With his gruff, gravelly voice, his
penchant for hep cat diction, and the serpentine bebop turns of his vocalese
creations, the late Eddie Jefferson might not seem the ideal match for a
classic romantic crooner like Allan Harris. The Brooklyn-born singer has
previously paid homage to the songs of Billy Strayhorn and Nat King Cole,
repertoire that seems like a more ideal fit.
Until embarking on the project that
became The Genius of Eddie Jefferson, Harris would have agreed wholeheartedly
with that assessment. "In my wildest dreams I never imagined I'd tackle
Eddie Jefferson's material," he admits. "But once I started to sit
down with his material and delve into what he was singing, it blew all of my
stereotypes and prejudices out the window. How wrong I had been over the years
not to give this incredible genius credit."
Not only did Harris discover the
depth of Jefferson's estimable talents and innovations, but he found his own
way into Jefferson's idiosyncratic takes on the classic solos of jazz giants
like Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins. The Genius
of Eddie Jefferson, due out April 27 on Resilience Music Alliance, is an ideal
blend of Harris' rich, beguiling baritone and Jefferson's bantering cool. The
album follows Harris into adventurous new territory, at once embracing the
challenge and making these bop classics as embracing and celebratory as his
takes on jazz standards and swooning ballads.
Harris didn't take the plunge alone.
Though he'd previously covered Jefferson's most famous piece, "Moody's Mood
For Love," he needed to plunge deeply into the singer's catalogue and
methodology. Harris worked closely with pianist Eric Reed (Wynton Marsalis,
Christian McBride) and GRAMMY® Award-winning producer Brian Bacchus (Gregory
Porter) to immerse himself in the tricky contours of Jefferson's work. "It
was daunting," Harris says. "Sometimes it seemed like I was taking a
master class at MIT. But I wanted to grow as a jazz vocalist -- I've done the
American Songbook. No one has really tackled a full project of Eddie
Jefferson's with the type of voice that I have, and I wanted to get it
exact."
It helps to have a band that can
provide the ebullient swing and fierce chops that can drive the tunes that
Jefferson built his creations upon, and Reed assembled an ideal one: bassist
George DeLancey (Houston Person, Tia Fuller), drummer Willie Jones III (Roy
Hargrove, Arturo Sandoval), and tenor saxophonist Ralph Moore (Kevin Eubanks,
Freddie Hubbard). The band is joined by special guest saxophonist Richie Cole,
who worked closely with Jefferson in the singer's final years, up to the night
of his tragic death outside Baker's Keyboard Lounge in Detroit.
"To have Richie Cole there was a
blessing from above," says Harris. "His knowledge of what Eddie was
doing was paramount because he was right there beside him. He not only gave me
a pat on the back that was sorely needed, but he gave me a few pointers and a
kind of permission to open things up a little bit to what I'm about."
In his liner notes, writer and
musician Greg Tate compares Jefferson to such pioneering hip-hop lyricists as
KRS One and Public Enemy's Chuck D, poets of the vernacular who could combine
urban jargon and socially pointed messages. Harris agrees, saying, "Eddie
Jefferson used the guise of his street language to create some really wonderful
English literature on that stuff. Because his voice was so streetwise and
rough, until you really listen to him in depth you don't understand that he was
very erudite in his lyrical value. He didn't just rely on nursery rhyme rhythms
and prose. He really dealt in some really hip street stuff."
He also celebrated the jazz musicians
whose work he was repurposing, often painting musical portraits of these
legends through his lyrics, as on the album's opening track, "So
What." Following the lines of Davis' classic solo, he recounts a famous
incident in which both the trumpeter and then-sideman John Coltrane left the
stage mid-performance, deciding they needed a bit of extra rehearsal before
resuming the show. Harris' rendition is soulful and warm, vividly capturing the
vintage nightclub atmosphere.
For all his protestations, Harris has
no problem with bringing the grit and funky edge to Horace Silver's
"Sister Sadie" and "Filthy McNasty," or tearing his way
through a blistering Lester Young solo on "Lester's Trip to the
Moon." At the same time, he brings a heartbreaking tenderness to the
classic "Body and Soul" and a down-home blues to "Memphis."
He courses along with bop vitality on Dexter Gordon's lively "Dexter Digs
In" and Charlie Parker's gymnastic runs on "Billy's Bounce." His
romantic soul emerges on Duke Pearson's lament "Jeannine," while
Cole's "Waltz for a Rainy Bebop Evening" is a wistful reflection on
the music's rich legacy.
Despite his initial reluctance,
taking on Jefferson's oeuvre has made an indelible mark on Harris as a singer.
"This has tainted me," he says. "This feels so good, like
reaching a high. Doing Eddie Jefferson's music has taken me out of the arena of
being just the guy singing jazz standards in front of a smoking band, to
feeling like a part of the band. It would be hard now for me to turn
back."
Upcoming Allan Harris U.S.
Performances:
April 27 - 29 | Smoke Jazz Club
(Album Release w/ Cyrus Chestnut Trio) | New York, NY
May 11 - 12 | The Jazz Forum (w/
Helen Sung Trio) | Tarrytown, NY
May 19 | Arts Garage | Delray Beach,
FL
May 22 | Blue Bamboo | Orlando, FL
May 25 - 26 | The Jazz Corner |
Hilton Head, SC
August 10 - 11 | JAS Cafe | Aspen, CO
Allan Harris
· The Genius of Eddie Jefferson
Resilience
Music Alliance · Release Date: April 27, 2018
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