Gene Harris Sitting on Top of the World

Newly organized big bands are such a rarity on today’s jazz scene that the 18-man ensemble organized by Gene Harris is unique on several levels--the quality and fame of the musicians, the money invested and the duration of the just-launched tour.

Harris, who played one date at New York’s Town Hall before taking off for the first overseas dates in Rabat and Casablanca last Tuesday and Wednesday, will have visited every continent before his unprecedented tour ends Dec. 11 in Taiwan.

The itinerary for Gene Harris and the Philip Morris Superband, as it is called, includes dates in Budapest, Cairo, Paris, Istanbul, Ankara, Moscow, Bern, Warsaw, Genoa, Turin, Milan, Bologna, Rome, Munich, West Berlin, East Berlin, Seoul, Manila, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Taipei.

“Whew! It’s an unbelievable schedule and an unbelievable band!” Harris said as he rattled off the cities, as he phoned from his home in Boise, Idaho, where he has spent much of the past decade in semi-retirement as music director for a local hotel.

“What makes it so great is that they’re not rushing us. We have five days in Seoul but only two concerts, five days in Cairo and three concerts, one of which will be right at the pyramids.”

Most significant is the stellar roster of names. There are bright young soloists like James Morrison, the 26-year-old trumpet and trombone virtuoso from Australia; Ralph Moore, the 32-year-old English-born tenor sax star, and Michael Philip Mossman, who came to light in 1985 as a member of a youth group know as “0.T.B.” (Out of the Blue).

Along with them are such veterans as trumpeters Harry (Sweets) Edison, 74, and Johnny Coles, 63; trombonist Urbie Green; Frank Wess on tenor sax and flute--all Count Basie alumni--and Jerry Dodgion, whose alto sax enhanced the bands of Oliver Nelson and Thad Jones/Mel Lewis.

In the rhythm section with Harris are Herb Ellis on guitar, Jeff Hamilton on drums and Ray Brown on bass. There will be vocals by the Los Angeles favorite Ernie Andrews; for the New York concert only, Ernestine Anderson was added.

Most of the musicians had worked with Harris when he played a few dates last year to cash in on the success of a Basie-inspired album recorded in 1987 for Concord Jazz.

The spare-no-expense Superband venture was masterminded by the kind of jazz fan musicians are always hoping to find in high places with full pockets. One such guardian angel is Andrew Whist, senior vice president of Philip Morris International, who heard his first jazz when Don Redman visited his native Norway in 1946, and was hooked for life. Redman’s was the first big band to tour Europe after World War II.

“I was in Lausanne five years ago,” he recalls, when I went to see Dizzy Gillespie. He had James Moody on saxes and this terrific, bluesy, swinging pianist, Gene Harris. I kept my eye on him, and last year sent him to play small group dates in Paris and Munich. Then the decision was made to do something with Gene on a really grand scale.”

Harris commissioned two arrangers, Frank Wess and John Clayton, to write the library for him. “We’re doing ‘Sleepy Time Down South’ to feature Sweets; ‘Porgy’ as a bowed bass feature for Ray Brown; Herb Ellis will play a song he wrote called ‘I Told You I Love You, Now Get Out,’ and I’m playing a little-known original by Erroll Garner, ‘Creme de Menthe,’ as well as Neal Hefti’s ‘Girl Talk.’ All the guys will be heard in the album--we arranged to record the first concert at Town Hall for Concord Jazz.”

Though he has been well known in jazz circles since 1956, when he formed a trio known as the Three Sounds, Harris has never before been involved in a venture guaranteed to establish him as a world-class name. Born in 1933 in Benton Harbor, Mich., he was mainly self-taught as a pianist, learning to play boogie-woogie in the style of Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson.

He put in three years with an Army band before touring with the Three Sounds, who earned modest popularity through a series of albums on Blue Note and Verve. The other members were the drummer Bill Dowdy, who quit in 1966, and the bassist Andy Simpkins, who left two years later and went on to a celebrated eight-year stint with George Shearing followed by a decade with Sarah Vaughan.

After leading other groups, tiring of the rigors of the road and now married to a Boise woman, Harris settled there in 1977. It was not until the past three years that he began to emerge from semi-obscurity, earning renewed critical attention when he played such jazz rooms as the Loa in Santa Monica and the Blue Note in New York. He has also been drawn into the jazz-party circuit, eliciting standing ovations with his soulful, blues-based solos.

Though his experiences at the head of a large group have been limited, Harris is elated at the sudden acceleration of his success and the size of his setting.

Asked whether he hopes to keep the orchestra together for domestic dates after the world tour is over, he hesitated for a microsecond before replying: “Darn right I’ll try to keep it together! With an incredible band like this, and after getting off to such a fantastic start, who wouldn’t?”