69.00 PLN

CD:

Nr kat.: CCD4945
Label  : Concord Records

- The joy of Gene Harris, August 27, 2005 Reviewer: John H. Pendley "retired teacher" (the beautiful mountains of north Georgia) - See all my reviews As I've grown in my appreciation of music, I've found that my interest in performers' techniques has faded. At the same time, my love of the performer's ability to impart a truly human experience has multiplied. As it happens, Live at Otter Creek shows Gene Harris to be a technician with major league chops who has a ball on stage, infecting all around him. Right from the start, his side men know it's a special night; the joy spreads to the audience, a joy they can hardly contain; the entire evening is so full of ebullience that I can't imagine anyone who hears this music controlling the urge to bounce up and down and break out in laughter-or tears Let's take "Sweet Loraine" as an example. It's the opening number. Harris begins it in an easy lope, slowly turns up the heat, and builds the tension to the point that one is ready to bolt--then releases it with a large hearted, delighted laugh. He has us, and he knows it. It's in "A Little Blues Here," a Harris original, that things really heat up. He blazes through eleven incendiary choruses, igniting some pretty hot stuff from John Heard on bass, and some very hot stuff from Jimmie Smith on drums. Throughout these last two solos, the audience can't keep quiet, and at the end, there is general bedlam. Me? I'm about to jump out of my chair. By the way, as if to satisfy those who haven't been knocked out by his technique all night long, Harris tosses off "Cute" as an encore. It's a jaw-dropping tour-de-force, but it's still the passion that matters the most. There's more, of course, and I wish I'd been there. That's what an album like this one does for me. It offers me the sense of an experience, all because of the exceptional and joyous talent of Gene Harris. I heard him a few months before his death, at Spivey Hall, just outside of Atlanta. He played with less vigor than in this album but with no less joy. He smiled continuously. After the show, he was very weak and remained seated as he greeted guests. Many of his fires were banked, but there was no putting them out--not that night, anyway.