Joel Harrison – Guitar Talk (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Joel Harrison - Guitar Talk (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz] Download

Joel Harrison – Guitar Talk (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:04:52 minutes | 958 MB | Genre: Guitar Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ASG Recordings

Guitar Talk is a collection of intimate guitar duet recordings featuring Joel Harrison with Ben Monder, Steve Cardenas, Pete McCann, David Gilmore, and legendary bassist Steve Swallow. Joel Harrison penned nine of the original compositions in 2019. The other two cuts are solo efforts, a gem-like rendition of Eillington’s Reflections in D, and a haunting solo take on America the Beautiful. All tracks were recorded with two amps in a room, no overdubs. Harrison is in the left speaker in all duos.
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Joel Harrison – Anthem of Unity (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Joel Harrison – Anthem of Unity (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:22 minutes | 1,00 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © HighNote Records

Guitarist Joel Harrison’s 25th CD, Anthem of Unity, brings together a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble that showcases his most pointed and focused work as a jazz musician yet. The team of Gary Versace, with his virtuosic and soul-drenched B-3 organ, Greg Tardy, one of our finest jazz woodwind players, and the legendary drummer Jack DeJohnette, exhibits extraordinary musicianship in a program of six Harrison originals, Sonny Rollins’ “Doxy,” and Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Tardy shows the range of his considerable abilities here, developing interesting ideas and phrases throughout his many solos. Versace has been about everywhere at this point, with giants such as Maria Schneider, the late John Abercrombie, Kurt Elling, Al Foster, and he anchors the bottom end on the Hammond as DeJohnette continually ignites the band. This is a blowing session, at times tender and at times volcanic, whose interplay and organic, visceral power is palpable from the first to last tune.

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Joel Harrison – America at War (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Joel Harrison - America at War (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Joel Harrison – America at War (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:12:36 minutes | 755 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Sunnyside

Over two-plus decades spent living and working in New York, there is very little guitarist, composer, producer, and educator Joel Harrison hasn’t tried. Early outings included the seminal Free Country with Norah Jones and David Binney, the orchestral Infinite Possibility, and the singer/songwriter date Other River. Harrison is working with a concept here. America at War is a big-band meditation on America’s obsession with armed conflict; the country has been at war through 226 of its 240 years. In writing and arranging for a large group (they are conducted by trumpeter Matt Holman), Harrison pursues many musics under the rubric of jazz in eight originals and a cover of Tom Waits’ “Day After Tomorrow,” an antiwar song from 2004’s Real Gone, issued the year after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Some of Harrison’s 18 collaborators include trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, saxophonists Jon Irabagon and Lisa Parrot, trombonist Curtis Hasselbring, bassist Gregg August, and pianist Daniel Kelly.
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Joel Harrison – Angel Band: Free Country, Vol. 3 (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Joel Harrison - Angel Band: Free Country, Vol. 3 (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz] Download

Joel Harrison – Angel Band: Free Country, Vol. 3 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:03:15 minutes | 653 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © HighNote Records

My goal on the latest Free Country recording is again to arrange country and Appalachian music for a jazz group in new and unusual ways. I’m conscious of both moving forward and staying true to the elemental soul of the songs, where old stories are told by modern, protean players. Or as a friend once put it, “Downtown meets the heartland.” Whether sung straight, or approached as improvisational vehicles, I find endless currency in this material.

An angel is defined as an attendant and benevolent spirit. Perhaps we musicians are entrusted to act as such. This is, of course, a serious task, and yet the beauty of these tunes is they encourage us not just to meditate and grieve but also to laugh and dance.
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