Carlos Del Junco brought an almost sold out crowd at the Geomatic Attic into his world of genre spanning harmonica madness, March 28.
I arrived at the beginning of his second set and watched the Cuban born , Toronto resident Del Junco coil his wiry frame around and array of harps like a spring as he writhed and bent every last note out of each of them. The stage was lit in blue light making it look like a scene from an old black and white photos of a beatnik cabana.
His crazy harp playing included a bit of jazz, a lot of blues, a touch of country and one song which he described as ska influenced polka and cartoon music but which ended up sounding like mindblowing circus music.
He had a full band behind him who played in the pocket especially on Del Junco’s tribute to Robert Johnson called ‘Heaven’s Where You Dwell,’ which ended in a huge improvisational jam.
His guitarist seamlessly switched between a variety of styles from jazz to blues to country to a really beautiful classical influenced duet with DelJunco’s mean harp, then displayed some impressive country fried chicken picking on a cool jam of ‘Got My Mojo Working’ on which Del Junco added some alien delay effects to.
The entire band got to shine on a great version of ‘Key to the Highway’ during which they all took solos.
— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat editor
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