Larry Adler Discusses Mouth Organ Music

Press, Volume C, Issue 29566, 15 July 1961, Page 13

Larry Adler Discusses Mouth Organ Music

The reason he was the only mouth organ player of international repute, compared with scores of pianists and violinists, was that the mouth organ as a solo instrument had a tradition of only 33 years, said Mr Larry Adler in Christchurch yesterday. Mr Adler, agreeing with a reporter that he was the only mouth organ player known the world over, said that other musical instruments had traditions of hundreds of years behind them.

“The mouth organ, as a solo instrument, started with me in 1929. There have been, and are, quite a few other players well known in their respective countries, Germany, France and England. “I think I am the only internationally known player because I was the first to take the mouth organ seriously as a musical instrument; certainly the first to regard it as a symphonic instrument. “I first played as a soloist in a symphony with the Sydney Symphonic Orchestra in 1939. That is what I have always wanted, a two-hour recital on the architecture of music with the mouth organ, rather than a spot in variety or 40 minutes in a night club. "And that is what I am doing now, though I occasionally appear in a revue or a night club,” said Mr Adler. Limitations “The mouth organ is limited; it has a lot of limitations, make no mistake about that. I started with the mouth organ, with no musical background at all, by a fluke as the result of a newspaper competition in America when I was 14.

"But the mouth organ has always been the medium through which I can express musically what is inside me. It is not the technical skill, although that is necessary; it is the expressing of what is inside the man.”

Many persons playing the mouth organ tried to imitate him. He considered that was completely wrong, said Mr Adler. “I always tell them to play as though I never existed.

“I have some regrets at not teaching pupils to play. I know of only one outstanding mouth organ teacher. Chamber Huand, a Chinese now in New York, whom I first met years ago. He is an excellent player and teacher.” Asked whether he thought his ability and reputation would give the harmonica a lasting place in music on the level which he had placed it, Mr Adler said he was really a “musical freak. . . . "I think when I am going

to be long enough in one place, I will take pupils. 1 give tips and coaching, of course, whenever and wherever possible. I had a man from Palmerston North at a rehearsal there, and 1 am meeting harmonica band players at a reception here. One band is coming from 200 miles, I am told. Permanent Place “I think that the mouth organ in serious music will have a permanent place, if only because musicians like Vaughan Williams have written symphonies and works for it. You would hardly expect musicians of his calibre to write specially for me if they thought their compositions would only be played by me and then fritter away.”

Mr Adler said that the writing of his autobiography well, so that it was a really good book, was an ambition that occupied half his mind. “1 have a really good contract with famous American publishers, and I will not have it ‘ghost written.’ I am determined to finish it. Perhaps it would be better if my patient publishers set a deadline.

“Or, as John Steinbeck told me, if my publishers asked me to refund their handsome advance on the book—that, says John Steinbeck, really gets a book finished.”