In this section, you will find clips from Jerry's latest CD, plus reviews and liner notes. To purchase the CD or other items, including Jerry's Blues Harmonica Masterclass, please click here: Purchase
Clips from Down in the Mood Room
Download Doodlin
Download So Slow
A Sampling of Reviews...
"An amazing amalgam of songs that meld blues and jazz for one of the artist's most innovative releases ever - a sonic send-off of American music." Westchester Wire
Complete Song List
“This CD exudes class, sophistication and style. Portnoy’s Mississippi saxophone wails like a tenor with swinging intensity and drive. Jerry . . . kicks out all the jams on a harmonica tour de force that just oozes savoir faire. He is fluid and sinuous one moment and is boogieing [sic] hard and edgy the next. His own stuff is brilliant and funny as hell or deeply moving. This silver disk is all gold.” Long Island Blues Society
“[Portnoy’s] skills are undeniable and there are moments on the CD where his playing is truly sublime.” Illinois Entertainer
"Portnoy has few equals as a harmonica player, blues or otherwise. The Boston-based virtuoso radiates an insouciant charm playing Lullaby of Birdland, his pacing expert, and his splendid speech tones anoint Stormy Weather with a regal sort of world-weariness." Down Beat
"Jerry Portnoy shows tremendous versatility on this CD. . .. Down in the Mood Room is an exciting mix of jazz and blues and is sure to please the most discriminating listener." jazzreview.com
"The blues-meets-jazz format works so well here, even straight-ahead jazz compositions such as George Shearing's Lullaby of Birdland and Horace Silver's Doodlin' sound fresh from the sheets. .. . In an era when lesser musicians attempt to reinvent themselves by jumping aboard the swing bandwagon, Portnoy remains several steps ahead of the game." Chicago Sun-Times
"Few can blow the Mississippi saxophone like Jerry Portnoy. . . Portnoy is a harp man extraordinaire. Rarely has Portnoy has as much freedom and control as on this new album . . The sound is intimate, warm, and downright big. Portnoy's harmonica speaks with a human voice . . . This is a rock solid album of harmonica-driven jazz and blues with a good dose of hot guitar [Duke Robillard] by two of the best in the business." Vintage Guitar
To read additional reviews of Down in the Mood Room, please click here: Download Reviews of Mood Room
Liner Notes by Music Critic Tom Ellis
 In a conversation I had with Jerry Portnoy shortly after Christmas of 1995 he told me how excited he was about one gift his wife Eli had left under the tree: a multi-CD retrospective of the work of Louis Arm strong. His effusiveness about this music and the way it was affecting him was evident. Clearly, he was fully possessed by the magic of Satchmo, especially the ground-breaking recordings of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
In retrospect it all seems logical. As the former student of one master – Muddy Waters – Jerry earned his blues pedigree while occupying the harp chair with Muddy for six years. Muddy is the father of urban, amplified blues. For over thirty years his bands set the model  for all blues bands that followed, one that has rarely been duplicated in its communicative power and emotional resonance. Likewise, Armstrong is the father of modern jazz. He infused his music with an expressive blues tonality, and his early bands transformed an ensemble music into that of the soloist free to experiment with melodic and harmonic improvisation. Both men prescribed the sound and texture of those forms for the entirety of the twentieth century.
It was only natural then that Jerry, having learned from one master, would now be so deeply entrenched in the lessons of another, especially Armstrong, whose music is steeped in the blues. Of course, Jerry is a master himself. Long regarded as one of the greatest living blues harmonica  players – by fans, critics and his peers – Jerry is a “player’s player.” His immersion and mastery of precedent styles and techniques of his forebears – John Lee and Sonny Boy Williamson, Big and Little Walter and others – is well documented on his own Blues Harmonica Masterclass instructional package, the finest tutorial ever produced.
Like all masters, Jerry has his own distinct style. And certain affinities with Armstrong are evident: an economical approach to note selection, brilliance of sound, richness of tone, huge vibrato, and the rare ability to speak directly through the instrument. Jerry also shares Armstrong’s irreverent wit in his playing – note his use of Armstrong’s theme song When It’s Sleepy Time Down South in the prelude to his own song Lazy, and his quotation of Hoagy Carmichael’s Lazybones in the solo. In the late 1990s much was made of the harmonica’s potential within jazz settings, but proponents seemed inclined to invest their energies in the pyrotechnics of be-bop. They may have succeeded in finding a new, often questionable role for the instrument, but in doing so abandoned it’s greatest strength: the unequaled tonal capabilities that allow it to sing or speak, moan or growl, it’s great capacity for direct emotional comment.
Jerry has never forgotten this most important quality, and nowhere is it more evident than on the “jazz” tunes here: his rel axed, swinging take on Horace Silver’s Doodlin’, his ensemble horn work and call and response phrasing on You Rascal You, the beautifully shaped notes forming the melody of Canadian Sunset, the clear acoustic tones and simple phrasing of Lullaby of Birdland, and the shimmering vibrato on Stormy Weather. The beauty of the instrument’s folk music roots are heard on Jug Band Waltz, further evidence of Jerry’s mastery of all styles from all eras, and there’s plenty of the big blues tone and attack he’s famous for on So Slow, a jumping instrumental workout on Mood Room Boogie, and some of his lyric dexterity in the tongue in cheek words to Money and Lazy, or his world weary take on the life of a traveling musician in Endless Road.
Mention must be made of Duke Robillard, whose talent and encyclopedic knowledge of all forms of American music play a large part the success of this recording. As producer, guitarist and co-arranger of many of the songs, his role is central to the realization of Jerry’s concept. Together they selected the players to insure the high level of musicianship  evident throughout. That Duke and Jerry have also shared a long musical and personal friendship is another reason the attention to detail heard here is so complete. Jerry has always been a lover of melody, regardless of the musical style, and on the thirteen songs here Duke has helped him realize a long held desire to document this aspect of his musical passion.
Otis Spann, Muddy’s great piano player once said, “The harmonica is the mother of the band.” This quote has long been misinterpreted. It didn’t mean that the harmonica should be the main solo instrument, regardless of the musical setting. What it meant was that, because of its uniquely expressive qualities - its humanity and emotional depth - the harmonica was the heartbeat of the band, the well from which a band's soul could be drawn and grow. It's a lesson Jerry Portnoy continues to live by, one you hear every time he picks up his instrument, be the setting jazz, blues, folk or any music. Nowhere is it more evident than here, Down in the Mood Room.
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Notes on the CD: Produced by Duke Robillard. Recorded at Duke's Mood Room, Pawtucket, RI. Engineered and Mixed by Tom Hiller. Assistance by Jack Gauthier, Debi Viner. Mastered by Jonathan Wyner at M Works, Cambridge, MA.
Jerry Portnoy plays Hohner Harmonicas, Magic Harmonicas and custom harmonicas by Joe Filisko.
Special thanks to Billy Flynn, Bill Bentley, Pierre Beauregard, Jimmy Gordon, Mike Turk, Kim Wilson, Rick Estrin, Darrell Nulisch, Mr.Music, Bob & Barb Lefkowitz; Anna Portnoy, Nick Portnoy, Catharine Bennett, Beth Greely, Sam Savage, Mark Carpentieri, Robin Cohn, Jonathan Tamkin, Richard Rosenblatt, James Whitney and Eli Whitney.
Cover and CD Photography by Duke Robillard.
Louis Armstrong photo courtesy of Louis Armstrong House and Archives at Queens College/CUNY. Muddy Waters and Big Walter Horton photos courtesy of D. Shigley. Design by Yellow Inc.
