The best jazz artists can transform the slightest melody into something profound, and no one makes that point more vividly than pianist Barry Harris.
Noodling around the keyboard early in his set Tuesday night at the Jazz Showcase, Harris seemed to stumble into “Heart and Soul,” a ditty that any child can learn to play at the piano.
The simple little tune caught Harris’ fancy, and before you knew it he was reharmonizing it in a lush and rhapsodic solo. He then proceeded to spin intricate be-bop variations on the melody, leading his trio through fairly sophisticated chord changes loosely based on the original.
Only the most idiosyncratic pianist would attempt to build so much on such a morsel of a tune, and only the most accomplished player could have pulled it off.
But that was just the beginning of Harris’ often whimsical performance.
After playing an expansive solo on the nearly forgotten ’30s ballad “With Every Breath I Take,” Harris invited his colleagues–bassist Larry Gray and drummer Wilbur Campbell–to name the tune. Campbell guessed (incorrectly) that it was the theme song from the old TV show “I Love Lucy.”
Yet that’s all it took for Harris to launch into an exuberant, semi-comical reading of the “Lucy” theme, which he put through its paces.
Whether Harris was riffing on lightweight fare or reworking jazz standards, he brought the same distinctive gifts to the keyboard: an exquisite singing tone, a complete command of harmony and voicing, and a laconic, thoroughly economical style of improvisation.
In a brisk version of the be-bop warhorse “Cherokee,” for instance, Harris played terse but speedy right-hand phrases that suggested the trumpet eruptions of Dizzy Gillespie in his prime. And on the ballad “This Is No Laughing Matter,” Harris offered a melting lyricism and beautifully rolled chords that underscored the poetry of his pianism.
With Gray and Campbell providing nimble accompaniment and distinctive solos of their own, Harris was in first-rate company. Jazz trio playing, in other words, does not come much more spontaneous than this.
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Pianist Barry Harris plays through Sunday at the Jazz Showcase, 59 W. Grand Ave. Phone 312-670-BIRD.
