Harpin' on

>> Master harmonicist Howard Levy blows over Montreal

by CHRIS BARRY

Few would argue that there is anything worse than talking to a serious musician about music. Or about most things, for that matter. Try as you might to bring the subject around to something remotely interesting, for these guys the world revolves around reeds, guitar strings and the thrill associated with running up and down a chromatic scale at lightning speed on a vintage oboe.

Howard Levy is a serious musician. The real deal. Widely regarded as the greatest harp player this side of Larry Adler, Levy, as a founding and defining member of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, brought a whole new dimension to the harmonica by pioneering a technique called "overblowing" which, essentially, has the effect of making a diatonic harp wail like a chromatic instrument. A pretty cool accomplishment to be sure, and a pleasure to listen to, but something only the sales help at Steve's Music Store would want to talk about at any length. The Mirror spoke to Levy last week in an inspired effort to coax the trivial out of this truly exceptional artist.



Mirror: At these harmonica workshops that you sometimes hold before your gigs, do you get a lot of assholes who come with the intention of trying to show you up?

Howard Levy: I suppose so, but I don't worry about it very much. Most people know who I am so I don't run into attitude very often. Besides, if somebody comes who can actually show me something I don't already know, then that's great.

M: Does that happen very often?

HL: No. Have you ever heard me play?

M: Well, yeah... Sure, uh--

HL: (proceeds to play over the phone) Honk, honk, honk!

M: Howard! Howard! I get it, yeah, yeah, I've heard you.

HL: Honk, honk, honk! (five minutes later) You see, so what I'm doing is I'm visualizing the notes as if they were on a keyboard and--

M: Yeah, that's great. Sounds like a horn. So the general consensus is that Bela Fleck and the Flecktones have never really recovered since you left the group back in the mid-'90s. You guys had a pretty sweet thing going there for a while. What inspired you to leave such a commercially and artistically successful endeavour?

HL: I've been writing my own music since I was eight years old and have a very strong sense of who I am musically, and I just needed to branch out after a while. It hurt me financially to leave but, spiritually and musically, it had reached a point of diminishing returns.

M: Over the years you've appeared on about three billion pop records, with artists as diverse as Paul Simon, Styx and Dolly Parton. Is Dolly the slu--

HL: (interrupting) Dolly is just great. One of the smartest people I've ever known.

M: Really?

HL: Yeah, and a great cook too. Great fried green tomatoes.

M: I'll bet. I guess you end up spending a lot of time with musicians. Did you ever notice they can get boring after a while?

HL: No. I like spending time with smart people. Whoever they might be.

M: You mean people like Dolly Parton?

HL: Yes, like Dolly Parton.

With the Greg Amirault Trio at Petit Campus on Sunday, April 29, 9pm, $10. Levy conducts a workshop the same night at 7:30pm, $25 (includes admission to show)