Time: 8 p.m.
Cover: $25
Average Joe’s Sports Bar has become one of Lethbridge’s favorite concert venues for Classic Rock and Roll and Canadian Country Music. On Sunday, August 7th, a different type of sound will fill the air, the award winning music of Carlos Del Junco. Carlos is the Cuban born Canadian who is viewed as one of the world’s best funky blues harmonica players. A Del Junco concert includes an eclectic mix of jazz, blues, swing, Latin, funky New Orleans and even a little Hip Hop music. His harmonica playing is mixed with a distinctive voice and singing style. Among his many achievements, Carlos has won gold medals at the World Harmonica Championships, been Canadian Harmonica Player of the Year 7 times, and has 2 Juno nominations.
Earlier this year, Carlos played to a sold out crowd at the Empress Theater in Fort Macleod. This spring he had an extensive tour of Europe, and his visit to Average Joe’s, will be during his appearances at the Calgary International Blues Festival. This is a great opportunity to hear one of the world’s best in the intimate atmosphere of Joe’s Garage. The Carlos Del Junco performance will start at 8:00 P.M. on Sunday, August 7th.
Tickets for the concert are $25.00 and are available at Average Joe’s Sports Bar, 420-6th street, south in Lethbridge. Phone, 403-942-2563.
It's probably a good thing Carlos wasn't there when the harmonica appeared in North America in the 1860s. Neil Young and Bob Dylan can probably roll with it when he says they are very mediocre harmonica players. Aspiring harmonica players Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid might have overreacted and pulled out their pistols...
Carlos is one of those players whose music is so advanced that when it comes to awards, it's either retire the category or rephrase the question to "Best Harmonica Player Not Named Carlos". This includes two Gold Medals from the Hohner World Harmonica Championship in Trossingen, Germany, as well as multiple national awards in Canada.
To say he plays the harmonica is like saying "Jimi Hendrix plays guitar". He blows the blues harp through a prism -- suddenly it seems he's holding every color in the musical rainbow right there in his hands.
Simultaneously sophisticated and raw, his playing blurs the boundaries between blues and jazz (hence the name for his band “The Blues Mongrels”). The emphasis is on blues, but Carlos and his band are not afraid to merrily traipse off in other directions delivering a seamless fusion of New Orleans second line grooves, swing, Latin, hip-hop or ska melodies, to swampy roots rock.
Born in Havana, Cuba, del Junco (loosely translated "of the reeds") immigrated with his family at the age of one. He bent his first note on a harmonica when he was fourteen, making his debut with his high school math teacher at a student talent night. In his early 20's del Junco was immersed in a visual arts career; he graduated with honours from a four year programme, majoring in sculpture ( click here to see photos ) at the Ontario College of Art. Sculpture has definitely had an influence on his outlook on music: "Music is just a different way of creating textures and shapes."
Playing a ten hole diatonic harmonica, Carlos has developed the unique ability to play chromatically by using a recently developed "overblow" technique taught to him by jazz virtuoso Howard Levy. Overall, this approach to the diatonic harmonica, although much more difficult to achieve, is in many ways more expressive and communicative than the mechanized tone produced by the chromatic harmonica . Carlos is one of the few pioneers of this overblow method, bringing musical credibility to what has still been considered by many in the music industry - a fringe folk instrument. The sophisticated sound produced by del Junco is at once sensitive, soulful, and sexy while never forgetting the rawness inherent in blues music.
The place is an arcade/nightclub— 420 - 6 Street South.
