Nice Stefon Harris article

[Chrome]

Vibraphonist "blacking out definition of what jazz is"

By Bret Saunders

Special to The Denver Post

Stefon Harris, who at the age of 30 already has established himself as one of the most skilled vibraphonists to raise a pair of mallets, is succinct when asked to describe the music he's making with his new group, Blackout.

"It's a hybrid," said Harris, who will perform with Blackout at Golden's Mount Vernon Country Club on Thursday.

The band, under Harris' leadership, utilizes a combination of styles ranging from subdued funk to harmonically sophisticated mainstream jazz with bright splashes of electronics and the muscular alto sax of Casey Benjamin. The result is one of the standout current acts. The group is similar to pianist Jason Moran and trio The Bad Plus in its ability to make improvised music equally accessible and risky.

The sounds created by Harris and his group are as likely to mine the improvisational possibilities of the current pop of Sting as they are in the strains of classic Gershwin.

"The goal is to move forward with jazz as an art form," Harris said. "We're blacking out the definition of what jazz is."

And that, according to Harris, is why the band is using Blackout as its name.

The New York-born Harris has been surpassing expectations since graduating from the Manhattan School of Music and releasing his first solo disc, "A Cloud of Red Dust," in 1998. With an enthusiastic and individual approach to the vibes, he recalls Bobby Hutcherson, who recorded a striking collection of forward-thinking dates for the Blue Note label in the 1960s and '70s.

As his playing and compositional acumen has evolved, Harris (who also records for Blue Note) racked up three Grammy nominations while releasing unpredictable music, including last year's ambitious and beguiling "The Grand Unification Theory," which provided him a wider sonic palette from which to create. The recently available "Evolution" disc, with Blackout, gives Harris a consistent group of players for trading riffs and ideas. It's a more focused and potentially more commercially palatable effort.

"It was a very natural evolution," Harris said of the groups' coming together. "I decided that I wanted to experiment with sound, and I purchased a MalletKAT, an electronic keyboard you play with a mallet. I like the groove you can get from electronic instruments.

"After a while, it started to evolve into an all-electric band. But it lacked dynamics. With acoustic instruments, we have both the drive and the subtlety, so Blackout ended up being all acoustic, with the exception of the keyboards."

While putting Blackout together, Harris drafted Marc Cary, an underrated pianist who has surfaced as a promising soloist in recent years. Cary's keyboards serve as an engaging foil to Harris' vibes, their statements pleasantly intertwining without intruding upon each other.

"He (Cary) has a lot of imagination. He can play anything and tie ideas together. He's a perfect fit," said Harris.

Nearly all of the pieces that make up "Evolution" seem to fit as well as the Harris-Cary partnership, no matter how disparate. The funkish, electric piano permeating "Nothing Personal" coexists with the romantic vibe flutters of "For Him, for Her." African rhythms grace "King Tut's Strut," and the disc closes with an affectionate remake of Harris vibraphone godfather Hutcherson's "Montara." And Harris' own pleasant compositions continue to develop as solid foundations for improvisational flight.

"I didn't change my style of writing (for 'Evolution')," said Harris. "And I made sure that I didn't compromise the intensity of the improvisations. It's definitely not 'smooth jazz."'

Overall, Harris seems not only enthusiastic about the Blackout project, but about the current trend toward combining the many styles of popular and more esoteric music in the service of creating a fresher kind of jazz.

"My generation is finally taking ownership of the music," said Harris. "It's a great time in the art form. Some of us are going to hit it, and some are going to do things that don't work."