Fan of the harmonica? Join the clubs

When the members of this Smithtown club want to hear their favorite tunes, they don't need any of the newfangled wireless technology.

They just reach into a pocket, pull out a harmonica and start blowing into the mouthpiece. Whether they're playing a classic jazz number like "When the Saints Go Marching In" or a patriotic tune like "God Bless America," members of the Harmonicas Plus club say the mouth organ beats the iPod by a mile.

"You can put it in your pocket and go anywhere with it," says Harmonicas Plus member Jerry Tatt, 81, a semiretired piano tuner who lives in Commack. He's played the homespun instrument since he was a teen in the World War II era.

"It's not like a tuba, a trumpet or a piano -- it's easy to pick up and play," agrees fellow club member Larry Stuts, 77, of Coram.

For many who came of age in the '30s and '40s, the harmonica was -- and remains -- an evocative sound. Nowadays, Long Islanders in their 90s are keeping harmonica traditions alive. Many are self-taught and some don't even read music. However, they say, the harmonica can be learned easily and then played well with minimal practice. They enjoy sharing their love of the instrument, and its rousing music, at gigs on Long Island, or just standing on a corner, watching the world go by.

"Harmonica music is the people's music" says Paul Ash, 82, president of the Sam Ash music stores. Sam Ash stores "sell a tremendous number of harmonicas, mostly to guitar players playing the blues," he says.

While some harmonica club members can indeed play the blues, they tend to focus on songs their audiences at nursing homes and libraries can sing along to.

"We have one or two guys who play blues," says Frederick Schmidt, 93, of Massapequa, a member of The LI Harmonica Club that meets at the William P. Bennett Hicksville Community Center. Mostly, however, they specialize in show tunes like "Edelweiss" from "The Sound of Music."

The club currently has about 15 members, down from a high of about 30 a few years ago. Some members have died, others moved to Florida. One member kept playing into his late 90s.

They play three or four concerts a month at nursing homes and assisted-living centers. Performances end with a harmonica rendition of "God Bless America," with Schmidt's wife of 65 years, Grace, 90, on vocals.

In Suffolk County, the Harmonicas Plus club meets the first and third Thursday of each month in the quilting room at the Eugene Cannataro Senior Center in Smithtown. On alternating Thursdays, they meet at a housing development in Commack. On a recent afternoon in Smithtown, about a half dozen members gathered around a conference table.

Harmonicas were peeking out of lunchboxes, and lying in rows on the table. Some of the men wore tiny harmonicas on chains around their necks.

"We keep it on a chain in case we swallow it," Stuts quips.

A number of them began playing when they were teenagers, then picked it up again when they heard there was a club in Suffolk looking for members.

Club member Joe Vuocolo, 77, of St. James, said an uncle gave him his first Marine band harmonica when he was growing up in Corona, Queens.

Vuocolo took it along on Boy Scout trips and provided the music at sing-alongs around the campfire. Interest in harmonicas peaked in the late 1940s when a group named Jerry Murad's Harmonicats had a million-selling No. 1 hit with "Peg O' My Heart," Vuocolo recalls. (See a YouTube video at bit.ly/n1cFJ.)

Vuocolo switched to playing the accordion for decades, and didn't go back to the harmonica until about 10 years ago, when a friend invited him to the Smithtown club.

One of the virtues of the harmonica, say club members, is that you don't need to study music to become proficient.

Stan Best, 76, a retired telecommunications businessman who lives in Commack, has been playing since he won a harmonica in a raffle in junior high school. He still doesn't read music, though, and plays by ear.

Best likes to listen to satellite radio channels that feature music from the 1940s and '50s, and recently taught himself "Happy Days Are Here Again."

The group plays at nursing homes and libraries, earning $140 a gig. But the real payback is watching the audience sing along to standards like "Ain't She Sweet." Best says, "It's nice when we get them involved."

Ruth Seiden organized a Harmonicas Plus gig in September for 80 fellow residents at her over-55 condo community in St. James. "It was very pleasant and enjoyable. The men played all kinds of old-time songs," she said. "They obviously enjoyed what they were doing, and we enjoyed listening to them."

The Harmonicas Plus play list of about 100 songs doesn't include much after 1960, and certainly not anything by contemporary harmonica-playing artists like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

However, mention a standard like Duke Ellington's "Don't Get Around Much Any More" and pocket instruments fly to lips in unison.

A few minutes later, Tatt starts to play the theme from "Fiddler on the Roof," and the others join in.

Tatt is a professional musician who also plays trumpet, the bass and a number of other instruments. He also sings at and hosts the harmonica gigs.

A member of the Society for the Preservation and Advancement of the Harmonica, Tatt attended the Garden State Harmonica Club festival, in East Hanover, N.J. last month. He mixed with other players from around the country, and watched a harmonica repairman at work so he can learn to fix his own.

Tatt isn't shy about his musical hobby. He says with the harmonica, he can make music while waiting at bus stops or for a traffic light. Once, he played in the waiting area of a Long Island restaurant, to the apparent amusement of other customers.

A delighted Tatt recalled, "They all sang along."