Carlos Del Junco & The Blues Mongrels
2011
PM
MEL LEHAN HALL AT ST. JAMES i
3214 West 10th Ave, Kitsilano
Accessible 
All ages
This event has already taken place.
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 harp 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 program, majoring in sculpture 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.
Carlos is certainly not your straight-ahead blues harmonica player. He will occasionally take a blues standard and flip it upside down to breath new life into it. 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.
Carlos will be joined by The Blues Mongrels, his very fine band: Henry Heillig: bass, Eric St. Laurent: guitars, and Jordan John: drums.