Harmonica virtuoso
Larry Adler spent most of his time in England and Europe during the 1930s. Like Living Era's
Maestro of the Mouth Organ, Pearl Flapper's
I Got Rhythm focuses upon the recordings he made between December 1934 and May 1938. The harmonica was already prevalent in the blues during the late '20s and early '30s, as documented in recordings by such mouth harp masters as
Noah Lewis,
Freeman Stowers and
Jaybird Coleman. Before
Adler, the instrument had made only a few modest inroads into the jazz world. One famous example is
Roy Smeck's homey harmonica solo during
King Oliver's December 1929 recording of "Frankie and Johnny." It was
Larry Adler who helped establish the mouth organ as a viable option in both jazz and classical music. Only three examples from the latter category are included in this compilation:
George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," the "Hungarian Dance No. 5" by
Johannes Brahms and
Anton Rubinstein's "Melody in F." Aside from the traditional "Londonderry Air" and a couple of tunes associated with
Fred Astaire, most everything else comes from the working jazz repertoire of the day.
Adler was a brilliant technician and a skilled improviser. The recordings he made during the '30s paved the way for modern masters like
Toots Thielemans and
Peter "Madcat" Ruth.