“I’ve always dreamed of reaching a point where I could retire from my day job and segue immediately into a really good blues band,” Colvin confides. “When I saw what this band was doing, I couldn’t wait any longer and decided to retire early.”

     The guitarless evening turned out to be a musical highlight for Colvin.   “Not only did it underscore what remarkable musicians I’ve teamed up with,” he says. “It also drew on all the rather divergent musical experiences I’ve accumulated over the years.”

     Colvin’s accompaniment tone and dynamics contrast strongly with his solo style. “I’m striving to blend in so well that the harmonica is more felt than heard.” In fact, he reports that occasionally audience members will tell him they can’t hear him when he is playing accompaniment. “I take that as a compliment,” Tomcat declares.

He started his musical life as a jazz drummer, playing in assorted bands and jam sessions in his native North Carolina and in New England until he discovered Paul Butterfield in 1969. Then he sold his drums and turned to the blues harp -- but his sense of rhythm still saturates his accompaniment style.

      His solo style contrasts starkly with his accompaniment style -- loud, brash and beefier. His rather wide range of dynamics comes completely from his breath control; he uses no volume controls or foot pedals. He switches frequently from accompaniment to solo style to toss in fill passages during open spaces in the lyrics.

     Lampano Alley itself has major musical ambitions, wishing to earn the reputation as “Asia’s Blues Band.” The band has created a three-year plan with three major goals: dominate the blues scene in the Philippines; move on to regular tours of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Guam; and graduate to major blues festivals in Japan, Australia, Europe Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.

     ...the audience seemed to like it too: it kept Lampano Alley on stage for an extra 30 minutes after its second hour-long set -- a total of two and a half hours of guitarless blues. To other harp players, Colvin says, "Get a singer, bassist and drummer to join you and try playing for two and a half hours. I think you’ll find it an exhilarating challenge.”

     The other band members were already assembled at 70’s Bistro, on of the significant venues for alternative music in Manila. The crowd of regulars was already gathering for the band’s weekly performance in that part of the sprawling Philippine metropolis, which is fortunately spared the chest-deep flooding that afflicts many districts during the torrential rainy season.

     The band huddled to discuss what to do. With a band composed of singer, guitar, bass, drums and harmonica, every member was considered absolutely essential. Loss of the guitarist seemed devastating, especially when faced with two hour-long sets. It was obvious that each of the remaining four musicians would carry an important extra load.

     Leader and singer Binky Lampano has been a mainstay in the Philippine alternative music scene since 1985. In 1992, he turned away from rock and embraced his first love, the blues. He formed the Newly Industrialized Combo, the first Philippines blues band in many years, playing what the band called “industrial strength blues” and making the cover of the leading Sunday newspaper magazine. When the band broke up, he spent two years with relatives in Los Angeles, sitting in frequently in the black blues clubs of central LA. He returned to Manila in early 1996, soon putting together the core of his current band, Lampano Alley.

     Lampano is a powerful singer, genuinely unique in his part of the world, with a voice music critics describe as “honey and grit.” He is also blessed with an excellent ear that allows him to start singing dead on pitch, without reference notes from the guitar or piano. His confidence is strong enough that even on a regular evening he will sing two or three songs completely unaccompanied. Binky was totally unfazed by the absence of the guitarist and declared, “Let’s go ahead.”

     During his stint in the U.S., Binky also discovered that bands don’t have to constantly blast out at full volume to play the blues, and he’s crafted his band to explore the full range of dynamics, from very quiet to moderate loud. Often he will signal the band to play whisper quiet and he will step away from the mic and go out in the audience to sing.

     In a recent review of the band, Jim Ayson of the PhilMusic internet site wrote: “...there’s a lot of use of dynamics. Sometimes the band plays really soft and then picks up the volume again for emphasis. And you can hear every instrument cleanly. It’s almost like the sensitivity of a ‘50s Miles Davis combo than a typical blues ensemble.”

     Clearly, playing softly has fine-tuned the band’s ears to nuances of music, a capability that contributed significantly to the band’s ability to carry on that night without its guitarist.

     Bassist Simon Tan is another veteran of the Manila band scene. His six-string bass guitar gives him an added range, which he exploited to advantage that night. Frequently, for example, he would quickly follow a chord’s root note with an added octave and tenth, effectively sketching in chords while providing a strong walking bass line. Other times he played full chords, transporting Stanley Jordan’s guitar style to bass. He shouldered primary responsibility for calling the songs from the group’s current 90-song playlist, choosing material in which he knew the bass and harmonica alone could provide sufficient harmonic underpinnings.

     Drummer Jojo Lim, the youngest in the group at 21, started played drums at age 8 and is currently a student at the University of the Philippines Conservatory of Music. He’s an active drummer, with excellent coordination among both hands and both feet. His rhythmic beds are full and rich. One of the band’s most popular numbers features a singer-drummer duet, with Jojo’s rhythmic patterns assuming a melodic character with his imaginative use of tom-tom accents. To assure variety in its performances, the band has assembled a book of widely varying rhythms, as well as variations in blues chord structure. Jojo obviously also played a major role in carrying the guitarless evening.

     That leaves harp player Thomas “Tomcat” Colvin.

     Tomcat immigrated to the Philippines in 1986 to work with an international organization. As a sideline, he played with Binky’s 1993 band and sat in with other blues bands that emerged after the Newly Industrialized Combo folded. He bided his time before rejoining Binky, waiting to see how his new group evolved and what musical tack it would take. Finally he joined Lampano Alley in January of this year [1997] and then in June amazed everyone by taking early retirement at age 58 to devote full time to the band.

     “I’ve always dreamed of reaching a point where I could retire from my day job and segue immediately into a really good blues band,” Colvin confides. “When I saw what this band was doing, I couldn’t wait any longer and decided to retire early.”

     The guitarless evening turned out to be a musical highlight for Colvin.

     “Not only did it underscore what remarkable musicians I’ve teamed up with,” he says. “It also drew on all the rather divergent musical experiences I’ve accumulated over the years.”

     It also crystallized for Tomcat the musical style he’s been evolving over the years on harmonica. “I’d never really thought about my approach to playing that much before. But after that night’s performance, I suddenly understood what I’m aiming for much more clearly. And this band provides me exactly the musical environment I crave.”

     Colvin explains that he actually employs two very different styles: an accompaniment style and a solo style. Surprisingly, he seems more pleased with his accompaniment work than his solo ability.

     “I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable I was playing without our guitarist and being responsible for sketching in much of the song’s harmonic signposts. Without realizing it, I had been evolving in this direction already.”

     Just what is this accompaniment? Nothing extraordinary, he says. He suspects lots of other players approach accompaniment the same way, though he’s never seen much written about it in the harmonica players’ periodicals or instructional books.

     “The blues harp has such a distinctive and recognizable tone,” Colvin says. But that tone is actually the “soloist” tone: the wails and rasps and growls and moans. “Those tones are what give our fills and solos such strong character.”

     However, Tomcat strongly feels that this ingredient needs to be used judiciously in a blues band. “A wailing blues harp for four hours can get tiresome.” That’s why many musicians look upon harp players with disdain: they play too much."

     Colvin’s accompaniment tone and dynamics contrast strongly with his solo style. “I’m striving to blend in so well that the harmonica is more felt than heard.” In fact, he reports that occasionally audience members will tell him they can’t hear him when he is playing accompaniment. “I take that as a compliment,” Tomcat declares.

     For one thing, Tomcat’s accompaniment is generally quiet. The notes he plays are there to hear, but one has to listen carefully to spot them: they don’t stand out glaringly. “Sometimes when the band is playing really quietly, I use only enough air to barely set the reeds to vibrating,” he confides.

     And to increase the blend, he use a very smooth, gentle vibrato.

     “I am also very conscious of the song’s chord structure, the underlying harmony,” Tomcat says. Among his rather odd assortment of musicial experiences, Colvin once studied jazz harmony and improvisation for six months with John Mehegan, whose four-volume instructional series is still considered one of the tops, if not the very best.

     “It’s ridiculously simple what I do,” he says. “But I don’t hear other people doing it much. I play the chords as single notes mostly, not as the chugging chords most harp players use.”

      The challenge, he says, is finding an infinite variety of ways of putting those single notes together. “Let’s take the IV chord. The first three blow holes give you the first, third and fifth, or the basic IV tonic chord -- the F chard when playing in the key of C. The next three holes repeat that pattern. I take delight during the course of an evening at finding as many different patterns as I can in putting those notes together in a string.

      He rattles off a few IV chord patterns as examples, all blow notes: 1351 --1531 -- 3551- 153551 - 131511 - 15113. Add the next three holes and the options multiply.

      “These patterns are so simple they would sound kind of ridiculous if played loudly,” Tomcat observes. “But done quietly, with a smooth tone, they fill in the harmonic underpinnings. This is especially so in a sparsely instrumented band like ours, with only one guitar and no keyboard. And as I discovered that night, with no guitar or keyboard at all, these patterns can actually provide enough harmony, along with strong bass and drums, to carry through an entire evening.”

      The last ingredient in Tomcat’s accompaniment style is rhythm. He started his musical life as a jazz drummer, playing in assorted bands and jam sessions in his native North Carolina and in New England until he discovered Paul Butterfield in 1969. Then he sold his drums and turned to the blues harp -- but his sense of rhythm still saturates his accompaniment style.

      “As I play these single note patterns,” he explains, “I also try to find different rhythms in which to play them. Sometimes, I just copy the rhythm of one of the other palyers -- the guitar, the bass or the drums. Often I find counter rhythms, which can really add to and fill out the band’s accompaniment mix. Because our band is so rhythmically active, there’s lots of opportunity for these counter rhythms.”

     Upon this basic accompaniment style, Tomcat occasionally adds embellishments. “I do play full chords, too, of course, usually as simple rhythmic patterns behind the guitarist’s solos, somewhat like repetitive horn section riffs or sparse backup comping on the piano. And sometimes in the single note patterns, I’ll throw in a two-note chord during part of the note string, such as d1 b2 b3, followed by draw 34 [the 3rd and 5th of the I chord], then repeating d1 b2 b3, followed by blow 45 [tonic and 3rd of the IV chord]. And when there’s an appropriate hole for it, I’ll goose up the tone and volume for a moment for accents.”

      His solo style contrasts starkly with his accompaniment style -- loud, brash and beefier. His rather wide range of dynamics comes completely from his breath control; he uses no volume controls or foot pedals. He switches frequently from accompaniment to solo style to toss in fill passages during open spaces in the lyrics.

     Due to his years listening to and playing jazz, he still is partial to single note, more melodic solo lines, rather than standard riffs. “I’ve still got so much to learn as a soloist,” Colvin admits. “I won’t be happy until I can approach the fluidity of Paul Butterfield on his Butterfield Live album and Mark Ford on his renditions of ‘Pink Time,’ ‘Summertime,’ ‘It’s a Feeling’ and ‘Mellow Down Easy.’” He also cites as another inspiration Gary Smith, who, he says, can play a four-hour gig with his four-piece band without ever repeating himself. He also admires the jazz chromatic players, whom he hopes to emulate during the band’s growing number of jazz ballads. He mentions Mike Turk for his mastery of both chromatic and diatonic harmonica and the respective jazz and blues styles.

     “One of the things I really like about Lampano Alley is that they are pushing me. They’ve already added material from Mark and Robben Ford. In one way, it’s depressing. We’ll play Mark Ford’s arrangement of ‘Mellow Down Easy,’ and I know how far short I am in my solo. On the other hand, it sure has given me some tangible goals.” He says that part of his reason for early retirement was at long last to give himself enough practice time to pursue these goals.

     Lampano Alley itself has major musical ambitions, wishing to earn the reputation as “Asia’s Blues Band.” The band has created a three-year plan with three major goals: dominate the blues scene in the Philippines; move on to regular tours of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Guam; and graduate to major blues festivals in Japan, Australia, Europe Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.

     Tomcat offers encouragement to other aspiring harp players. “Up until 1993, when I turned 54, music was, while significant for me, mostly a come-and-go part of my life. Professional commitments always took first priority and often shouldered music aside. But when I started playing with Binky’s first blues band in ‘93, I realized how much I really wanted to improve my playing. I also realized I’d finally reached a point in life where I had enough saved up vacation time and money in the bank that I could pursue my dream.”

     Colvin went off on his dream trip in September 1993 to SPAH in Detroit and the World Harmonica Chamionships in Trossingen [see AHN, May 1994, for a full account of this trip of discovery]. And the harmonica became the principle focus of his life. Since then he’s attended SPAH Memphis, Blues Week at Augusta and David Barrett’s Second Harmonica Masterclass. He has also served as a judge at the past two Asia-Pacific Harmonica Competitions in Taipei.

     “I can’t imagine a better instrument to fall in love with,” Colvin declares. “What other instrument can lead you to opportunities to personally meet so many of the greatest players in the world? And to form so many freidnships around the world like Danny Wilson, Ironman Mike Curtis and Yasuharu Mano. And get personal equipment support half-way around the world from people like Kevin Hagerty and Richard Farrell?”

     “And to get monthly inspiration from AHN and daily inspiration from the harp-l mailing list,” he adds. Right after Lampano Alley’s guitarless performance, Colvin sent off a brief message to the harp-l list. Typically, it set off a discussion thread about the importance of accompaniment that stretched out over several days, including this derisive comment from one list participant: “Slightly overstated, don’t ya think?”

     “That could be,” Colvin admits in response. “The accompaniment style I’ve described is in many respects really simple. On the other hand, I think it really gets to the heart of playing well. Anyway, for me, it was one of those truly special musical experiences.”

     And the audience seemed to like it too: it kept Lampano Alley on stage for an extra 30 minutes after its second hour-long set -- a total of two and a half hours of guitarless blues. To other harp players, Colvin says, get a singer, bassist and drummer to join you and try playing for two and a half hours. I think you’ll find it an exhilarating challenge.”