The harmonica is the Rodney Dangerfield of musical instruments: It don`t get no respect.
If that classic ad were true that ”they all laughed when I sat down at the piano,” just mention the harmonica for an even stronger reaction.
Many consider it a dimestore toy, on about the same level as the kazoo. And people look so funny playing it, as though they`re trying to inhale a metallic candy bar lengthwise in one gulp.
The harmonica, along with the tuba and the accordion, is probably one of the most disparaged instruments.
”Some people look at it as a toy,” said Dick Zapf, president of the Windy City Harmonica Club. ”It`s not a toy, it`s a (legitimate) musical instrument. If people could hear professional harmonica players, they`d hear some fantastic music.”
Every Wednesday night at the First Congregational Church school building in Elmhurst, Zapf meets with 30 to 40 other harmonica enthusiasts to hone his skill on the mouth harp. The mostly male crowd is lively and friendly; the air is filled with almost as many wisecracks as harmonica notes.
”You should have been here earlier when we were electing our officers,” one says to a visitor. ”We sounded like a Teamsters` meeting.”
Another introduces their harmonica orchestra: ”We call ourselves The Harmonica Gentlemen . . . and not a gentleman in the group.”
Off in a corner, three men stand huddled together, playing at breakneck speed. They`re the Vic Bel Trio, who have been playing together for seven years. Vic Beltoya, for whom the group is named, and Walter Pederman are from Kenosha, Wis. They, along with their bass harmonica player, Ray Gardner, drive down to the club every other week. Gardner drives almost as far; he lives in Zion, near the Wisconsin border.
”How long have I been playing? When was Abraham Lincoln born?” Beltoya jokes. ”I`ve been playing about 55 years.”
”I`ve been playing since I was 3,” says Gardner, 53. ”I was one of those that just picked it up and just started playing it.”
”I`ve been playing the harmonica since I was 8,” adds Pederman. ”I`m 35 now.”
Pederman, who plays the two-foot long, two-tiered chromatic harmonica, is unquestionably the youngest man in the room.
”I got a harmonica in my Christmas stocking,” he says. ”My dad says,
`When you can play six songs on it, I`ll get you another one.` So I picked it up, and it just happened.”
”I learned how to play the stocking,” Beltoya chimes in.
Zapf admits that he also began to play the harmonica when he was a little kid.
”Maybe you`ve noticed that I play it backwards,” he says. ”That`s because the guy who was teaching me was facing me, and I was playing the mirror image of what he was doing. But there`s a lot of famous harmonica players who play backwards, or upside down, or whatever you want to call it. When I started out, I must have been 8 or 10 years old. I played an old dimestore harmonica. And then years later, when I retired from my job, I decided I wanted to learn how to read music, so I took lessons.”
Zapf turns toward the trio. ”Play the `Orange Blossom Special,”` he urges them. He`s like a proud father showing off his children.
”That`s a song that was originally written for a fiddle,” he explains.
”It`s about a train called the Orange Blossom Special. You hear the train when they play. It goes roaring up and down the mountain. Let `er go!”
And as the trio performs, one can actually hear the train: the rhythmic chugging of wheels, the wailing of the whistle. They play at an impossibly fast tempo, as though the song was a runaway train no one could catch.
Why travel all the way to Du Page County for a harmonica club?
”The thing is, all these guys got the same common goal: They understand the love and the joy that there is in playing the harmonica,” says Pederman. ”It`s a dedication, thoroughly, from beginning to end. It`s neat. It`s a part of me.”
”I travel all the way down here just for the privilege of playing with Al Fiore,” says Beltoya, referring to the club`s musical director. ”Let`s face it. Al is Mr. Harmonica.”
The name fits well: Fiore made his living for 45 years as a member of the Harmonicats, a harmonica trio that performed throughout the world. They recorded their 1947 hit ”Peg O My Heart” in a studio on the top floor of the Civic Opera House. It grabbed the public`s fancy and sold more than 22 million copies, catapulting the group into fame.
”We traveled all over the world,” says Fiore. ”The list of names of all the big stars we worked with goes on for three or four pages. It just goes on and on and on. We were the opening act, the closing act. . . . The last big name star we worked with was Bill Cosby. We opened for him. He enjoyed us.
”Almost anybody you can name, we worked with. Bob Hope. Perry Como. Sinatra. Ella Fitzgerald; she plays the harmonica too, you know, a little jazz harmonica. Our group got to play with all the big names because we were hot at the time.
”I`m very glad that we got in at the tail end of vaudeville,” he adds.
”We used to play 45 to 50 weeks of vaudeville theaters without repeating a theater. Because every city, every little town, had a vaudeville show, either on the weekend or for a full week. There`d be different groups performing, different acts. We also played at Radio City Music Hall several times and at the Roxy in New York.”
Fiore collects antique harmonicas. He owns more than a dozen.
”They`re pretty rare,” he says. ”A lot of people just take harmonicas and throw them out. They don`t realize what their value is. I go to antique stores and flea markets sometimes to find them. I collect the odd ones.”
Some of the more unusual harmonicas Fiore owns are a pipeolion, which has 10 little trumpet-like horns extending from it, and a University Chimes harmonica, which has a bell on top to be struck during playing. Fiore demonstrates the rollmonica, which works on the same principle as the player piano.
”It`s at least 80 years old,” he says. He blows into the instrument, which looks a little like a modern-day viewfinder, while turning a handle on the side. It produces a harmonica tune. Fiore then opens the instrument to reveal a tiny paper roll inside, much like a miniature player piano roll.
The not-for-profit club was founded in 1984 by the late Julian Hall, a well-known harmonica enthusiast and teacher. The word went out that a harmonica club might be starting, and 40 interested people showed up for the first meeting. They began meeting weekly at a number of different locations before finally settling on the school building in Elmhurst.
The club has all levels of players, from beginners to intermediate to advanced.
”We have several teachers who will teach the harmonica from the letter A,” says Fiore. ”We don`t turn anybody down. And it doesn`t cost them anything. We don`t charge. If they want to donate a dollar toward the rental of the rooms for the night, they can. We take up a collection. But if they can`t afford it, that`s fine too. If they want to learn, we`ll teach them.”
Last October, the club received an award from the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica (SPAH) for their efforts.
”They`re one of the most musically advanced harmonica clubs in the nation,” said Gordon Mitchell of Troy, Mich., president of SPAH, which is also headquartered in Troy.. ”They have a fine harmonica orchestra. They`ve performed at our annual convention several times. We awarded the trophy for their advanced endeavors with the harmonica and for their advancement of the instrument.”
Although SPAH`s yearly convention is traditionally held in Detroit, the Windy City Harmonica Club will host the convention at the Hyatt Regency in Oak Brook this summer.
”We`ll hold it from Aug. 25 through the 29,” Fiore says. ”This will be the first time in Chicago. About 700 people will attend-harmonica players from all over the United States and possibly Europe, too.”
”They don`t have the facilities in Detroit like we do in Du Page,” Zapf adds. ”In Oak Brook, people can go to all the different ethnic restaurants around here. And we can also arrange for tours downtown to the Art Institute, the Field Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry. It`d be fantastic.”
In addition to playing at harmonica conventions, the club occasionally gives concerts for church groups, community organizations and other clubs. The men dress in black tuxedos and red bow ties and play behind red and white music stands. They specialize in the Big Band sound; one almost expects bubbles to appear behind them when they play, a la Lawrence Welk.
”We did a show up in Milwaukee for the Shriners; it was their installation night,” Fiore recalls. ”We had about 50 men playing in the orchestra, and our last number was `The Stars and Stripes Forever.` Well, during our rehearsal earlier, I had noticed they had a bunch of American flags backstage, just behind the curtain. So I asked the stage manager if we could use them during a number. There must have been at least a dozen flags up there, big ones, on stands. So when we began playing `The Stars and Stripes Forever,` I gave the cue, the curtains opened up, and all these beautiful flags were waving, because they had a couple of big fans blowing at them.
”The people went wild. They stood up, yelled and cheered, clapped. In fact, the Head Potentate came up to me later. He said, `You guys made me cry. I thought it was so beautiful.` They never expected John Philip Sousa from the harmonica.”
Some concerts are impromptu. Every Wednesday night, for seven years, the club has adjourned to a local restaurant after their meeting.
”Our table is always ready for us,” says Fiore. ”We sit, we talk, we laugh. It`s a social thing.
”One night we walked in, and all of a sudden, we heard these beautiful voices singing.”
It was a Sweet Adelines group. Fiore told the men to sneak back out to their cars to get their harmonicas. When the women finished singing, everyone in the restaurant applauded. Then, in response, the men put on a mini-performance, serenading the women with harmonica tunes.
”It was just a big party,” says Fiore. ”Everybody was enjoying themselves. It was like a New Year`s Eve party. We had a lot of fun.”
Jan Hodler, a charter member, is one of the few women who attends the club. She travels from Zion, making the hundred-mile round trip every other week.
”There used to be three women in the club,” she says. ”One moved away, and the other one`s husband got ill. I almost quit, but then I thought, no, I`m gonna hang on for a while. I`ve been playing the harmonica for six or seven years now.”
Hodler plays in the intermediate group.
”One thing I really like is the friendliness of the club,” she says.
”If somebody makes a mistake, nobody`s critical. Nobody puts anybody down. It`s just teamwork. It`s truly like a family away from home. They`re just wonderful people here. And between them, and loving the music and the challenge of continuing to work on the harmonica, that`s kept me here.
”They`re all gentlemen. They treat a lady like a lady. They`re very respectful. … But I do wish there`d be more women in the club.”
Across the hall from the roomful of men sweetly playing ”Rhapsody in Blue” is another group in session. A dozen or so men in various types of dress such as blue jeans, T-shirts, black leather, ponytails and earrings are sitting in a circle, each one seemingly playing a different song, all at the same time. Most of them appear to be in their 20s and 30s. One of the leaders of the group, Buzz Krantz, glances up as a visitor walks into the room.
”Welcome to harmonica hell!” he roars, then gives his trademark hearty laugh.
This is the blues group. Although the men are playing the same instrument as the Harmonica Gentlemen in the other room, the sound is altogether different. Moving from the Big Band/Lawrence Welk sound into the plaintive wailing and howling of the blues makes one wonder if these musicians are on the same planet, let alone the same galaxy.
Although Krantz hates the comparison, he looks exactly like Jerry Garcia, lead singer of the Grateful Dead. Dressed in jeans, a black leather vest and T-shirt, he has long hair, graying beard, glasses and three earrings in his left ear.
”I look much more like David Bowie,” he jokes.
He and Joe Filisko, a blond, ponytailed man who plays an acoustic steel guitar in the class, appear to be co-teachers.
”He teaches me things, I teach him things,” Krantz says. ”Joe teaches me things, because he`ll go away with something I taught him and come back and play it differently. A guy told me once, if you steal something from somebody and you play it and you make a mistake on it, then it`s a mistake. He says, the second time you play it and you make a mistake, it`s jazz. The third time you do it, it`s your own style.”
Krantz laughs his hearty laugh again.
”There`s all kinds of benefits to being in the club,” he continues.
”First of all, the companionship of these guys. They`re all very friendly. We have a good time together. We`re here not only to play harmonicas, but for the companionship. And then there`s the learning. I`ve been playing the harmonica for the past 30 years, and in the last three years, since I joined the club, I`ve learned more. And as time progresses, I get more serious; it`s becoming an obsession. That`s because I`m getting a little better. I never thought I could be as good as I am now. That`s because I`m hanging around with people who really know what they`re doing and it`s helping me. It`s inspiring.”
Filisko has been playing the harmonica for only a year and a half. But already he`s occasionally teaching the blues class and gives private harmonica lessons on the side. Filisko also creates custom-made harmonicas and rebuilds old ones.
”I`ve been involved with music for probably about 10 years,” he says.
”The harmonica is a recent development. I picked it up really quickly. The harmonica has incredible potential. It`s so small, it fits right in your pocket. Yet it can purr like a kitten or scream like a lion. That`s definitely one of the things that attracts me to it.”
Filisko and Krantz name popular musicians who play, or played, the harmonica: Stevie Wonder. Bob Dylan. Canned Heat. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. John Sebastian of the Loving Spoonful. Muddy Waters.
”Yet the harmonica still has a bad reputation,” Filisko complains.
”People associate it with hillbillies and beer-drinking Germans and just the fact that, 30 or 40 years ago, anyone could buy one for a quarter.
”You know, three years ago, when I first walked into this club, I had a grin on my face. And when I left, my jaw hurt, from smiling so much. For all week, I had that grin. And when it was time to come back, my grin was getting bigger instead of going away. I don`t think I`ve missed any more than maybe five meetings, since I started.”
And the grin still hasn`t left.
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For more information on the Windy City Harmonica Club, call Dick Zapf at 708-352-4920. Meetings are held in the First Congregational Church school building, 235 S. Kenilworth Ave., Elmhurst.
