Tag: Eddie Harris Quartet

Title: Eddie Harris Quartet – Freedom Jazz Dance (1997) [Japan 2017]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

This was one of the legendary tenor saxophonist’s final recording sessions before his death on November 5, 1996. Recorded in 1994 with a marvelous quartet, Freedom Jazz Dance is a portrait of a musical titan with his creative muse in full bloom. Eddie Harris and his tenor sax join together with Jacky Terrasson, piano; George Mraz, bass, and Billy Hart, drums, to compile an eight-track SACD full of jazz’s favorite staples as well as originals by quartet members. His immediately recognizable sound is beautifully showcased on this disc.

Eddie Harris’ final “authorized” studio date, like most in the last decade-and-a-half of his life, is a conservative acoustic blowing session, trying one last time to capture the minds and hearts of bop-minded purists. Frankly, he never sounded better on tenor than he does here, his tone luminous, the freak high notes perfectly integrated into his uniquely swinging style, his ballad phrasing infused with an even more poignant singing quality. He had a crack backup piano trio in tow, anchored by his old cohort Billy Hart on drums (who sounds freer than ever), with the emerging Jacky Terrasson on piano and George Mraz on bass. Yet the CD’s mainstream idiom is cautious in the extreme – “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” à la Trane is about as adventurous as this quartet gets (and Harris was into that style when it was current) – and the only Harris original is the title tune, albeit superbly done. As a document of Eddie Harris in full bloom as a hard bopper, Freedom Jazz Dance is marvelous, but reveals only one side of this bewilderingly multi-faceted, innovative musician – and as such, it is an incomplete memorial

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