Playing Hand to Mouth

Larry Adler, the first harmonica player to be taken seriously by the classical music world, was famously refused entrance into the American Federation of Musicians. At the time, the AFM regarded the "mouth organ," as Adler called it, as more of a toy than a legitimate instrument. "Which was fine by me," Adler said in a television interview. "I didn't recognize them either."

Yet in retrospect, the AFM's skepticism might seem understandable: As played by Adler and by such living masters as the jazz-harmonica virtuosos Toots Thielemans, Hendrik Meurkens and Grégoire Maret, the harmonica sounds like no other instrument—no horn or woodwind, keyboard-operated or string-plucked device. It is a sound and musical universe entirely unto itself.

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Toots Thielemans in 2009.

The harmonica was invented in Europe a century or so before it became one of the most definitive colors of American music. The earliest recordings were made in the blues idiom, aimed solidly at the African-American "race" market. Yet it seems typical of the U.S. attitude toward its own culture that the harmonica was dismissed here until Adler proved it could handle Debussy and Brahms.

The irony in comparing Adler (1914-2001) to today's jazz "harmonicists," such as Messrs. Thielemans, Meurkens and Maret, is that Adler was an American who specialized in the European classical repertoire (his signature performance of "Clair de Lune" embarrassed most pianists). Conversely, these living jazz masters are all European, from Belgium, Switzerland and Germany, respectively.

Jean-Baptist Frédéric Isidor "Toots" Thielemans, who turned 90 on Sunday, is quite easily the most celebrated harmonicist in all of jazz. He is now the subject of a two-CD package, titled "Yesterday & Today," that serves as both a career retrospective and a collection of rarities. Mr. Thielemans's first instruments were the accordion and the guitar, and his initial influence as a jazzman was Django Reinhardt. The first tracks in the new set, including a "Woodchopper's Ball" variation in which he plays bebop licks with a swing-style big band, find him playing guitar; the earliest harmonica solos here derive from a 1950 session in Stockholm, by which time he'd already performed with Zoot Sims and Benny Goodman. In 1952, Mr. Thielemans began a seven-year tenure with pianist and fellow European George Shearing, which helped establish the Belgian as Adler's successor as the most famous "mouth organist" in the world.

Since then, Mr. Thielemans has collaborated with a wide range of jazz superstars, from Bill Evans to Quincy Jones. Mr. Thielemans's rich, full sound is all over these 38 tracks, which are remarkable for both their consistency and diversity. Accompanied by a full string orchestra, he plays "Midnight Sun" with gravitas and then, a few tracks later, engages in a harmonica-and-bass duet (with Marc Johnson) on the "Spartacus Love Theme" that's more about intimacy than grandeur.

Hendrik Meurkens (b. 1957) is much more of a specialist. In a career that seems inspired by such Thielemans albums as "The Brasil Project," Mr. Meurkens concentrates on Brazilian-style jazz—his music is more about consistency than variety. Mr. Meurkens's latest is "Celebrando," a collaboration with bassist and singer Gabriel Espinosa that could have been modeled after "Aquarela do Brasil," Mr. Thielemans's 1969 collaboration with Brazilian Elis Regina. The vocals on "Celebrando" are mostly in the background, and the key combination here is Mr. Meurkens sparring with Israeli clarinetist Anat Cohen.

Grégoire Maret, who might be described as Mr. Thielemans's successor, has just released his self-titled debut album and will celebrate the launch at New York's Jazz Standard this Thursday to Sunday. Over the past decade Mr. Maret, 37, has turned up with virtually every musician in every style, from bossa nova to the avant-garde, but is clearly his own man in terms of his playing. A high point of both Messrs. Maret and Thieleman's new releases is a Gershwin classic shared with a larger-than-life diva: Mr. Thielemans with Shirley Horn on "Someone to Watch Over Me" and Mr. Maret with Cassandra Wilson on "The Man I Love." Mr. Maret's most ambitious work as a composer is on "Crepuscule Suite" and "The Children's Suite": The first is about the feeling of twilight, depicting the period between day and night as musically and emotionally ambiguous; the second draws on Mr. Maret's interpretation of the feelings experienced during birth and early childhood.

Yet the most moving track on "Grégoire Maret" is easily Ivan Lins's "O Amor É O Meu País." Introduced by the Brazilian composer on his own first album (the 1970 "Agora"), "O Amor" was originally a fast and aggressive samba. Mr. Maret has made it into something more romantic, as he performs it with Mr. Thielemans. To underscore the deep majesty of the two harmonicas, they're backed by a full string orchestra. The juxtaposition of mouth organs and strings paints an overwhelming picture of rays of sunlight cutting through the clouds.

The harmonica has long been regarded as the humblest of musical instruments, and yet, as Mr. Thielemans and Mr. Maret show, when played at its best, it is more than capable of expressing the deepest feelings in the human experience.

Mr. Friedwald writes about jazz for the Journal.