Dec 17, 2024 9:58 AM
Tabla Master Zakir Hussain, 73, Succumbs to Illness
Tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of India’s reigning cultural ambassadors and a revered figure worldwide…
Allan Harris pays tribute to an esteemed vocalist on The Genius Of Eddie Jefferson (Resilience Music Alliance).
(Photo: Sandrine Lee)The Genius Of Eddie Jefferson, which is set for release April 27 on Resilience Music Alliance, finds Allan Harris wading through 10 jazz classics to pay tribute to an esteemed vocalist.
Accompanied by pianist Eric Reed, bassist George DeLancey, drummer Willie Jones III and tenor saxophonist Ralph Moore, Harris tackles classics like “Sister Sadie,” which can be streamed below.
On a tune Horace Silver issued on his 1959 Blowin’ The Blues Away that Jefferson (1918-1979) later interpreted, Harris laments the relationship Sister Sadie finds herself in. But more than Harris working through a spate of classic compositions, his grappling with Jefferson’s legacy has influenced him as a a performer.
“This feels so good, like reaching a high,” he said about recording The Genius Of Eddie Jefferson. “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.”
For more information about The Genius Of Eddie Jefferson, visit the Resilience Music Alliance website. DB
“Watching people like Max Roach or Elvin Jones and seeing how they utilize the whole drum kit in a very rhythmic and melodic way and how they stretched time — that was a huge inspiration to me,” Hussain said in DownBeat.
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