The podcast that profiles great harmonica players and technicians from around the world

Chromatic Harmonica Episodes

These players play a significant amount of chromatic harmonica
Jan. 5, 2024

Neil Warren interview

Tom Ellis interviews Neil Warren on episode 101 (oh, that’s me). Neil started out playing blues harmonica in his hometown of Blackburn (with it’s 4000 holes). He progressed into learning jazz, taking jazz chromatic lessons ...

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Nov. 2, 2023

Vitor Lopes interview

Vitor Lopes joins me on episode 97. He is a Brazilian chromatic player who specialises in Choro music. Vitor tells us about the history of the harmonica in Brazil, starting out when Hohner opened a factory there in 1923, whic...

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Oct. 5, 2023

Michael Rubin interview

Michael Rubin joins me on episode 95. Michael moved to Austin as a young man, initially as a blues player. He found that by diversifying the genres he played on harmonica he became much more in demand in the vibrant music sce...

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June 23, 2023

Jim Hughes interview 2

Jim Hughes joins me (again) on episode 88. Jim is a chromatic player who was last interviewed on the podcast in October 2020, back on episode 26. He is now at the grand age of 93 years young, and he shares the wisdom he has d...

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April 19, 2023

Hendrik Meurkens interview

Hendrik Meurkens joins me on episode 84. Hendrik is a German chromatic player who has been living in New York since the early 1990s. Toots Thielemans was Hendrik’s inspiration to take up the chromatic and he performed a live ...

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Feb. 10, 2023

Rocky Lok interview

Rocky Lok joins me on episode 79. Rocky lives in Hong Kong, where there is a vibrant harmonica scene. Harmonica is taught in many schools there, which is how Rocky got started playing himself almost 50 years ago. He went on t...

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Jan. 27, 2023

Marko Jovanovic interview

Marko Jovanovic joins me on episode 78. Marko is a German player with Serbian roots, from where he developed an interest in playing Balkan music on the harmonica, returning to the region to team up with several acts to releas...

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Jan. 11, 2023

Rob Paparozzi interview

Rob Paparozzi joins me on episode 77. Rob is based around the New York area where he started out playing in blues bands before quickly adding the chromatic to his harp arsenal. He took lessons with Robert Bonfiglio and then h...

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Dec. 9, 2022

Laurent Maur interview

Laurent Maur joins me on episode 75. Laurent is a jazz chromatic player from France. He first started learning diatonic before moving on to the chromatic to pursue his love of jazz music. He had some lessons with the French c...

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July 15, 2022

Joe Powers interview

Joe Powers joins me on episode 65. Joe started out playing diatonic harmonica along with blues records as a teenager, before deciding to study music composition at college, taking up the chromatic there. Joe’s passion for dan...

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June 10, 2022

Jens Bunge interview

Jens Bunge joins me on episode 63. Jens is a German chromatic player who started out playing the tremolo, before discovering Stevie Wonder. He then found Toots Thielemans and he started teaching himself jazz by ear and joined...

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April 14, 2022

Gerhard Mueller interview

Gerhard Mueller joins me on episode 59. Gerhard is the Product Manager for Hohner harmonicas, a role he has held for 28 years. His father worked as a gardener at the Hohner factory in Trossingen, and as well as getting his so...

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March 11, 2022

Mathias Heise interview

Mathias Heise joins me on episode 57. Mathias is a chromatic player from Copenhagen in Denmark. He started out playing diatonic, aged eight, before moving across to the chromatic, with which he was the first player to attend ...

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Oct. 26, 2021

Cy Leo interview

Cy Leo joins me on episode 48. Leo is from Hong Kong, where he started learning to play classical chromatic harmonica from age 6, under the direction of his father, who is an accomplished player himself, having won the ensemb...

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July 24, 2021

David Naiditch interview

David Naiditch joins me on episode 43. After starting out as a diatonic player, including having lessons with a touring Sonny Terry, David developed himself into possibly the sole exponent of playing Bluegrass music on the ch...

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