I got an invitation from a harmonica player named Harmonica Boris, who’s based in Ekaterinburg, Russia, to listen to a solo piece of his called “Ad Libitum” at his Myspace page.  I checked it out tonight, and man is it cool stuff.  The playing is great–precise execution coupled with a beautiful tone and a very wide understanding of the sounds a harmonica can make.  The structure has a very improvisatory feel–it’s obviously inspired by free jazz players like Archie Shepp and John Coltrane, and it extends their vocabulary to embrace the harp in all its forms.  All in all, it’s a dazzling 2+ minutes of solo harmonica.

This is some great, original work, and if you’re into taking the harp farther, you ought to go check out Harmonica Boris’s MySpace site.  Just do a search on Harmonica_Boris in Myspace Music.  (Don’t forget the underbar.)