Tootin!

Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor “Toots” Thielemans went through a seven-decade career acknowledged as the foremost practitioner of the jazz harmonica, all the time knowing that he had nothing to fear from competitors out to steal his crown. There were none.

While the harmonica is ubiquitous in the purest strains of such American musical idioms as blues, folk, country, R&B, and rock, the diminutive instrument remains an odd man out in jazz. When it comes to coaxing lyrical theme statements and knotty improvisations from it, only one man comes to mind.

What an odd feeling that must have been for the Belgian-born musician, who came to initial fame with George Shearing, playing both guitar and harmonica, after relocating to the U.S. in the early 1950s. (Thielemans specialized in the out-of-the-ordinary. He was a splendid melodic whistler who also devised diverting improvisations that mated his unison guitar and whistling lines.) While every great jazz instrumentalist from Louis Armstrong to Bill Frisell has had acolytes nipping at their heels, eager to knock the idol off his perch, Thielemans went through his long life (he passed away in 2016 at 94) blissfully unencumbered by competition.

Thielemans found his own voice on the harmonica basically from scratch, which may have been the key to his individuality. He had to turn to virtuosos of other instruments for inspiration—the extraordinary lyricism and wholehearted expressiveness that characterized his playing is a product of his study of horn, string, keyboard, and vocal masters. Elbowing itself alongside these more customary instruments, Toots’s harmonica, at its best, achieved the dramatic grandeur of Charlie Parker’s alto.

There are hundreds of examples of Thielemans’s artful playing among the plentiful jazz, pop, and Hollywood studio sessions he made, but I want to highlight the lyrical inwardness that could make his playing so appealing. Uncategorizable by its very nature, his “horn” found a central place in contemporary Brazilian music. “Volta” is from his classic 1969 collaboration with the legendary vocalist Elis Regina. Hear how easefully Toots slips in between Regina’s lines, his own solo commanding yet ever so respectful.

When I had the pleasure to interview Thielemans in the 1980s, we got to talking, unsurprisingly, about other harmonica players. With the genuine humility that characterized this charming man, Toots acknowledged Stevie Wonder, claiming he was his favorite. There are splendid harmonica solos at every point in Wonder’s celebrated career, yet the spot on his 1968 hit “For Once in My Life” is exemplary. If there’s a singular emotion that can be said to emanate from Wonder’s harmonica, it’s joy. Wonder’s solo, like everything about the performance, is radiant, practically bursting free of the song’s confines itself. A wonder indeed.

I mentioned Little Walter to Thielemans, wondering how he felt about the illustrious blues harp player who came to prominence with Muddy Waters in the 1950s. Thielemans told me he loved Walter’s playing but that he didn’t have the lung power to emulate him. I remember laughing in disbelief, but in retrospect I understand what Toots might have meant. Listen to Little Walter’s impassioned playing throughout his abbreviated career — he died after a nightclub altercation in 1968 — and you can hear a man ripping his insides out in an attempt to get his musical message across. If Thielemans imparts elegance and Wonder exudes elation, Little Walter, at his most intense, communicates menace and mystery. The alternate take of “Blue Midnight” says it all. This one would have sent a shiver down the great Toots’s back.