Jean "Toots" Thielemans

Jean "Toots" Thielemans` status as the pre-eminent harmonica player in jazz and pop is no secret to music enthusiasts.

His collaborators have included such jazz greats as Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Jaco Pastorius and Quincy Jones, who called Thielemans "one of the greatest musicians of our time." Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon are just a few of the other luminaries who have happily had him perform on their albums.

What is surprising, though, is that his biggest group of listeners - which number in the millions each week - probably couldn`t name this professorial-looking Belgian musician on a bet.

"I follow the telephone; when it rings, I work," said Thielemans, whose lyrical harmonica playing has graced the theme song to TV`s most popular children`s show, "Sesame Street," since it debuted in 1969.

"I never had any management," he continued, speaking prior to a Hollywood Bowl concert. "It`s not by choice; it`s that, somehow, nobody was really interested in managing me. But, in all the years I`ve been in the business, I`ve always had enough calls."

Those calls have also come from filmmakers (that`s him playing on dozens of scores, including "Midnight Cowboy" and "The Wiz"), and jingle writers for TV commercials (his credits range from Old Spice to Firestone tires).

Still robust at 78, Thielemans (pronounced TEEL-mahn) performed a pair of concerts at the La Jolla (Calif.) Athenaeum Music & Arts Library. He was accompanied by New York pianist Kenny Werner, who is featured on his new album "The Live Takes, Volume One." Both shows sold out soon after going on sale.

Revered by his fellow musicians, Thielemans is able to play virtually any style with authority, and can almost effortlessly execute even the most intricate and technically challenging passages.

"Actually, what I play is harder to think of than to play," he noted.

"I aim for what plays well on the instrument. And, if I come across a hurdle, I change the phrasing. But, you can take the contents of a Charlie Parker (saxophone) chorus, or a bebop progression, and you don`t have to play it like a saxophone. You can suggest the changes over different rhythms. Because there are some things that cannot be played on the harmonica. And, if you try to play them, it sounds like a toy. It`s as simple as that."

He laughed.

"I went through a long period like all the young musicians on any instrument, (who) want to show technique, technique, technique: `Look at me!`" he said, laughing again.

"Of course, everybody goes through that. But, with maturity, you want to clean up the act. I have great admiration for Stevie Wonder as a harmonica player. He`s the one that makes me go for the notes and emotion, not the number of notes."

Thielemans` instrumental command is so great that jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown once marveled in the 1950s: "Toots, the way you play the harmonica, they should not call it a `miscellaneous instrument.`"

It was a prophetic statement, in a manner, since Thielemans has consistently won "Miscellaneous Instrumentalist of the Year" honors in Downbeat magazine`s annual critics` and readers` polls.

`LIKE DESTINY`

His first instrument - also relegated to "miscellaneous" status - was the accordion, which he started playing at age 3 in his native Brussels. He took up harmonica a short while later.

But, it was as a guitarist that Thielemans first made his professional debut, in the mid-1940s. It was then that he became a regular at the Brussels nightclub Ma Maison, where he performed with French singing legend Edith Piaff and jazz violin star Stephane Grappelli.

"It was like destiny," Thielemans recalled.

"Larry Adler (the pioneering classical music harmonica player) brought the instrument to my attention, and I respect what he did. But, my feelings took me someplace else, and what I tried to express on the harmonica were things I didn`t hear played by other people. I went after the music of my jazz heroes - Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli."

But, becoming the first jazz harmonica practitioner of note wasn`t easy, if simply because of the unique technical challenges the instrument presented.

"I just tried to squeeze myself in and adapt," Thielemans said. "Because the harmonica is a freakish instrument, in the sense that some notes are inhaled and some notes are exhaled, and that`s a problem you have to face. You cannot mechanically play a legato phrase - one note in and one note out - because there`s a human separation between the notes. By practicing and meditating enough, I got some kind of vocabulary on the instrument."

In 1950, Thielemans undertook a star-making tour of Europe with Benny Goodman, and first played with bebop sax king Parker in Sweden later that same year.

In 1952, he moved from Brussels to New York, where he began a six-year stint as the harmonica player and guitarist in pianist George Shearing`s quintet.

Thielemans scored an international hit in 1961 with his infectious instrumental composition "Bluesette." The song, which featured him simultaneously playing guitar and whistling, has since been recorded by more than 100 other artists.

Since then, he has twice been honored on commemorative postal stamps in Belgium. He continues to perform and record because he loves music so much.

"In the more recent years," Thielemans said, "it seems I get more and more comments from listeners along the lines of: `Oh, you made me cry.` I cry myself, and that may be maturity. I still look for the notes, but not all the notes, unless the audience thinks: `Oh, you can`t play,` and then it`s: `Get out of my way! I`ll show you!` My motto to describe my sound and my music is: `Between a smile and a tear.`"

(c) Copley News Service

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Author: George Varga