Scott Henderson Discussion

muddytrane · Joined: 18 May 2016 Posts: 55 Location: Herndon, VA

One of the greats has just passed away. Toots Thielemans, MASTER of the harmonica was 94 years young. If you want to hear one of the masters of his instrument, listen to Toots play his legendary harmonica. Not only could he play EVERYTHING, he played it with such passion and tone that anytime you heard him playing, you knew it was Toots. Lyrically he was amazing to hear and as a big fan of blues harp players, when I first heard Toots I was blown away. There wasn't a tune or genre he couldn't play. There will never be another Toots! RIP Toots.

BS · Joined: 27 Jul 2016 Posts: 32

To me it seems like Toots Thieleman was a very natural talent, a bit like Wes. It didn’t matter if he played guitar, harmonica or whistled, his ability to phrase a line perfectly seemed to never fail him. One of the greats!

harmonicator · Joined: 23 Jun 2004 Posts: 20

RIP Toots. Beautiful player.

I was watching a YT of him and Jaco play a duo-version of 3 Views yesterday and something sounded slightly familiar. It reminded me of another song...a quick investigation determined it was Revenge Stew!

Any connection or inspiration there? Other than the harmonica sound?

Scott Henderson · The Man Joined: 20 May 2004 Posts: 2124

Toots inspired me every time I heard him, but there’s no way a synth could even come close to his tone. He was such an amazing musician, one of the true masters of phrasing and melody, not to mention being a seriously gifted multi-instrumentalist. I answered in a previous post that his concert with Kenny Werner was one of the best concerts I’ve seen in my life. Joe Zawinul was a hard guy to impress, but he had a lot of respect for Toots, and he’s one of the only musicians I ever heard Joe rave about besides Wayne Shorter. Of course Toots played on many albums, but one of my favorite modern ones is Jaco’s Word Of Mouth. Toots added such a beautiful dimension to that record, and to me he was the star of the show.

Also in a previous post, I mentioned talking to the audience and making them feel comfortable. Toots was a wonderful host at his shows and made people feel like they were sitting in his living room. He was absolutely one of the giants of jazz.