Walter Issaacson

Walter Wilhelm Gieseking (5 November 1895 – 26 October 1956) was a German pianist and composer.

An expert in the delicate art of miniature, Walter Gieseking excelled in short evocative pieces in which his technical mastery and unique sensitivity worked wonders. The numerous albums of Lyric Pieces by Edvard Grieg were a constant source of inspiration for him: he recorded some selections on many occasions, and added excerpts to his concert programs with the same enthusiasm. This album includes the complete set recorded at the very end of his life, coupled with some earlier renditions from the 1948 sessions.

The album we have here is interesting, even great at times. It is made up of never before released material which, given Horton’s meager output, makes it important by that count alone. Here is Horton doing a spirited instrumental on Big Walter’s Boogie, then steaming in with Hard Hearted Woman, his rough-edged voice and the solid beat exactly what you’d hear in raucous blues clubs on Chicago’s southside, the band trying to overpower a hard-drinking audience.
There are a number of other songs you’re going to like, and you’ll like Walter Horton, something he never seemed to understand. He was oddly unbelieving in himself, despite being held in such high esteem by his contemporaries and by hordes of European rock stars of the sixties and seventies, who were themselves worshipped, but knelt in awe of this quiet, gentle man from Mississippi…

Big Walter Horton was one of the key architects of modern blues harmonica. Blues legend Willie Dixon referred to him as "the best harmonica player I ever heard." Along with Little Walter Jacobs and Sonny Boy Williamson II, he is considered to be one of the most influential harpists ever. He was capable of both intense power and fragile delicacy, often in the same song. He was endlessly melodically adventurous, and always unpredictable. His only Alligator Records album, - "Big Walter Horton With Carey Bell", came out in 1972. It paired him with his young protégé, who had played under Walter's tutelage since Bell's arrival in Chicago. Walter's long-time partner Eddie Taylor joined them on guitar. It was Alligator's second-ever release, and received widespread critical acclaim, especially for the fiery harp duets that pitted the two harmonica masters against one another.

It is no exaggeration to call Little Walter the Jimi Hendrix of the electric harp: he redefined what the instrument was and what it could do, pushing the instrument so far into the future that his music still sounds modern decades after it was recorded. Little Walter wasn't the first musician to amplify the harmonica but he arguably was the first to make the harp sound electric, twisting twitching, vibrant runs out of his instrument; nearly stealing the show from Muddy Waters on his earliest Chess recordings; and so impressing Leonard Chess that he made Muddy keep Walter as his harpist even after Waters broke up his band. Chess also made Walter into his studio's house harpist and started to release Little Walter solo records with the instrumental "Juke" in 1952. "Juke" became a smash hit and turned Little Walter into a star, making him a steady presence on the '50s R&B charts.

If there's a blues harmonica player alive today who doesn't have a copy of this landmark album in their collection, they're either lying or had their copy of it stolen by another harmonica player. This 12-song collection is the one that every harmonica player across the board cut their teeth on…

The band Steely Dan - in essence the musicianship and songwriting team of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen - has long divided the critics : some have marvelled at a highly imaginative blend of intelligent, "literary" lyrics and a carefully crafted influence of jazz and Latin rhythms within the rock template, whilst others have detected a certain coldness in the work, due perhaps to over-elaboration and perfectionism. Of course, deciding to name your b.nd after a dildo in William Burroughs's cult novel Th Naked Lunch will invite criticism , but none of those who questioned Steely Dan's Status at the top of the tree of 70s rock could ever seriously dispute the immaculate execution of their vision.