Harmonicopia
Artist: Jay Gaunt 
Label: Independent 
Time: 12 tracks / 49 mins

What a find! It’s rare enough to find a harmonica player who has a good gut feel for music, who can make a sound that is quite his own, and can find the right grizzled blues musicians to hang around with. When that player is still in his teens and on his second release, he is someone to stand up and take notice of.

That said, forget his age. This would be class music from a sixty-year-old. Gaunt has a relaxed style that mixes classics, the traditional and his own compositions into a smooth, personal set of tunes (and many are just tunes, with vocals only on central block of four blues tracks plus a version of Peter Green’s “Rattlesnake Shake”).

The title rightly suggests variety and the instrument sometimes evokes the feel of a lonely cowboy playing to the background of the Wild West (especially on the mellow, self-penned “Misty Muse”), but Gaunt is backed by a highly accomplished set of players, each with one and a half feet standing in the blues. Add to this a mix put together in the late Willie Mitchell’s studio, with some gutsy horn work, and you might get a taste of the heady mix here.

Crowds of musicians have covered Muddy Waters’ “Louisiana Blues,” but this is an outstanding account that allows Gaunt to both add fills to the vocal section and end with a superb solo. Victor Wainwright’s gruff vocals also do a fine job, but it is the electric washboard that sets it off with its phased funk - a sound that pops up again on “Rattlesnake Shake.”

“Greensleeves” is a little on the rim of this disc’s solar system, but it is a great tune given a winsome treatment, laid over a smooth jazz piano backing and washed with harp (the classical sort). Some may find it lacking in edge, but it complements the other tracks well. 

Elsewhere, Gaunt re-interprets “Easy Rider,” keeping the spirit of the original, but making it his own, with help from an inventive string arrangement. A light funk is rarely far from the surface and the 5/4 time on “Wonder Boy” gives it a nice kick and takes it in a jazzier direction - as does the opener, a sprightly take on Eddie Harris’s “Listen Here.” On “Double Trouble,” one of the four memorable and melodic compositions he wrote with Kathy Shepherd, he trades licks with another harmonica player, Brandon Bailey.

The strings and horns give this quite unique disc a polish, but don’t buff out the spirit. This varied, but cohesive, and unashamedly musical set stands continued playing and bathes some well-known material in unusual shades of light. If this sounds at all appealing to you, it could be a real regular in your player. Recommended.

Derek Walker