The Electrifying…

I don’t remember my parents being huge jazz fans growing up. I didn’t live with my father and the only thing I remember about my mother, is her casual love of music – I mean if it was on and she liked it, she would groove a bit.

When I was 6, my grandfather taught me to play Amazing Grace on the harmonica. I then saw a movie with a cat playing a saxophone, and to me, they sounded alike, the harmonica and the sax - and I knew I couldn’t play the harmonica in the school band. Thus began my love of the E flat Alto Saxophone.

There was a closet at home that was kind of a junk closet that no one went into unless some bit of nostalgia was being sought out or some more junk needed to be hidden. I noticed once that there were several boxes of record albums, and thus began the “diggin in the crates” era of my life. Around age 6 or 7, I got my first component set. It was a record player and 2 speakers. I had the equipment but not enough records to play. Around age 10, I started remembering that closet and those boxes so I began to hunt.

What a wealth of music! There was everything from the Temps, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana, Earth, Wind and Fire, James Brown and a Saxophone player - a man intently blowing his horn on the cover that just captured my attention. “The Electrifying Eddie Harris”; I couldn’t wait to play it. I looked at the album cover all night. I read the notes, I studied the play list.

Saturday morning arrived and even before my cereal and Saturday morning cartoons, I played the first cut from this record. It was titled “Theme in Search of a Movie”. Of course being 10, the title was just weird, but the song was infatuating. I pulled out my horn and attempted to follow the melody. It was simple enough, but at that age, improvisation was a foreign concept. I learned the melody and was eager to go on to the next song. This tune, “Listen Here” was quite intimidating. It was as funky as any record I had ever heard and just beginning to play saxophone, the melody was much harder to catch and more notes in a measure than I had played before. Basically, I never learned to play it - at least not at that age.

The other thing that was incredibly interesting about Harris was he used a newly developed instrument – the Varitone saxophone. The Varitone was an electric saxophone that was developed by H&A Selmer, Inc. (see my favorite things) in 1965. Sonny Stitt (What's New? Sonny Stitt Plays the Varitone Roulette 1966) and Eddie Harris were the main practitioners of the instrument, and both of them continued to make it a staple in their recordings and live shows. The Varitone was essentially a saxophone with a built-in effects box and amplifier that could emulate the sounds of other instruments while playing along with the natural sound of the saxophone. This created a doubling effect that increased the complexity and richness of the sound. I always believed that‘s why he titled the record “The Electrifying...”

Though I’ve not heard and or scrutinized any of Harris’ music beyond this record, I always hold this one up as one of the favorite jazz albums I own – yes mama and pop, finders keepers. Beyond the use of the Varitone, Harris’ tenor sound is among the most full, most brilliant of any tenor sax I’ve ever heard. Though he has recorded quite a bit, as I discovered by perusing his site, viewing the discography and listening to the snips, I don’t imagine he received the kind of shine he deserves for his style, sound and innovation.

His debut recording, Exodus to Jazz included his own jazz arrangement of the theme from the movie Exodus. A shortened version of this track, which featured his masterful playing in the upper register of the tenor saxophone, was heavily played on radio and became the first jazz record ever to be certified gold.
However, many jazz critics regarded commercial success as a sign that a jazz artist had sold out, and Harris soon stopped playing "Exodus" in concert. He moved to Columbia Records in 1964 and to Atlantic Records in 1965. At Atlantic in 1965 he released The In Sound, a bop album which won back many of his fans and critics alike.
In 1967 his album The Electrifying Eddie Harris reached second place on the R & B charts. And since my folx weren’t huge Jazz fans I imagine because the record hit the R & B charts is the reason they acquired it.

I love Eddie’s music, or at least this record. Now I’m interested in hearing lots more!

**Note to self: Add Eddie Harris to the list of artists worth “diggin in the crates” for??