Here's something cool...
Sorry for the crosspost, but some folks don't view the chromatic forum...
If any of you saw the New Year's Eve Times Square celebration this year, you might have seen Sting perform "Brand New Day" on stage with a young chromatic harmonica player named Shane Sager. If you didn't see it, you can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alu-XPPytXg
Probably even cooler, though, is a session that Shane had with Sting back in 2016 in Sting's home music room. Shane was asked by his band leader if he could perform for Sting. Sting wanted to know if Shane (a diatonic player performing in the Boston area) could play chromatic for him. Shane said he had three months to learn the chromatic harp from scratch to prepare for this meeting. You can watch the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlSULz9mkzs
You can see that Shane is obviously hesitant and a little intimidated (who wouldn't be) at the start of the session, but Sting coaxes him along and by the end, Shane is playing pretty confidently with the legend. Sting later asked Shane to work more with him on the road. For "Brand New Day", Shane replaced none other than the chromatic master himself -- Stevie Wonder! What a cool path!
Enjoy!
He looks familiar. Can't help wondering how he kept the mouthpiece from sticking to his lips in that cold weather after taking the harmonica out of his mouth for several seconds at a time.
It was a little warmer than it looked, Winslow. I had an old friend working lighting that night. He said it was in the upper 40s, but raining cats and dogs. He said he was amazed they didn't have any slip and falls on stage as it was a big sheet of water.
Times Square on New Years Eve is a crap shoot. I was there for the Millennium celebration and we froze our butts off! Windy, too. You have to get there early and you can't leave, so you gotta be prepared! Of course, when the ball dropped the night of 1999, we were more worried the earth was going to explode (or at least Times Square would) when the clock hit midnight!
Very neat!
Thanks for sharing this!