BST 84378

Gene Harris - The Three Sounds

Released - 1971

Recording and Session Information

United Artists Studios, Los Angeles, CA, July 26, 1971
Gene Harris, piano; Monk Higgins, organ, arranger; Fred Robinson, Al Vescovo, guitar; Luther Hughes, electric bass; Carl Burnett, drums; Bobbye Porter Hall, congas; Paul Humphrey, percussion; + overdubs: unidentified vocals.

8173 (tk.4) Hey Girl
8185 (tk.3) Did You Think
8175 (tk.3) Your Love Is Just Too Much
8186 (tk.7) What's The Answer
8181 (tk.6) I'm Leaving

United Artists Studios, Los Angeles, CA, July 27, 1971
Gene Harris, piano; Monk Higgins, organ, arranger; Fred Robinson, Al Vescovo, guitar; Luther Hughes, electric bass; Carl Burnett, drums; Bobbye Porter Hall, congas; Paul Humphrey, percussion; + overdubs: unidentified vocals.

8180 (tk.3) Put On Train
8179 (tk.1) You Got To Play The Game

United Artists Studios, Los Angeles, CA, August 3, 1971
Gene Harris, piano; Monk Higgins, organ, arranger; Fred Robinson, Al Vescovo, guitar; Luther Hughes, electric bass; Carl Burnett, drums; Bobbye Porter Hall, congas; Paul Humphrey, percussion; + overdubs: unidentified vocals.

8182 (tk.1) Eleanor Rigby

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
I'm Leaving	Higgins/Brown	July 26 1971
Your Love Is Just Too Much	Higgins/Brown	July 26 1971
Did You Think	Higgins/Brown	July 26 1971
Put on Train	Higgins/Brown	July 27 1971
Side Two
I'm Leaving	Higgins/Brown	July 26 1971
You Got to Play the Game	Higgins/Brown	July 27 1971
What's the Answer	Higgins/Brown	July 26 1971
Eleanor Rigby	John Lennon, Paul McCartney	August 3 1971
Hey Girl	Higgins/Brown	July 26 1971

Liner Notes

...

Dusty Groove CD Reissue Notes

Born and raised in Benton Harbor, Michigan, Gene Harris' birth name was Eugene Hair. As a young pianist, he was inspired by the likes of Earl "Fatha" Hines, Erroll Garner, and Oscar Peterson. After graduating from high school, Harris relocated to Huntington Beach, California and formed The Three Sounds with bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Bill Dowdy. Somewhere along the journey, he felt a name change to Gene Harris was in order, and, decades later after much success, Harris was known to still ask his father for forgiveness for discarding the Hair family name.

Harris' organic approach to music (and the soulful grooves that he produced) can be credited to his deep belief that it was better to "enjoy the feeling and the total experience of the performance without trying to get too technical." In other words, Harris believed that musicians ran the risk of being "over educated" and that it was better to play from the heart and the soul rather than from the brain. He was known to tell his fellow band members to "Let it happen" certainly it's that philosophy that was responsible for the dynamic free form boogie blending blues and gospel that became the trademark Gene Harris sound. Perhaps the only other keyboardist to come close to this organic "soul jazz" groove was Les McCann.

Recorded in West Hollywood in July of 1971 at United Artists Studios (UA at that time was the owner of the Blue Note label), Harris and company laid down the majority of Gene Harris/The Three Sounds album in just two days. By this point, Simpkins and Dowdy had exited the band, but Harris continued on with the The Three Sounds moniker, as it was so closely identified with his piano driven grooves. The band included guitarists Albert Vescovo (who also contributed to Herbie Mann's ultra-funky Memphis Tlvo-Step album that same year) and Fred Robinson (a veteran of the Chicago blues scene). The multi-talented Monk Higgins wrote all the songs (with exception the of the Beatles "Eleanor Rigby" and served as the band arranger, too. Bassist Luther Hughes played on countless Gene Harris sessions in the decades that followed, and also served as a sideman to vibraphonist Dave Pike and organist Brother Jack McDuff at various times. Drummer Carl Burnett was a steady session regular having appeared on recordings by Horace Silver and Kenny Burrell, while female percussionist Bobbye Hall has graced a diverse collection of recordings including Bill Withers' hit single "Lean on Me," Bob Dylan's Street Legal album and even The Wall by Pink Floyd.

The Three Sounds album has long been a crate diggers' favorite and well overdue for a compact disc release, so we've decided to sweeten the pot by adding the equally rare follow-up release from 1972, titled Gene Harris of the Three Sounds. Arguably at this point in time, someone in the Blue Note marketing department was a bit asleep at the wheel when it came to album titles, but again, the use of the name The Three Sounds speaks volumes for how Gene Harris had carved out a distinctive niche in soul jazz. Although "Lean on Me" percussionist Bobbye Hall was not on this album, a cover version of the hit song was, along with Eddie Harris' "Listen Here" (one of those great cross-over popular instrumental jazz songs alongside Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" and Brubeck's 'Take Five"). As with most Blue Note sessions of the era, a stellar cast of musicians was assembled, including Ron Carter on bass (forever remembered as a member of the Miles Davis Quintet but with hundreds of other classic albums to his credit), and guitarist Cornell Dupree, whose pedigree is a cornerstone of the "soul jazz" genre with credits on LPs by Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, Donny Hathaway, and Gabor Szabo to name but a few. It's his guitar that starts off Aretha's smoking version of Otis Reddings "Respect" and provides the melancholy beauty of Brook Benton's take on Tony Joe White's "Rainy Night In Georgia." Drummer Freddie Waits is also fairly ubiquitous, having appeared on countless Blue Note sessions by Donald Byrd, Andrew Hill, and and Lee Morgan. Adding a slightly more "out" element to the proceedings was guitarist Sam Brown, who played on free jazz records like Keith Jarrett's Expectations and Carla Bley's cross-genre epic Escalator over the Hill, a late 60's opera that brought together Jack Bruce of Cream, Linda Ronstadt (fresh out of the Stone Poneys) and Zappa comrade Don Preston.

When Harris died in January 2000, at the age of 66, he'd been living in Idaho for decades at that point and received an unlikely tribute from fellow Idaho resident Paul Revere (of Paul Revere and the Raiders), who called Harris "One of the greats. On a scale of one to 10, Gene was an eleven. I'm in total shock. It seems like only yesterday we played a concert together. He was a cornerstone in Boise. Everybody was so proud of him because he was known and respected worldwide as a musician. And he was a totally sweet man. You couldn't help but love him."

Harris never achieved the fame of his soul-jazz contemporaries Eddie Harris, Les McCann, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd or Grant Green, but thanks to the 1990s generation of "Turntablism", an art form that distinguishes a DJ who just plays records from those who create something new by scratching, mixing, and generally manipulating the sound. Gene Harris' somewhat forgotten Blue Note albums began to have a new life in the hands of crate diggers everywhere. For those of us who either cant afford the rare original vinyl or prefer to listen to album straight through, the way it was originally intended (without extra beats and breaks), these two albums are making their CD debut now, thanks to the suggestion from the folks at Dusty Groove in Chicago, a record shop that turned me onto this genre over a decade and a half ago.

Pat Thomas