiest way is through rock and roll. Rock and roll and blues – they’re the same. Slow, fast – they’re the same.”

The blues is an acquired taste, and its future in the country therefore depends a lot on the present crop of young blues musicians bringing with them a new generation of listeners. Only the future can tell, but for the moment, whether you call it a renaissance or not, we are at least at a time when you can find a blues gig somewhere in the metro on any given night. If you’re a blues buff, better take in as much as you can. If it fades, we may have to wait another 20 years for the next fix.

Glenn Patrik is no stranger to playing the blues in Bangkok. Matter of fact, he has headlined the Bangkok Blues Festival two years in a row. Glenn has also brought his particular brand of the blues and style to Tokyo Joe’s and several other venues in Bangkok through numerous appearances with locally based Soi Dog Blues Band.

Blues fans and aficionados will be pleased to learn that Glenn Patrik is in town for only a few days in February and Tokyo Joe’s has been lucky enough to nail him down for a gig on the 14th. For this one time only appearance Glenn will once again be backed by Soi Dog Blues Band.

Mark that in your schedule without further ado. Music starts at 9.30, Glenn Patrik on stage at 10.00pm.

Tokyo Joe’s is a major hang out for music fans in Bangkok albeit with a strong leaning towards blues from it’s beginnings in 2003. More recently TJ’s has evolved into a wider spectrum of music on the playlist with live music from Wednesday to Sunday every week. The current line up is The Fire on Wednesday featuring all the favorite pop/rock hits from the 70′s to present, Jack Band on Thursday with a pleasant mix of  southern and slow rock tunes, a rotating headline on Friday and house band Soi Dog every Saturday night.

Sundays feature the well attended traditional Bangkok Jam where players bring their own instruments and in some cases self composed songs as well.

Tokyo Joe’s is located at 25/9 Sukhumvit Soi 26, roughly 300 meters into the soi from Sukhumvit, on the left hand side. It is located diagonally across the street from St. James Hotel and is open every Tuesday – Sunday from 6.00pm onwards.

*****

With several decades of composing & performing experience, Glenn contributes a modern approach to the ongoing legacy of American Blues, with respect to the music from the forefathers of the Blues.

Soon after teaching himself to play the guitar at the age of 10, Glenn was performing and singing in different venues from schools and churches to roller rinks and learning from the older musicians around his Blues and Soul music-drenched hometown neighborhood in Kansas City, Kansas. After an early piano lesson with one of the ministers from his Southern Baptist Church, Glenn began to seek out the various Blues musicians that he heard echoing from the neighbor’s turntables and in the juke joints around town.

In the coming years Glenn would find himself working in the Bands of Kansas City’s top Blues artists such as Chick Willis, Provine “Little” Hatch, Millage Gilbert, Leon Estelle & Annetta “Cotton Candy” Washington. These associations led Glenn To Chicago where he found work with Abb Locke, Buddy Miles, Lefty Dizz and a variety of other sideman jobs playing guitar. The next move was to Long Beach, California to spend several years with the Joe Houston Band. Since then, Glenn has been performing his own brand of Blues worldwide and has enjoyed critical acclaim for his first two releases on Shakehouse Records, Mr. Blues Jr. & Nuthin’ But A Thang!. With the release of his third album, Original Blues, Glenn has given us eleven more original tunes to add to his already plump songbook.

courtesy of mysarahjane

If you are a musician or music fan who uploads music composed by someone else, your freedom to do so is about to end.

The US Congress is considering legislation that will outlaw uploading any material not created by the uploader himself.  Known as SOPA – Stop Online Piracy Act [US House Bill HR-3261] – the legislation is backed by corporate heavy-weights in the film and entertainment industry in the US.  Under terms of the legislation, the US Congress will hold internet sites such as YouTube and Facebook liable for any infringements, turning them into the “internet police.”  Failure to do so by such internet upload sites will result in loss of their domain name.  Can you imagine Google losing its www.youtube.com domain?  As I understand it, one persistent complaintant can bring down Google or Facebook.  Rather draconian, especially for a country that has championed freedom of speech.  And the threat of such legislation is spreading:  Spain just enacted a law with similar design.

Protests against this legislation, which will be debated in January in the US House of Representatives, are mounting, but political observers are currently predicting passage.  It is sure to be a major debate.  Google, Facebook and Twitter have come out strongly against the legislation and are even threatening “blackouts” as a way to bring the legislation to the attention of the general public.  Domain registrar GoDaddy originally signed on with the House of Representatives in support of SOPA, but a huge rebellion among its users caused a reversal of position a few days ago.  But observers predict that common internet users will not prevail in a debate that pits them against Hollywood and corporate entertainment giants, who pour vast sums of money into the campaign war chests of politicians facing a challenging election year.

What does this mean for musicians?  If passed, you or your band will no longer be allowed to upload performances of cover songs to YouTube or Facebook.

As host of BLUES ASIA TV, we have been following this political debate in the US, which began several months ago with introduction of similar legislation in the US Senate, the Protect Intellectual Property Act [US Senate Bill No. 968].  For clarity, allow me to state the concept and practice behind BLUES ASIA TV.  We are blues musicians who set up the online TV program to help musicians in Asia and the Pacific gain broader attention around the world for their work.  For us, it is a labor of love.  We draw our material principally from YouTube itself, where musicians and their fans upload video to capture public attention world-wide.  Additionally, we make a “best effort” to contact the person uploading the material for specific permission to replay.  We also try to contact the artist featured in the video as well.  So far, no one has turned us down.  Why would they?  We are helping to spread their message.

Google’s YouTube is quietly preparing for the worst, in order to protect itself.  It has already implemented a system that identifies uploads to YouTube that contain material from a website that has registered its content.  YouTube has, for example, already tagged two of our shows as containing “copyrighted” material, even though we have obtained specific permission from the website owner to replay its videos on BLUES ASIA TV.

And in a move barely mentioned beyond initial press announcements, four weeks ago Google bought RightsNow, a company that has developed software that can identify specific songs that are uploaded onto the internet.  RightsNow has over 30 million songs in its database.  Last week, BLUES ASIA TV was informed by YouTube that our last upload contained a copyrighted song within our hour-long program.  Clicking on a link, we were informed that currently there is no consequence for our upload.  But I am sure, once SOPA passes, that YouTube  will be forced to block our show from ever reaching the public.  Eventually, there may develop a payment system for use of copyrighted songs, similar to annual contracts radio stations sign with ASCAP and BMI.  But that may take a long time to work out.

This legislation may mark the end of communal music such as the blues.  Blues, after all, thrives on a common repertoire, shared by blues musicians world-wide.  Imagine the consequences if blues bands can no longer share performances of “I’ve Got My Mojo Working”?

FOR UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION, check out this link, which pulls in a list of the latest information online.

TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR ONLINE MU*SIC, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL.

Related articles

• YouTube acquires RightsFlow (latimesblogs.latimes.com)
• YouTube acquires RightsFlow to help license music (sfgate.com)
• YouTube Snaps Up RightsFlow Music-Copyright Specialist (mashable.com)
• Google, Facebook and Twitter considering blackout to protest against SOPA (100gf.wordpress.com)
• Spain Gets its Own SOPA-Style Anti-Piracy Law For Shutting Down Websites (readwriteweb.com)
• Dump ‘Go Daddy Day’ Headache for Company (myfoxphoenix.com)
• Congress just as bad at piracy as those they want to push under the SOPA bus (inquisitr.com)
• YouTube Announces January 16 Deadline for Becoming a YouTube Music Publisher (socialtimes.com)
• New & Innovative Ways to View YouTube (apartmenttherapy.com)
• How to optimise a video for YouTube (marketing.yell.com)

The International Blues Challenge is hugely important.  It’s the Olympics and major international trade show rolled into one event.  Each year it has grown, and in 2012 participating will be 118 blues bands and 86 solo-duo acts, along with 22 entries in the Youth Division [musicians age 20 and below].  Altogether that’s 226 competing blues acts from around the world, including France, Croatia, Finland, Norway, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Canada, the Netherlands, Israel, South Africa — AND Taipei, Manila, Melbourne, Sydney, Southeast Queensland and Auckland.  With all this emerging blues talent congregated in one place, it is no wonder that music industry movers-and-shakers converge on Beale Street looking for the next big international act.

In this show today, we look at some of the bands from Asia and the Pacific that have participated in IBC in the past — and who have received top recognition.  Unsurprisingly, all of these bands and performers have gone on to become giants in the music scene in their home country.  And equally important, they have all brought back home knowledge and experience that helps to elevate musicianship among their peers.  We at Blues Asia Network hope to see increased participation in IBC by regional bands.

Here’s what is in today’s show:

00:00 — Introduction

 03:40 — Peter “Madcat” Ruth [US], Christmas greetings from US to Asia

07:50 — Chicken Shack Revival [Singapore], Christmas greetings from Asia to the world

10:47 — Brendan Power with Bleu Rascals in Manila, 7 December 2011

20:38 — Introduction to the International Blues Challenge

22:42 — UBlues [Singapore]

27:40 — Ray Beadle [Australia]

34:37 — Geoff Achison and Fiona Boyes [Australia]

43:16 — Soulmate [India]

52:02 — UBlues [Singapore} and Lampano Alley [Philippines] at Mosaic Music Festival 2005

THANKS & LINKS to these bands and sources:

Peter “Madcat” Ruth, http://www.youtube.com/user/petermadcatruth – Chicken Shack Revival, http://www.youtube.com/user/ChickenShackRevival – UBlues, http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/ublues – Ray Beadle, www.raybeadle.com – Geoff Achison and Fiona Boyes, Fur Peace Ranch:  www.furpeaceranch.com and www.youtube.com/user/furpeaceranch – Soulmate, http://www.myspace.com/soulmateshillong – Lampano Alley, www.lampanoalley.com, Cath Butler, http://www.myspace.com/cathbutler

e: cathy@laing-entertainment.com.au

First, John fills us in, explaining WHY he is in Asia.  In fact, he has even set up a recording studio in Singapore, joining his other production studios in Chicago and Cancun, Mexico.  In his view, Asia will soon be emerging as a major international center of music.  “There is so much talent out here,” John says.  Check out Mix Magazine for an excellent profile of John.

John also shares some personal stories and insights into Howard Levy, who is recognized as one of the most awesome and innovative diatonic harmonica players in the world.  I am particularly pleased to have this opportunity to bring Howard to the attention of musicians and fans in Asia, where he is not so very well known.

The harmonica is very popular throughout Asia, but interest is focused on chromatic and tremolo harmonica.  The diatonic harmonica does not receive very much attention, except in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.  At the 8th Asia-Pacific Harmonica Competition in Singapore in August 2010, each major category of competition attracted 80 competitors or more — except for diatonic, with less than 10.  I hope that Howard Levy can help change that by challenging the gifted Asian players to tackle the diatonic as a real, and major instrument. Hopefully, more diatonic players will show up at the next Asia-Pacific Harmonica Competition, scheduled for August 2012 in Malaysia.

There is, by the way, some talk about Howard performing in Asia next August.  We will inform our followers on our Facebook Page about developments in this regard.

IMPORTANT LINKS:

JOHN’S WEBSITE:  www.genuinemusic.tv

HOWARD’S WEBSITE:  www.levyland.com

HOWARD’S ONLINE SCHOOL:  www.howardharmonica.com

PROGRAM CONTENTS:

00:02:16  –  Who is John Ferreira?

00:06:25  –  A tour of John’s Chicago recording studio

00:12:55  –  John talks about his experience in Chicago, the future of music in Asia and what is the essence of the blues

00:22:20  –  Introduction to Howard Levy, and Howard playing blues in many keys with one diatonic harp

00:27:12  –  How John met Howard

00:32:23  –  Video profile of Levy

00:45:15  –  Tomcat discusses harmonica organizations and learning opportunities

00:51:00  –  Howard plays “Amazing Grace”

00:57:46  –  How to record harmonica, and harmonica “tone”

01:02:36  –  A quick romp through the blues:  Evanston Express

01:05:41  –  An admonition:  ALWAYS be working on something!

01:07:25  –  Howard plays Beethoven Violin Concert, demonstrating advanced harmonica techniques

01:12.53  –  Howard’s online harmonica school — Asian musicians can learn from Howard!

Related articles

• Howard Levy Harmonica School Receives Enthusiastic Welcome from Harmonica Community (prweb.com)
• Grammy Award Winner Howard Levy Partners with Online Video Instruction Innovator, ArtistWorks, Inc to Launch Howard Levy Harmonica School online. (prweb.com)
• Howard Levy Named Harmonica Player of the Year, Presents “A Chat with Bela Fleck” Exclusively at Howard Levy Harmonica School (prweb.com)