Where technology meets art

Howard Levy/Jeremy Kahn, Chicago Meeting, March 2015 – Chicago, Illinois

The harmonica in jazz is indeed a rare bird. Unusual in sound and difficult to play, it is seldomly found on jazz records. Have you ever heard a harmonica on a Blue Note session? I think not. Yet, it is common in others genres of music, such as the blues (maybe because it portable and inexpensive). But, here we have a multiple Grammy winner and true master of the harmonica, Howard Levy, playing jazz on it like nobody’s business. Another master, the pianist, Jeremy Kahn, joins him. Both are at the top of their form and play gorgeous standards as only great musicians can. The micing is minimal and gives a most natural perspective to the music. Specifically, the piano is mic’d with a KMF Audio custom-made tube, stereo microphone and the harmonica is mic’d with Howard's favorite harmonica microphone,  a Sennheiser dynamic 441, giving a warm and immediate sound to the harp. The presence of a harmonica in jazz as mentioned above is a rare occurrence, and even rarer in this case as you are hearing it directly on analog tape.