I’d like to break from the traditional review we run here for a
\nminute or two, and share a brief story with you. (Hey, indulge
\nme… it’s my friggin’
\nbirthday<\/i>, for Crissakes.)<\/p>\n
When I was about three years old, I was given a 45 – from my
\nparents or from my aunt, I can’t remember. Supposedly, when
\n“Children’s Song” was put on my little record player, I would
\nhappily bounce around to the strange yet wonderful noises coming
\nfrom the record. Much to my surprise, when I was preparing to move
\nfrom my parents’ home to my first rat-hole apartment, I found that
\nrecord, and it still played.<\/p>\n
I probably spent the next five years searching for the album it
\ncame from –
\nLive At Newport<\/i> by Eddie Harris. My daughter happened to be
\nbouncing off the walls one day when we still lived in our last
\napartment, so I started to play some 45s for her, to no avail.
\nThen, I put “Children’s Song” on for her – and she stopped dead in
\nher tracks, sat there, and listened to the entire song. It was a
\nwonderful moment.<\/p>\n
About ten months ago, I
\nfinally<\/i> located a copy of
\nLive At Newport<\/i>, and won the eBay auction for it. Much to my
\nsurprise, I found out the version of “Children’s Song” I had grown
\nup listening to was an edited version. It took me a long time to
\nget used to the original version that Harris played at the Newport
\nJazz Festival in 1970, but nowadays, even the original version can
\nmake me cry. (I still have the original 45, and I treat it with kid
\ngloves. I don’t know how it’s survived this long without me
\nbreaking it on accident, and I’m not about to get careless
\nnow.)<\/p>\n
Side note: I found out the day I wrote this review that
\nLive At Newport<\/i> is now available again, paired up with
\nHarris’s 1971 release
\nInstant Death<\/i>. Where was this information five years ago,
\nhuh?!?<\/p>\n
I tell this story because this is one of the earliest memories I
\nhave when music was an important part of my life – and I’m in a
\nreminiscing mood today, so why not? Plus, it gives me a great
\nlead-in to the review of
\nLive At Newport<\/i>, which, I’m sorry to say, isn’t the easiest
\nalbum to get hooked into.<\/p>\n
Harris might have been dwarfed in popularity by Miles Davis
\naround this time, but both men were essentially doing the same
\nthing in jazz, albeit on different roads. Both were working
\nelements of funk into their music, though Harris seemed to want to
\npreserve a more natural sound to his style, as evidenced on “Carry
\nOn Brother”. There was also an element of gospel-like protest,
\nheard on “Silent Majority” (featuring guest vocals by Eugene
\nMcDaniels, the song’s writer) which challenged the audience to not
\naccept the status quo.<\/p>\n
But on some of the spacier moments, as heard on “Walk Soft” and
\n“Don’t You Know The Future’s In Space,” Harris and his bandmates
\nseem to be aimlessly drifting. Yes, I know that such music is
\nactually very carefully crafted, and I don’t want to belittle that
\nskill (which I know I could never do). But often, it doesn’t sound
\nlike a natural flow as much free-form jazz has.<\/p>\n
I still have some very fond memories of “Children’s Song” which
\nwill never be dulled, and I have no regrets about adding
\nLive At Newport<\/i> to my collection. I guess I also shouldn’t
\nbe surprised that the album didn’t live up to the expectations I
\nhad harbored all these years. I guess something you wait that long
\nfor never does match up to how you imagine it.<\/p>\n
2000 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault”. All rights
\nreserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
\nwritten permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6516],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36940","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-eddie-harris","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36940"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36940"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}