RENOWNED VOCALIST, GUITARIST, AND STORYTELLER ALLAN HARRIS CONFIDENTLY STRIDES INTO THE REALM OF POETiC VERSE WITH THE POETRY OF JAZZ, RECORDED LIVE AT THE BLUE LLAMA JAZZ CLUB

JOINED BY PIANIST JOHN DI MARTINO, BASSIST JAY WHITE, DRUMMER SYLVIA CUENCA, AND VIOLINIST ALAN GRUBNER, HARRIS BRAIDS THE WORDS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, LANGSTON HUGHES, ROBERT FROST, AND OTHER LITERARY MASTERS WITH INSPIRED ORIGINALS AND TIMELESS STANDARDS

OUT JULY 11 VIA BLUE LLAMA RECORDS

With 17 albums and a career that spans continents and generations, Allan Harris is still redefining jazz for new audiences. This Brooklyn-born and Harlem-based vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter is proud to release his 17th album, The Poetry of Jazz: Live at Blue LLama. The project was recorded live at the acclaimed Ann Arbor venue, Blue LLama Jazz Club, which has been recognized by DownBeat as one of its “Great Jazz Venues” since 2023. This live set captures Harris at his finest, leading a world-class ensemble featuring pianist John Di Martino, bassist Jay White, drummer Sylvia Cuenca, and violinist Alan Grubner.

This is Harris’s second album with Blue LLama Records, and it showcases his unique ability to blur the lines between singing, scatting, and spoken word. The repertoire interweaves poetry by William Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, and Mary Oliver with Harris’s original compositions and a selection of beloved jazz standards.

The album opens with Groovy People, a joyful tribute to Lou Rawls and a lighthearted way to welcome listeners into the album. Harris wanted to set the tone with something warm and inviting before diving into deeper lyrical terrain. Harris then masterfully sets Langston Hughes’ classic 1925 poem “The Weary Blues,” a staple of the Harlem Renaissance, to original music, channeling the spirit of that lone piano player on Lenox Avenue.

Throughout the album, Harris creates vivid emotional pairings that deepen the impact of each piece. Sonnet 18 “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” by Shakespeare flows into Midnight Sun, linking timeless love with eternal beauty. His original composition Autumn, a gentle ballad reflecting on change and surrender, is followed by Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. Both works are ultimately about finding your place in the world, whether in the turning of the leaves or the flight of the geese: “Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Charade, the wistful tune by Mancini and Mercer, explores the fragile boundary between performance and reality, a theme deepened by Sonnet 29, “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes.” And Shallow Man is paired with “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas, revealing a shared urgency to resist, whether it’s the pull of complacency or the finality of death.

Other tracks include Desafinado by Antônio Carlos Jobim alongside Sonnet 116: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.” Harris connects his spare, haunting rendition of With You I’m Born Again to Lord Byron’s rapturous ode “She Walks in Beauty.”

Popularized by Nina Simone, the traditional African-American folk song Sea Line Woman is threaded with Maya Angelou’s defiant, unapologetic “Still I Rise”: “You may write me down in history … But still, like dust, I’ll rise.” Another original, Secret Moments, fits beautifully with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee”, celebrating the boundlessness of devotion.

The album concludes with a final Harris original, Time Just Slips Away, perfectly of a piece with Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference.” Just as Frost’s traveler found transformation on a path less traveled, Harris brings listeners along a journey of musical discovery that bridges poetry, jazz, and soul.

The Poetry of Jazz: Live at the Blue LLama is a testament to Harris’s ongoing artistic growth and his gift for storytelling through song. With this release, he continues to push the boundaries of jazz, inviting audiences to experience familiar words in a whole new light.

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Tracklisting:

1. Groovy People (Gamble & Huff)
2. Weary Blues (Langston Hughes lyrics)
3. Midnight Sun/”Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day” (Sonnet 18)
4. Autumn/”Wild Geese”
5. Charade/”When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes” (Sonnet 29)
6. Shallow Man/”Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” 
7. Desafinado/”Let Me Not To the Marriage of True Minds” (Sonnet 116)
8. With You I’m Born Again/”She Walks in Beauty” 
9. Sea Line Woman/”Still I Rise”
10. Secret Moments/”How Do I Love Thee”
11.  Time Just Slips Away/”The Road Not Taken”
12. from https://lydialiebman.com