June 10, 2022
Jens Bunge interview
Jens Bunge joins me on episode 63. Jens is a German chromatic player who started out playing the tremolo, before discovering Stevie Wonder. He then found Toots Thielemans and he started teaching himself jazz by ear and joined the local big band. He released his first album in 1991 with members of this band, and has since released a number of other albums of mostly original material, as well as guesting on albums by other artists. Jens has travelled extensively, particular in Asia, where...
Jens Bunge joins me on episode 63.
Jens is a German chromatic player who started out playing the tremolo, before discovering Stevie Wonder. He then found Toots Thielemans and he started teaching himself jazz by ear and joined the local big band. He released his first album in 1991 with members of this band, and has since released a number of other albums of mostly original material, as well as guesting on albums by other artists.
Jens has travelled extensively, particular in Asia, where he has tapped into the burgeoning chromatic harmonic scene there, and has been invited to play at numerous concerts and the Asian harmonica festivals. Jens is also appearing at the HarmonicaUK Chromatic Weekend June 18/19, 2022.
Links:
Website:
http://www.jensbunge.com
Discography:
https://jazzpages.de/bunge/discography-jens-bunge/
Soundcloud for more of Jens’ recordings:
https://soundcloud.com/jens-bunge
Hohner ‘Masters of the Harmonica’:
https://www.hohner.de/en/jens-bunge
HarmonicaUK Chromatic Weekend:
https://www.harmonica.uk/events/chromatic-weekend-2022
Videos:
The Getaway soundtrack: end credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjydZbfUKXc
That Misty Red Beast played by Jens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvcBQRwJW1Y
Silent Dreams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgacRD1bZxs
Tribute to Toots & Bill with Andreas Hertel trio:
https://youtu.be/I5U1rN_lBDY
2016 HarmonicaUK festival with Chris Collis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuGufOFu_vc
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
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/
01:29 - Jens is a chromatic player from Germany, who started out playing tremolo
01:54 - Doesn’t play any diatonic harmonica
02:44 - What Jens would say to promote the chromatic to diatonic players
03:51 - From a small town near Heidelberg in south west Germany
04:26 - What inspired Jens to take up the harmonica
05:47 - Started playing some harmonica with school choir
06:36 - First instrument was a melodica, and then guitar
07:37 - Starting playing chromatic aged 18 when heard Isn’t She Lovely by Stevie Wonder
08:43 - Is a self-taught player
08:51 - Participated in the World Harmonica Championship in Trossingen
09:45 - The first time Jens became aware of embouchre (he plays pucker)
09:56 - Lack of learning material for chromatic harmonica when Jens was learning
11:03 - No way to slow down recordings in the pre-computer age
12:28 - Stevie Wonder’s Fingertips
13:20 - First heard Toots Thielemans on The Getaway movie soundtrack
13:56 - Played along with German pop songs on the radio
14:24 - Playing along with Toots
16:50 - Jens learnt jazz with use of Aebersold backing tracks, Band In A Box and playing along to chords on guitar
17:58 - Mainly learnt by ear, while also learning to read music
18:53 - Joined a big band in Germany where he also played trumpet solos (on the Cornet)
21:45 - Released first album in 1991, Harmonicology and inexperience of the first album
24:35 - Getting the right sound in recording harmonica by using a dynamic and not a condenser mic
26:59 - Musical travels started when won a small amount in the lottery and how it led to recording album in the US: Meet You In Chicago
29:43 - It’s A Beautiful World album from 1994
30:54 - Releases original songs as record companies make more money that way
31:11 - With All My Heart album, released in 1996
31:42 - Tangoletta song is only one Jens uses octave playing, and has been his most lucrative recording to date
32:16 - Joe Powers is the specialist harmonica player for tango music
34:00 - Duo album released in 2004: Pas De Deux, with songs recorded to the ‘character of wine’
36:08 - Jens has travelled and performed in Asia extensively, and Shangai Blue album from 2009
38:19 - Shangai Blue is Jens’ last album: may not record another whole album due to costs involved
38:49 - Now releasing music on digital platforms
39:07 - Jens will be producing his own music video for his song Silent Dreams
40:24 - How Jens got involved in the Asian harmonica scene
42:49 - Recording with Andreas Hertel, a German piano player
44:42 - Recorded some film music in Germany and also for a Bollywood movie
46:02 - Wrote a jazz column for the Harmonica Educator magazine
46:37 - Jens is teaching at the HarmonicaUK Chromatic Weekend event June 18/19, 2022
48:45 - 10 minute question
49:57 - Played in festivals around the world
50:16 - Jens is a Hohner endorsee and plays Super 64 Performance chromatic now after trying a few Hohner models
52:20 - Likes the 16 hole model for the extra range
52:49 - Has he tried some of newer models from other manufacturers, such as Seydel Symphony
53:49 - Uses Shure SM58 mic and Mark Bass acoustic amp
55:57 - Uses PA when available
57:16 - Effects: sometimes uses a little reverb when playing live, but not when recording
58:17 - Future plans
WEBVTT
00:00:00.289 --> 00:00:03.013
Jens Bunger joins me on episode 63.
00:00:03.033 --> 00:00:08.201
Jens is a German chromatic player who started out playing the tremolo before discovering Stevie Wonder.
00:00:08.862 --> 00:00:14.772
He then found Toots Thielmans and he started teaching himself jazz by ear and joined the local big band.
00:00:15.192 --> 00:00:25.929
He released his first album in 1991 with members of this band and has since released a number of other albums of mostly original material as well as guesting on albums by other artists.
00:00:26.562 --> 00:00:36.959
Jens has travelled extensively, particularly in Asia, where he has tapped into the burgeoning chromatic scene there, and has been invited to play at numerous concerts and the Asian Harmonica Festivals.
00:00:37.679 --> 00:00:43.929
Jens is also appearing at the Harmonica UK Chromatic Weekend on June 18th and 19th, 2022.
00:00:45.152 --> 00:00:47.716
This podcast is sponsored by Seidel Harmonicas.
00:00:48.137 --> 00:00:57.155
Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zeidel Harmonicus.
00:01:25.346 --> 00:01:27.429
Hello Jens Bunger and welcome to the podcast.
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Thanks, Neil.
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You are a German chromatic player, yeah?
00:01:32.555 --> 00:01:33.096
Yeah, right.
00:01:33.757 --> 00:01:34.897
Yeah, chromatic only.
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But I start with the tremolo harmonica.
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So do you still play the tremolo harmonica?
00:01:41.046 --> 00:01:41.186
No.
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Actually, I got one as a gift from someone who gave up playing harmonica completely.
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I have it in a box.
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I opened it, tried a little bit, but I don't use it.
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And so do you play any diatonic harmonica?
00:01:57.647 --> 00:01:57.808
No.
00:01:58.248 --> 00:02:05.861
Actually, since I started playing the chromatic harmonica, I had to play a piece of music with an orchestra.
00:02:05.882 --> 00:02:08.806
It was street music by William Russell.
00:02:09.127 --> 00:02:16.460
For that, they asked me to play the diatonic harmonica, but I decided to play it exclusively on the chromatic harmonica.
00:02:16.881 --> 00:02:19.806
And then as a gift, they gave me a marine band.
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I tried it, but I'm not so comfortable with it.
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Sound production is quite different.
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So when I blow, I hear a lot of side noises.
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And so it's like a completely different world for me.
00:02:35.008 --> 00:02:36.252
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
00:02:36.272 --> 00:02:41.086
You get quite a few people who only play the chromatic or diatonic and some people who play both.
00:02:42.627 --> 00:02:48.192
For you though, what would you say to promote the chromatic harmonica to diatonic players?
00:02:48.451 --> 00:02:54.676
It's hard to convince the real diatonic harmonica players to switch to the chromatic harmonica.
00:02:54.717 --> 00:02:58.219
They don't know actually what to do with this button on the side.
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When I meet Howard Levy, I always tease him and he teases me.
00:03:02.883 --> 00:03:06.266
He asks me, why do you play the chromatic harmonica?
00:03:06.907 --> 00:03:09.770
I I ask him, why do you play the diatonic harmonica?
00:03:10.050 --> 00:03:23.786
I often compare the chromatic harmonica to a concert flute and the diatonic harmonica to a pan flute in which you have to produce the chromatic notes with your technique, but it's not there.
00:03:23.806 --> 00:03:26.429
It's not inbuilt like on the chromatic harmonica.
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And for a diatonic harmonica player, I think it's really a challenge as it was for me in the beginning to play the chromatic notes and knowing when to press the slider button and when to release it and also get familiar with the different patterns.
00:03:41.853 --> 00:03:48.691
In every key you have to play in a different pattern, exhale, inhale, use the slider or just don't use it.
00:03:48.891 --> 00:03:51.237
And I think it's really a completely different world.
00:03:51.554 --> 00:03:52.054
Yeah, sure.
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Yeah.
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So you're from, I think, a place near Heidelberg.
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That's right.
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It's southwestern Germany and it's not so far from the French border.
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It's about one hour and I'm in the Alsace region or to Strasbourg.
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It's about one hour, 30 minutes.
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We have a fast train now from Mannheim, which is 15, 20 minutes from my place to Paris.
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You are there in less than four hours.
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Yeah, I'm always very envious of people who live in sort of central Europe.
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It's great to get everywhere Right, yeah.
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What was the harmonica scene like as you were growing up?
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What got you into playing the harmonica?
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Actually, I
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found an old harmonica, which my father owned, but I never heard him play.
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And it was in the cupboard, and I picked it up.
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I think I was 11 years old or so, and tried to play some easy folk music, children's songs, then Christmas songs.
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This was on the tremolo, was it?
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Yeah, that was the tremolo.
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Unsere Lieblinge is the name of this Hohner brand.
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Actually, that was my first instrument And it was a little bit out of tune.
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So I guess my father must have played on it.
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But as I said, I never heard him play.
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Within a few weeks, I was able to play quite decently on it.
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And then for Christmas, my parents gave me a new one, which was not so out of tune.
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That was the one which has the echo harp.
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It has a key of C on one side.
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And if you flip it around, it has the key of G.
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Yeah, I was able to play on this instrument.
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But I did not really have like a role model for that.
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Yeah, my father actually he comes from Hamburg so my grandpa was a sailor.
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I know that sailors at that time probably not today anymore they used to play the harmonica on sea so I played some shanties, sailor songs and then when our school was recruiting people for the school choir I registered for that because I liked singing but I also brought my harmonica and then when there were rehearsing one song I just picked up the harmonica surprising the teacher and played along with the choir and from then on I was hired as a harmonica player for the school choir whenever they had a performance oh great and this is still on the tremolo yeah that was on the tremolo yes I was able to play also this accompanying myself with a rhythm by the tongue I demonstrate here Something like that.
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I played this on the chromatic harmonica now with the octave technique.
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Okay.
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And before then, did you play any instruments before then?
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No, actually it was also a Horner instrument.
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It's called Clarina.
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It was kind of the, which looks like a keyboard.
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The
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melodica.
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Melodica, yeah.
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And this was a cheaper model, Clarina with very colorful keys.
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This was actually the first instrument I got.
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And then I got a guitar from My grandpa, a book came with it so I could teach myself to play chords.
00:07:07.298 --> 00:07:12.444
So I was never able to really play melody lines on the guitar.
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Maybe Stairway to Heaven, of course, this intro.
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But I was more restricted to playing chords.
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And this really helped me to get a knowledge and feeling for harmonies, which also enabled me to quickly understand what's going on in jazz music when you improvise and yeah after the guitar the next instrument was the harmonica took me until i was 18 years old shortly before i graduated i heard stevie wonder on the radio with this song isn't she lovely with the harmonica solo
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And is that what turned you on to the chromatic sound?
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Right.
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And I did not know how do you call this instrument, which is able to play the chromatic notes, the half notes, as we say in Germany, Halbtöne.
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And so I went to a music shop and asked them, okay, I heard this song, Isn't She Lovely?
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And I cannot play it on my harmonica, which I have.
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And then the salesperson told me, oh, you mean a chromatic harmonica.
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And so I started with a cheap one, a chrometta.
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Yeah, it took me a couple of weeks to be able to play single note lines and not play two or three notes at the same time.
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So this was the first challenge.
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And you were self-taught at this stage, were you?
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Right, right.
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I'm not sure if they really had textbooks how to learn the chromatic harmonica at that time.
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But something happened a couple of years later when I participated in what they called World Harmonica Championships.
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The festival, which now is called the World Harmonica Festival.
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So it was more like a competition, like in a sports event.
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And I registered for that.
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They required me to play a test piece so that for the preliminary round that I could show that I'm able to play the chromatic harmonica.
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The test piece had octaves in it.
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And I did not know how can I play octaves.
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My mouth is so small.
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I cannot open it so much.
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And I I tried to play with two harmonicas at the same time, stacked beneath each other and shifted a little bit, but it did not work.
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And then I bought a small brochure in a music shop, which was like an introduction into playing the chromatic harmonica.
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And this was the first time I heard about or read about the difference between pucker style, which I played naturally, and tongue blocking, which enables you to play octaves.
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Yeah, I think the challenge with the chromatic then We talked to a lot of diatonic players on here.
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There was lots of blues records to listen to.
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There wasn't so much chromatic harmonica.
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Like you say, very little material on how to play the chromatic back then.
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Nowadays, I think there are more books on the market.
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So it's maybe easier for some beginners.
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Or they just watch YouTube videos.
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Nowadays, you watch the tutorials on the internet.
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You were learning the chromatic by ear at this stage, were you?
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Right, yeah.
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I bought an album vinyl at that time, Stevie Wonder's Greatest Hits.
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And I tried to just imitate what he played note by note and always restarting the record and scratching it by overusing it and always listening to the same part.
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Later, I just recorded it with a cassette tape recorder from the albums I bought.
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And then I had more possibilities.
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to replay it without damaging the LP.
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The good old days before computers, eh?
00:11:03.118 --> 00:11:03.678
Yeah, yeah.
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And there was not really a way to slow down or to adjust it to the pitch because I realized my cassette tape players, also they broken after a while.
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And so I bought a new one and then I suddenly noticed, okay, why is this a quarter note deeper, lower in pitch than my harmonica?
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And so I bought one with the pitch control by Philips.
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And with that, I could record from the LP and then pitch down half an octave so slow it down at the same time and then re-recorded the slowed down version another half octave down and so I could follow what at that time I listened to Toots Tillmans already what he was playing in his improvisations but it sounded weird very low at least I got an idea okay which notes is he playing in these sometimes really fast improvisations Thank you.
00:12:11.009 --> 00:12:16.298
And nowadays you just buy the album or you stream it and download it.
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And then you use a software like Transcribe or whatever, Audacity, and you can slow it down without changing the pitch or you can adjust the pitch.
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Yeah, nowadays it's so easy.
00:12:27.905 --> 00:12:31.389
So was there any particular Stevie Wonder song that grabbed you early on?
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Isn't She Lovely, of course, because it's very melodic.
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But on Stevie's greatest hits, there were recordings from when he was 13, 14 years old.
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Fingertips.
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Fingertips.
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Some of it was not very understandable for me at that time.
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And at that time, I was not familiar to the connection between harmonies and the melody instrument, what he is doing, what he was doing rhythmically.
00:13:13.708 --> 00:13:19.714
He was very prominent, but harmonically, I did not really get the connection, the context.
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So you started getting into jazz.
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You mentioned you listened to Toots Tillmans, of course.
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Yes.
00:13:25.198 --> 00:13:26.799
I think you first heard him, I read, on...
00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:34.173
the Getaway movie soundtrack.
00:13:42.562 --> 00:13:43.101
Right, yes.
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So I watched that movie actually in the year when I graduated.
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So I was 18 and a half years at that time.
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I already had played Stevie songs or just had tried to approach the chromatic harmonica.
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I played German pop songs along the radio in all keys, which was good because it was training my ear.
00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:08.865
It was training my ability to be flexible and using the harmonica like my own voice.
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I also started to play along with what was just played on the radio and was able to switch keys very quickly.
00:14:17.452 --> 00:14:23.539
So it trained my ear and it trained my mastering of the different keys on the chromatic harmonica.
00:14:23.679 --> 00:14:29.605
But then I watched this movie, The Getaway, and I was caught by the harmonica solos.
00:14:29.886 --> 00:14:35.472
And then in the end, in the credits, actually someone loaded it up to YouTube.
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So you can see, okay, harmonica, solos, guitar and whistling, Toots Tillmans.
00:14:41.438 --> 00:15:11.677
And a few days later, I went to a record shop and asked the staff about Toots Tillmans and they didn't know who is this and then they looked in a catalog at that time they didn't have the computer okay come with me into the jazz department and so the first Toots Tillmans LP I bought was one of these three live recordings which he made in Holland so this was my first exposure to jazz
00:15:11.905 --> 00:15:14.950
Any Toots songs off those albums that you remember?
00:15:15.791 --> 00:15:30.990
Film music like The Summer of 42, The Summer Nose, That Misty Red Beast, which I also have in my repertoire now for Toots Tillman's tribute because this year we celebrate his 100th birthday.
00:15:31.009 --> 00:15:55.115
The Summer of 42 Yeah, this was the, let's say, the more melodic songs, the film music, where he plays only...
00:15:55.682 --> 00:16:50.173
short solo very easy for me at that time to follow but then also a Brazilian song composed by another harmonica player Mauricio Einhorn this one was so fast and I did not really get what's happening there took me months to really analyze and understand at first he plays the theme melody and then he starts to play random notes which somehow are related to the harmonies which are played by the rhythm section yeah it took me about one or two years until I really understood okay there is a form in jazz like A A B A or whatever which repeats over and over again and the soloist he is improvising which means inventing new melodies related to these chord schemes that are underlying the solos
00:16:50.514 --> 00:17:00.184
so in order to you know start learning jazz more seriously you're mainly a jazz chromatic player now yeah so did you you then start to study music and you know how did you get your head around playing jazz changes
00:17:00.605 --> 00:17:29.919
my guitar playing helped me playing along with Jamie Aebersold's cassette tapes later on yeah CDs but I think this was in the 1990s I bought my first CD player in 1991 when I recorded my first CD so that I was able to listen to my own album later on I and which I still use a band in a box play alongs But at that time, I also just played chords on my guitar.
00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:32.063
So I had to use both hands.
00:17:33.384 --> 00:17:40.518
I let the sound ring for a while and quickly picked up my harmonica and just tried out, okay, which...
00:17:40.930 --> 00:18:14.880
notes sound good with this chord I played another chord okay which notes sound good with that chord and so this was a very slow approach but it also helped improve my harmonic understanding and so I didn't really study from theory books I was more a practical man who wanted to be able to listen and so ear training was always first priority for me and still is even when I teach my workshop Because I think music is more for the ears than for the eyes.
00:18:15.260 --> 00:18:17.502
Of course, reading music helps.
00:18:17.983 --> 00:18:31.917
I started to read music later because if you want to communicate with other musicians, if you want to write your own music, you have to be able to write music, to read music.
00:18:32.459 --> 00:18:36.943
I think I can just close my eyes, listen to chords, and then I can follow.
00:18:36.983 --> 00:18:40.728
This is how I started, as I said before.
00:18:40.847 --> 00:18:53.020
listening to radio songs, whatever style it was, and just playing along and trying to contribute with my notes to the overall sound or to the harmony.
00:18:53.361 --> 00:19:02.431
So talking about your progression into playing with other people, you say you learned a lot from records and then jamming along with Ebersole backing tracks and all.
00:19:02.471 --> 00:19:05.934
I think you then started joining a big band over there in Germany, did you?
00:19:06.494 --> 00:19:07.155
Yes, yeah.
00:19:07.537 --> 00:19:17.727
This big band was advertising their concert in our newspaper and also noted that they are searching for other musicians.
00:19:18.127 --> 00:19:20.569
And then I said, okay, I play the harmonica.
00:19:20.609 --> 00:19:22.613
Why not attend their concert?
00:19:22.813 --> 00:19:25.816
And after that, tell them, okay, I play the harmonica.
00:19:25.875 --> 00:19:27.458
Maybe you need a solo player.
00:19:27.758 --> 00:19:33.604
And at that time, I already had picked up the trumpet, which was my third or fourth instrument.
00:19:33.805 --> 00:19:35.326
And this was also a funny story.
00:19:35.465 --> 00:19:40.751
I bought an album by Quincy Jones because Toots Tillmans was on it, Smash.
00:19:40.751 --> 00:20:01.221
water jack that they play what's going on And in this song, Freddie Hubbard is playing the trumpet.
00:20:01.661 --> 00:20:04.483
And this inspired me to pick up the trumpet.
00:20:04.943 --> 00:20:10.729
And my neighbor on the other side of the street, he was a salesperson in a music shop.
00:20:11.170 --> 00:20:16.773
And so I got discount for a cheap trumpet or a cornet, to be precise.
00:20:17.035 --> 00:20:19.616
And so I also played the trumpet.
00:20:19.957 --> 00:20:43.048
And I told this band leader of the big band, okay, I play harmonica as a soloist, but I can also play trumpet and oh yeah we need trumpet players and so this is how I started playing the trumpet in the second position of this big band of our local music school played trumpets solos and harmonica solos
00:20:43.713 --> 00:20:49.358
So how were you received as a chromatic player in a big band with all those noisy instruments?
00:20:50.160 --> 00:20:54.923
Yeah, of course, the problem is you say noisy instruments.
00:20:55.003 --> 00:21:04.632
Yeah, trumpet is noisy too, which is also the reason why I gave up after a couple of years, because if you practice, everybody in the neighborhood will hear you.
00:21:05.153 --> 00:21:10.176
So usually when they had concerts, they had a good PA system.
00:21:10.676 --> 00:21:28.016
And for the rehearsals, the big band had to play softly which is also good training for them the band leader then made them clear okay you have to play soft when the soloist is not so loud But I think it's a good feeling if you really have a good PA system.
00:21:28.415 --> 00:21:33.825
I played here in my hometown at a festival, a street festival, roughly two weeks ago.
00:21:33.865 --> 00:21:38.311
And a professional radio station was doing the PA system.
00:21:38.672 --> 00:21:41.497
And this was such a great sound behind me.
00:21:42.057 --> 00:21:42.959
Really inspiring.
00:21:43.118 --> 00:21:44.922
The big band plays behind you.
00:21:45.153 --> 00:21:50.218
You mentioned already that you released your first album in 1991, which is called Harmonicology.
00:21:50.858 --> 00:21:50.999
Right.
00:21:51.038 --> 00:21:52.400
How did you put this together?
00:21:52.420 --> 00:21:54.321
And then, you know, who did you make the album with?
00:21:54.662 --> 00:21:55.002
From that
00:21:55.103 --> 00:21:55.762
big band.
00:21:56.144 --> 00:22:03.349
One of them was a piano player who studied jazz piano at the Swiss Bern School after.
00:22:03.369 --> 00:22:09.795
And so he had a small combo, like he on piano, a bass player, a drummer.
00:22:10.155 --> 00:22:12.478
And then he asked me if I can join.
00:22:12.738 --> 00:22:15.119
At first, it was more Dixieland and Switzerland.
00:22:15.119 --> 00:22:50.278
but then when he started studying in Bern it was mainstream jazz so we went to some jam sessions also and there I met Wolfgang Mayer who was a teacher for jazz music at a conservatory here in Mannheim we worked together and then the idea came up okay I have to somehow document my music also for myself not necessarily to make money because actually I never made money with releasing albums I knew it's like a name card to get into the business.
00:22:51.159 --> 00:22:53.961
This was a very expensive adventure for me.
00:22:54.041 --> 00:23:00.028
But yeah, he suggested Stefan Schmolk on the bass, Patrick Schimanski, a drummer.
00:23:00.228 --> 00:23:11.359
This was quite an interesting selection because these musicians were not really mainstream jazz musicians, but more into modern jazz and experimental jazz.
00:23:11.861 --> 00:23:14.903
And so we did the arrangements together.
00:23:15.023 --> 00:23:23.672
and they really were very creative in a way which I was not used to what someone can do with your songs.
00:23:24.112 --> 00:23:34.480
And this was quite an interesting experience, and especially for my first album, that it contained some free elements, not just mainstream jazz or swing music.
00:23:34.961 --> 00:23:43.829
Yeah, I noticed on the song for Viola that you're attacking the notes quite hard on that one.
00:23:43.930 --> 00:23:50.777
Viola guitar solo
00:23:53.442 --> 00:25:12.114
yeah yeah at that time I also it was a learning process to record albums at that time I was so naive and unexperienced actually I was the band leader but I was not really in a leading function because I never learned to be a leader in a band this was my first experience and so I was quite happy that the band the musicians in that band themselves they were able to contribute and bring in their ideas and I was very easy going with them and say yeah yeah that's a good idea so i was not very critical which was good for the music but i should have been more critical about the technical situation in the studio because at that time i thought okay you go to the studio and the sound engineer he knows what to do of course he knows but they don't have so much experience with harmonica and especially not with chromatic harmonica and so they positioned a condenser microphone in front of me 10 centimeters distance and record it and I was not happy and I'm still not happy with the sound on this first of my albums because it's so thin At that time when I played live, I already had my Shure SM58 microphone in my hand.
00:25:12.515 --> 00:25:19.104
And as I had seen how Toots did it, so I had a really warm sound in my live playing.
00:25:19.223 --> 00:25:24.290
But then in the studio when I listened to the tracks, I thought, oh, what's going on here?
00:25:24.330 --> 00:25:25.451
My sound is so thin.
00:25:25.972 --> 00:25:27.555
We have a very good microphone.
00:25:27.736 --> 00:25:31.240
I think it was AKG or Neumann or Bayer or whatever.
00:25:31.461 --> 00:25:32.402
Very expensive.
00:25:32.673 --> 00:25:34.816
But it was not really my sound.
00:25:34.915 --> 00:25:40.340
My sound is warm and also there were a lot of side noises on the recordings.
00:25:40.941 --> 00:25:44.064
Only after a while I realized why that happened.
00:25:44.403 --> 00:25:55.133
The condenser mic, as good as it is, it's very sensitive and it picks up all the noises which usually are not recorded when I hold my microphone in my hand.
00:25:55.554 --> 00:26:17.915
And by holding it, I cup it, I isolate it against all the side noises like the slider, click, the air streaming out of my nostrils and all this was on the recording and they tried to remove it as good as it was possible with all technical tricks but still it was not my sound.
00:26:18.396 --> 00:26:22.060
So and subsequent albums have you used a handheld microphone?
00:26:22.201 --> 00:26:56.897
Yes and nowadays I'm more self-confident to tell recording engineers whom I don't know so sometimes I go to the same studio and they know already okay i bring my own microphone i also have a foam wrapped around the bowl so that it's a little bit softer in the sound yeah they know and they accept it but in other studios sometimes they really try to convince me oh this is a three thousand dollar microphone and it's so good it might be good for what they
00:26:57.077 --> 00:27:04.884
usually record but it's not good for me and then in the 90s you you've you started doing what you've done lots of which is traveling and you went across to the USA.
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