about
From Harvey Kail: I played trumpet throughout grammar and high school, and the marching band and orchestra were the best educational and social experiences I had in school. Making music with all those other kids was fabulous. Talk about your collaborative learning! When I graduated, however, I put my instrument away in the attic. It was time to get serious. I couldn’t make a living as a trumpet player. It was beyond thinking. I went to college instead of conservatory, then graduate school, and built a career in academe without giving music-making another thought. I had made a decision to put music behind me and focus on the responsibilities of adulthood. I sold the trumpet, and my only musical experience for decades after that was as a listener.
Then, in my late fifties, I was diagnosed with cancer. Among other indignities, I went through months and months of tedious chemo therapy, which I endured, in part, by listening to blues music through my headphones, particularly harmonica blues: Little Walter, James Cotton, Sonny Boy Williamson I & II, Charlie Musselwhite, Corkie, Siegal--like I say, it was months—Jerry Portnoy, Jimmy Reed, Little Annie Raines. Blues harmonica players really have it made as wind players: not only do they make this uniquely American music by blowing through their instrument, like a trumpet or saxophone player, but also by drawing in their breath, as well, since harmonicas are uniquely designed that way: breathe out through the harmonica you get one tone, breathe in you get another, all up and down the instrument. “Harp” players can literally breathe music. As I recovered from surgery and started chemo, I began fooling around with an old C Hohner Pocket Pal harmonica that I had tossed into a desk drawer years before. Everyone has a harmonica tossed in a desk drawer somewhere. Now, unbidden, I had time off from my usual schedule and professional chores. I was convinced that I could help myself recover from illness by putting my breath together with music that moved me. The harmonica was ready to hand, and the blues provided a deep, nuanced and challenging harmonica literature to study and enjoy.
Now, eleven healthy years later, I am statistically cured of cancer, thank you very much! But I picked up a bad, bad harmonica habit.
credits
license
all rights reserved