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Joel Harrison
“Urban Myth”
www.joelharrison.com

So I did a tour with guitarist Joel Harrison about 6 or 7 years ago (as a sub for Kai Eckhardt). The sheet music got lost in the mail & I was at that point in my development in which I was good but didn’t have a lot of things together that I should have (inexperienced really). Listening to the music, I figured, “well.. I’ll be ok, sounds really interesting but like it won’t be too hard to sight-read, play, etc…”. MAN!! I got my a## handed to me on that tour! The caliber at which Joel and the company he keeps operates is consistently high and his music is demanding, intense and beautiful all at once. That was a very important turning point for me and my playing.. I learned a lot on that tour about the work I still had to do. That said, I was very excited to hear of his new CD and just had to share it with you guys…

Joel Harrison is a composer and player who seems to operates in swaths of color. His music is harmonically dense, rhythmically challenging and yet is never “hard” to listen to. Evocative is the only word I can think of to describe his writing and playing. As prone to dissonance as he is consonance, Joel plays with a full spectrum of sound and energies with his music.

Bass duties are covered here by Fima Ephron on electric and Stephen Crump on upright, so you should have a pretty good idea of the potential inherent here. In short, I would’ve expected nothing less from Joel. Here, you’ll find great players, left of center compositions, interesting instrumentation and some beautiful playing!