MySpace.com - Mike Turk Jazz Harmonica - Boston, Massachusetts - Jazz / Bossa Nova / Blues

Bronx-born Turk began his passion for the harmonica in his early teen years, learning licks off albums by leading Chicago blues harp exponents Paul Butterfield, Little Walter, and James Cotton. After deciding to take up the life of a professional jazz-and-blues musician, he traveled to Boston in the mid-1970s and became a fixture at many local clubs.

An untiring performer, Turk can be heard in many of the Northeast's leading clubs. Whether you hear him live or on CD, Mike Turk, it can be said without hesitation, has a unique and compelling musical talent that is all too rarely encountered these days.

Kim Field, author of "Harmonicas, Harps, and Heavy Breathers" has written:

"Mike Turk first made an international reputation for himself more than two decades ago as a master of the diatonic Marine Band model favored by the blues players. But as he fell into the gravitational pull of jazz, Turk turned to the chromatic harmonica, which allows the player to achieve all the notes of the chromatic scale by pushing a spring-loaded slide mechanism. . . .

Turk's first solo CD project, Harmonica Salad, was a brilliant travelogue of blues, jazz, standards, and several points in between, with scenery provided by a constantly changing cast of accompanists. Turk's Works is a more singleminded excursion in which Turk has set himself in the middle of a killer quintet and let the tape run. What we get is an inspired, exhilarating, and very live set of sterling jazz. No formulaic drill, no 'theme' concept passed down from the folks in Marketing, no sprint to the finish line." ..

Patience is indicative of Mike Turk’s career, which has taking his time so as to best get his thing together. He was born in the Bronx in 1951, the son of "a working member of Local 802," jazz bassist and vocalist Dick Richards. "I started playing harmonica in the summer of ‘67," he recalls, "doing the stuff that was happening in those days- blues! Paul Butterfield was my introduction. For the next 10 years, I played everything: blues, country, folk, all kinds of recordings throughout the ‘70’s with up-and-coming New England acts that up and came and went."

Education being a lifelong process, Turk has continued to learn. He can now look back on nearly two decades of refining his jazz voice to a point where it is pure and natural. The blues roots are there... " What we get, though, is music where the ideas and the swing are unforced, where everything flows with such assurance that one forgets that Turk plays one of the jazz world's miscellaneous instruments and simply hears his harmonica as a lead voice, comfortable and in-place as the more familiar trumpet or sax."...Bob Blumenthal, Boston Phoenix

Turk continues his appreciation and respect for the reigning harmonica voice in modern jazz. "...Toots Thielemans is the guy who showed me where I could come in, where the harmonica fits as a jazz instrument," he declares, "and I like the way he just comes out and makes a statement musically, rather than having to prove what he can do in each solo"....he continues, "A preponderance of musicians of all ages come out and lay everything on the line; but, back in the 40's and 50's the guys who established modern jazz didn't play their hot stuff (all the time), they interpreted songs."

Turk uses his command of the instrument to convey every possible nuance of feeling. His trove of expressive riffs and runs has livened the soundtracks of some motion pictures, including Dick Tracy, (the latter alongside legendary pianist Jerry Lee Lewis), and Lonestar, as well as the opening credits of the new John Sayles film " Honeydripper". The Cambridge resident has also recorded with artists as diverse as the Temptations and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and supplied his distinctive tones to various network television productions.

"Mike Turk is a no-nonsense musician and the harmonica is his life. [He is] one of a rare breed who started out with the blues harp and went on to get an enviable technique on the chromatic. His home base is bebop with a healthy swinging approach. He shows familiarity with some interesting melodic scales. [He makes] a harmonica statement that should reach out beyond the harmonica audience. . .Turk is a fiery player. . . . came out of the bluesharp and assimilated the chromatic quite fluently. . . . knows his changes and aims for swing! . . . Go for it Mike!"

Toots Thielemans

"Mike Turk has applied the language of the saxophone to the harmonica in a very impressive fashion . . . it amazes me."

Jerry Bergonzi

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