Gordon Frazier started playing oldtime fiddle tunes on the Jew’s harp as a kid, but years later learned how truly “oldtimey” the instrument is: its origins date back thousands of years! Over the years it has played a part in hundreds of traditional musical cultures. Gordon’s own collection comes from more than 30 regions throughout the East Indies, Oceania, Asia, Europe, and North America.
	He found some of those instruments on trips to Trump* Congresses held in eastern Siberia (1991), Austria (1998) and Norway (2002). After the Siberia trip, Gordon met fellow enthusiasts Bill Gohring and Bart Wood, and the three founded the Sumpter Valley Jew's Harp Festival. This was the beginning of the annual North American Jew’s Harp Festival, now held in Bay City, Oregon, and also led to the formation of the nonprofit Jew's Harp Guild (www.jewsharpguild.org).      Over the past 15 years Gordon has performed and taught workshops at folk festivals and other venues in the Northwest and has been a studio musician on a number of Seattle-area recording projects. _______________________________
		*The oldest known English name is trump. The instrument is still known by that name in parts of Scotland, and there is a revival of the name in other parts of the world. The variant jewes trump appeared in print in England in the mid-1500s. Trump probably  comes from the same etymological root as drum or trumpet, but the origin of "jewes" is obscure and the source of much imaginative, yet undocumented, conjecture. By the end of the 16th century, the name  "Jew’s harp" had replaced the older name. Even though the original name has no known link to Judaism or Jewish culture, it is possible the spelling was "fixed" because of a perceived connection to the many Jewish peddlers in England at the time. (For years it was illegal for Jews to own land in England, so many took up such mobile trades. And the instrument was popular with children, and hence with peddlers.)      Two relatively recent names have more satisfying and well-documented explanations. Jaw harp is a modern invention. It was one of many proposed but baseless origins of the name Jew's harp, but through sloppy scholarship the theory was mistaken for fact,, and eventually the name passed into common use. It did not exist before the 20th century, however. Juice harp is simply an alternate spelling of Jew's harp based on a common regional pronunciation.