Harper

Ben Harper’s love for the humble lap-steel comes to a bold (and incalculably beautiful) peak with this 15-track instrumental trawl down trails of smoky soul, melancholic Americana and slick, summery folk. It’s downright incredible how much artistic ground the Californian bluesman is able to cover unaccompanied on Winter – the whole LP is just his prized Monteleone lap-steel, inhumanly articulate fretting hands and unfettered love for music as a spoon with which to stir emotion.

Drummer Winard Harper leads a fine hard bop quintet on Trap Dancer, which consists of five standards and a variety of obscure originals, including one song apiece from Gary Bartz and Jimmy Heath. Trumpeter Patrick Rickman, tenor saxophonist J.D. Allen, and pianist George Cables take consistently worthwhile solos, and although there are a couple brief percussion pieces ("Oamara" and "Allahu Akbra"), Harper does not feature himself all that much except in support of the lead voices…

It was like I was moving forward and venturing into places I had never been before. Taking everything I've learned from every other record and kind of setting fire to it all and starting over," Ben Harper says of his new album Bloodline Maintenance. "And I knew the sounds I was hearing in my head were so unorthodox that I had to do most of it myself." The result is a fearless and immensely soulful work largely inspired by the loss of a longtime friend and the lingering influence of a mercurial and charismatic father. Along with guitar and bass, Harper also played the drums including an eclectic assortment of percussions.

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Ben Harper began his career with the solo acoustic debut Welcome to the Cruel World. Childhood Home takes Harper back to his roots – literally: he recorded it in collaboration with his mother, Ellen Harper. There isn't an electric instrument on this ten-song set, which features six new tunes by him and four by her. There are a trio of other players who help out on piano, guitar, and upright bass…

The third and final stop on the Billy Harper Quintet's Far Eastern recording road show brings them to Kuala Lampur, Malaysia and…well, maybe this one is the best single disc of the three. It's got the best sound, bright and well-balanced, and fans of extended jazz blowing will appreciate hearing three pieces (the shortest clocks in at just under 21 minutes) on a night when the musicians are really on and totally in synch with one another.

This series of live discs mark the first recordings of what became the regular working quintet of the criminally underrated saxophonist, composer and bandleader Billy Harper. With bassist Louie Spears the new addition to the line-up, three distinct concerts were recorded on Harper's spring, 1991 tour of the Far East and released separately without any duplication of material. Volume One comes from Pusan, Korea on April 27 and while the sound isn't the best – the bass and drums are muted and lack crispness – the extremely high quality of the music and interaction between the players more than compensates.