Well, Leaping Saxophones! A Dialogue With Eddie Harris : Categorically speaking, you may not know where to put him, but you can find him at Wheeler Hot Springs on Sunday.

Leaping around is something of an operative motion for saxophonist Eddie Harris.

When Harris is in a certain mood, you hear him leaping from one end of the horn to the other, as if maintaining a running dialogue between the instrument’s different ranges. He is known to leap between sounds, pioneering the use of electric saxophone in the ‘60s, and braving the slings and arrows of controversy.

Harris is also known to sometimes pick up the trombone, sing and play piano--as he does in duet with his old compadre Milcho Leviev on an new album released in Bulgaria.

In the more general sense, Harris--who will appear at Wheeler Hot Springs on Sunday with Leviev’s trio--is known for leaping around various stylistic quarters of the jazz world, to the point that he is the picture of an artist with a problem of marketing focus.

In the jazz history books, Harris is known as the first artist to sell 1 million jazz singles with his 1961 hit “Exodus.” He hit the public scene with his songs “Listen Here” and especially the now-standard “Freedom Jazz Dance,” popularized by Miles Davis. His collaboration with Les McCann, “Swiss Movement,” was a best seller.

He is all of that, plus an author whose books include “The Intervallic Concept for All Single Line Instruments. All this adds up to an artistic identity crisis--of the healthiest sort.

Of late, the best place to find representative doses of Harris’ art is on guitarist John Scofield’s latest album, “Hand Jive.” In what is virtually a tribute album to Harris, Scofield wrote a set of original tunes with the saucy-savvy, soul-flavored air of Harris’ funkier music of the ‘60s. On top of this familiar turf, Harris sounds right at home, dishing out tasteful and gently subversive solos.

But Harris’ profile as a leader has been distressingly lean in recent years, in terms of widely available recordings on visible labels. And it’s not for lack of his own creative juice. His newest album, “Vexatious Progressions,” is on the small Oregon-based Flying Heart label. His recent discography includes a compilation on Rhino records and a fine, straight-ahead date of 1991, “There Was a Time (Echoes of Harlem)” on the German Enja label, with pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Cecil McBee and drummer Ben Riley.

With the newfound profile afforded Harris via the Scofield album, he may be in line for some reconsideration from the jazz industry, which has kept him out of the mix for years. For now, we can be contented to hear his restless inventions live and in person.

Harris had just returned from a tour of Japan with Scofield when he did this interview from his home in Los Angeles.

You’re busy with a lot of different projects at the moment, aren’t you?

That’s what happens when nobody will hire me. I have to work with everyone else. You get to an age in your life where the people in charge think you’re no longer functional unless you’re promoting someone else who’s younger.

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In the last few years, there seems to have been a growing appreciation for your music. The John Scofield album that features you did a lot to give you exposure, hasn’t it?

It’s almost an Eddie Harris record (laughs). I’m just calling it factually. “Dark Blue” is really “Listen Here,” and “Do Like Les” is like a tune I had written called “Cold Duck Time.” “Do Like Eddie” is really “Freedom Jazz Dance” without the intricate melody.

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Your solo on Scofield’s “Do Like Eddie” is inventive and true to your signature register-leaping. Was it, in some odd way, like coming home for you to do that recording?

I don’t know. Sometimes you have mixed emotions about things. As far as John is concerned, he’s a nice guy and he’s always been not only a friend but a fan. I make no bones about things and sometimes I put my foot in it talking about business. But it’s just that I’m on so many records where people call me up to play on their records--Etta James, Lou Rawls, Horace Silver, Poncho, Eddie Rodriguez--and I’m featured on these records, which are played around the world, I guess.

Why is it that no one at these companies asks me to make a record? That’s my big point of anger.

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“Freedom Jazz Dance” has become a standard, even a kind of anthem in jazz. Do you remember the circumstances of when you wrote that?

Oh, yeah. I have seven books on playing like that, with intervals. I jump up and down in register, to where sometimes it sounds like I’m doing a Chinese dialect. That’s a style in which I play. “Freedom Jazz Dance” happened to be one of my exercises. I learned that from Charlie Parker, that if you want to play a style, you make a melody and then you have to play it.

It just happened that Ron Carter took the tune over to Miles Davis and he recorded it, and then it became hip.

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We hear that Charlie Parker would sometimes write melodies to tunes in the cab ride to the studio. Was it like that, a quick sketch?

No, you can’t write intervals in those cabs, especially in New York. You might get the wrong interval going over a bump. You might try to write a B flat and when you hit a bump, it might end up a D (laughs).

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Do you do practice these days?

Are you kidding me? I practice eight hours a day. How do you think I can play all the things I play? I play at fast speeds for all the things I do on the saxophone--you’ve got to put time in. I make no bones about it. You talk with John (Scofield) and all these cats. They’ll say, “Hey, man, if we’re in a hotel with Harris, put him in 101 and us in 1120. We’ll never get any rest.”

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You’re in a unique place to be able to jump from scene to scene in the jazz cosmos. Have you always been that way?

Not really. I’ve been open-minded. I listen to people, like what I like and dislike what I dislike--just the same as everyone else. I believe if you’re playing a salsa tune, you try to improvise on the way the melody was constructed. If you’re playing a tune where you want to take extreme liberties, in what you call avant-garde jazz, you try to solo accordingly. That’s all I’ve tried to do all my life in playing music.

Therefore, people haven’t always known how to program me. They’ll say, “Oh, he’s the cool cat, because he did ‘Exodus.’ ” Then, “Hey, man, what’s this ‘Freedom Jazz Dance?’ What is that?” Then, “What’s he doing, man, playing with the echo on his horn or playing a tenor with a trombone mouthpiece? He shouldn’t do that.”

I’m experimenting. I’ll try this, try that. A lot of people would say, “No one knows where to put you.” I’d say, “Why don’t they just put me in a category called ‘Don’t know where to put you?’ ” You can do anything you want to do if you want to do it.

Details

* WHO: Eddie Harris, with the Milcho Leviev trio.

* WHEN: Sunday: Prix - fixe dinner starts at 5:30 p.m., with the concert at 7:30.

* WHERE: Wheeler Hot Springs.

* HOW MUCH: $50.

* CALL: 646-8131.