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Bill Harris - Complete Fifties Sessions (2006) [Bop, Swing]; FLAC (tracks+.cue)

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Bill Harris - Complete Fifties Sessions (2006) [Bop, Swing]; FLAC (tracks+.cue)

Unread postby Mike1985 » 20 Apr 2018, 12:59


Artist: Bill Harris
Album: Complete Fifties Sessions
Genre: Bop, Swing
Label: Lone Hill Jazz
Released: 2006
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
    CD 1:
  1. It Might as Well Be Spring (Hammerstein, Rodgers) 6:24
  2. Crazy Rhythm (Caesar, Kahn, Meyer) 4:54
  3. Where Are You? (Adamson, McHugh) 5:31
  4. Just One More Chance (Coslow, Johnston) 2:29
  5. I Surrender Dear (Barris, Clifford) 7:59
  6. I'm Getting Sentimental Over You (Bassman, Washington) 4:24
  7. In a Mellow Town (Duke, Ellington) 9:37
  8. Apple Honey (Herman) 5:02
  9. Everywhere (Harris) 3:36
  10. Your Father's Moustache (Harris, Herman) 4:04
  11. Laura (Mercer, Raksin) 3:44
  12. Woodchopper's Ball (Bishop, Herman) 2:53

    CD 2:
  1. Lemon Drop (Wallington) 7:41
  2. Early Autumn (Burns) 3:41
  3. Blue Flame (Bishop, Corday, Noble) 8:51
  4. Bill Not Phil (Harris) 2:45
  5. You're Blasé (Civier, Hamilton) 2:35
  6. D'Anjou (Burns) 3:10
  7. Imagination (Burke, VanHeusen) 3:07
  8. Blackstrap (Harris) 2:41
  9. Poogerini (Harris) 2:35
  10. Bijou (Burns) 3:33
  11. Gloomy Sunday (Javor, Lewis, Seres) 3:32
  12. C-Jam Blues (Ellington) 3:00
  13. Jive at Five (Basie, Edison) 3:05
  14. Tutti-Frutti (Fischer, Gaillard) 3:15
  15. Sue Loves Mabel (Harris) 2:46
  16. Introspection (Burns) 4:41

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In one of those starshell bursts of self-revelation which have characterized Mitch Miller's Sunday night radio program, Ben Hefch recently remarked that in Hollywood "you get paid so much more to contrive things than to express yourself."

What he has indicted the motion picture culture for has also been true on occasion of the recording studio and this may be what has led the British critic A. J. McCarthy to refer to California as the "coast of corruption."

However, one of the art forms in which the artist is least offered by this is jazz; jazz of the free blowing style of this LP, to be sure.

When albums of this nature are made they can be very bad or very good, depending on the calibre of the men performing. By the use of arrangements and rehearsals a group of relatively mediocre jazz men (and there are such things, the critics notwithstanding) can be made to sound almost as if they were doing something.

But without this, it's every tub on its own bottom, as King Oliver said. It is one of the hardest things in the world to do, to walk into a studio, select the tunes, perhaps discuss them for a bit, then begin to blow and produce something of value. For this, mature artists are required. On albums of this type, self-expression ceases to be self-indulgence and becomes art.

That is what we have with Bill Harris. A mature, articulate musician who knows what he wants to do, considers well the methods of doing it and once he has made his choice proceeds to do it with dispatch and conviction. As Ross Russell has remarked, there is a quality of certainty about the playing of the best jazzmen. This has sometimes been lacking recently.

But you rind that quality in whatever Bill Harris plays. And, of course, it is part and parcel of being true to his own convictions which gives him this surety and, consequently, makes it impossible for him ever (in Hollywood or elsewhere) to be plagued by the insistence on contrivance which causes Ben Hecht periodically to seek other scenes for his work.

During the past several years, Bill Harris has been the featured member of the Woody Herman Third Herd - its extended version, as Woody calls it. There he served as a pillar of strength in the trombone section, as soloist extraordinary throughout each night's playing and as a constant source of wonder to the other younger, sidemen. Wonder, because of his seemingly unlimited inspiration and remarkable sense of form.

Harris was by passed by almost a generation of jazz players. After his days with the Herman band in the 40s he served time with JATP and then retired to Florida. Since re-joining Herman, he has been on the road a major portion of the time. In the last year and a half his recordings and in-person performances with Herman in jazz centers brought him to the attention of the younger men to attain the reputation with them he would have earned had he remained on the scene throughout the last decade.

Bill Harris is an original musician. His style is no amalgam of cliches Looked from others. It is a deliberate approach to playing which utilizes melody as well as harmony but which emphasizes a fine sense of time rag. He admires many trombonists (Lawrence Brown, Jack Jenney, Jack Teagarden) but professes no favourite. He himself rates as one of the favourites of almost every mayor trombonist active in jazz today.

I'm not sure of this, but I have the distinct impression that before Bill Harris chooses a tune on which to do an extended trombone solo (such as It Might As Well Be Spring] he has been considering it for months. Sometimes it seems as though he rode through the night from ballroom to ballroom with Herman, mentally reviewing the tune, turning it over and over and inside out in his mind berore he was ready to blow on it. That may be why he sounds so right.

But he is also capable or sudden inspiration of a high order. I remember one night with the Herman band when he stood up for a solo on "Opus de Funk", roared out a great slur and then whipped the band into a frenzy for several choruses. I frequently have the reaction to a Bill Harris solo that a friend of mine had that night. "Keeeeerist" he said "did you hear that?" It is typical of the Harris maturity that on his own LP he has turned two of the seven tracks over to others and laid out himself.

It is also typical of Harris that he has chosen the men with whom he recorded with the same care he chooses the tunes he plays. He has long been an admirer of Ben Webster, the great soloist from the Ellington band of the 40s. He has worked previously with Stan Levey, now the favorite drummer of West Coast musicians, and with Jimmy Rowles, one of the best of the jazz pianists of the 40s who has too long hidden his talents as accompanist to various singers. Red Mitchell, of course, is almost everyonesfavourite for lyric bass solos today.

On this LP, I would like to draw particular attention to Michell's solo on Sentimental; to the way in which Ben Webster plays an obbligato behind Harris on I Surrender Dear; to Ben's solo on Where Are You and to Bill's on It Might As Well Be Spring, One further word, there have been few performances of the calibre of just One More Chance in any of the eras that jazz passed through.

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