How many of us have had those Walter Mitty dreams: leading a big band, heading an all star group, performing with all time greats on a recording session? Well, there’s a new release out on Resonance Records titled The Mastery of Passion by a totally unknown, Harris Simon. Let me tell ya, it’s going to knock you OUT! Recorded back when Jimmy Carter was President and disco was piping through your car speakers, it features a 21 year old pianist leading a pair of sessions with guys like Michael Brecker, Joe Farrell and Michael Urbaniak through some fascinating, stimulating and timeless music. Listening to it is like watching Roy Hobbs take batting practice and wondering “where’s this guy BEEN?”
The leader of these enigmatic recordings is alive and well, living and teaching in Williamsburg VA at William and Mary College. But as the song goes, “nothing comes from nothing,” so Simon provides a bit of background to the actual recordings. “It was two separate sessions. 1978 and 1980,” he recounts. “They were released in Japan, originally on lp, and I think they had a very minimal release on cd in the States. I was in my early 20s.”
Simon’s recording didn’t come quite out of the blue, however, as he recalls, “ I grew up in Queens NY. There was quite a nice jazz scene out in Jamaica, Queens, at the time, so I used to hang out with a lot of people who lived out there. They had a couple of jazz clubs that I used to go to. One was run by a guy named Jimmy Nottingham, a trumpet player, who had a trio play there every weekend with a different horn player. Joe Knight was the piano player, and I used to sit in on harmonica. At another place called the Village Door guys like Marcus Miller, Tom Brown…Donald Blackman would hang out there. Also, people like Roy Haynes and Lenny White lived in the neighborhood, so they’d come down and sit in, jam sessions-whatever was happening.”
Simon was able to get a broad musical education from playing with a multi-colored musical palate of artists. “Through that scene and Tom Brown I met Sonny Fortune, and I worked with his band for a few years. We did a couple of tours; I played at the Village Vanguard with him,” he explains. “ I played at the Newport Jazz Festival in New York. I was also working with quite a bit of singers. I worked with (avant garde singer) Jay Clayton, and also with the singer Earl Coleman, who recorded with Charlie Parker (“Dark Shadows” “This Is Always”). We did a record together; George Duvivier was on bass, Ted Dunbar on guitar. We played at the Newport Jazz Festival and did some tours. There’s also a record I’m on with Joe Carroll. “
“Coleman had a lot of drug problems. He was on methadone when I was with him, which sometimes created a lot of problems. He got a little strange on me occasionally. We did that record on Xanadu in 79. This was between the two sessions I did for George Klabin. We just did a bunch of old standards.”
Not only did Simon learn jazz from Parker alumni, but he was able to feel comfortable with the avant garde scene as well. “I was living at this place called Jazz Mania on 23rd St. run by a guy named Mike Morganstern. Part of my deal of living there was that for cheap rent, I had to take out the garbage. They used to have jazz sessions there all the time. The Joe Carroll disc was recorded at Morganstern’s place. So, it was weird; I was doing a lot of different styles then; mainstream with Duvivier, then Sonny Fortune was on the whole other side. And Jay Clayton, I did a gig with her and Jane Ira Bloom and Rashied Ali, which was out there. I got a lot of experience playing with a lot of people.”
Through the fledging jazz life, Simon was able to hang around another Parker graduate, a he explains, “Around that time I was moving every year or two to a different place. I ended up in a loft with the saxophone player Bill Evans. That was in 1980, about the time he got the gig with Miles Davis. Mike Stern was hanging out there, Steve Grossman was coming by for a lot of jam sessions. I got to meet Miles a few times.”
“He had an incredible sense of humor. I met him backstage one time, and I guess I looked a little bit like Woody Allen at the time, and he just gives me a big hug and says, “Hey, Woody!” I also had a phone machine that recorded messages back then, which was real advanced technology back then. I have a couple of messages that Miles left, and they are really funny. I heard from some people that he could be mean at some times, but he had this other side, which is what I saw. He was sort of like a groupie, hanging around us like that.”
It was during this period that Simon was able to make his first recordings. Simon’s experience is a perfect depiction of the ancient proverb, “ never look down on the day of small beginnings,” as he remembers,” The way that happened was that I had a friend who was living in Iran with the Peace Corp, before the revolution (around 76),Phil Schutzman. He did this record date that was based on all of this Iranian folk music. It was produced by Jeffrey Kauffman and recorded at Sound Ideas Studios in NYC with George Klabin. They heard me play as a sideman on this record, and they liked the work I did on this recording. They thought, “Let’s take this kid and do a record with him.” It was a collaboration with them. They had a lot of input as far as the repertoire and musicians.”
We did this record (NY Connection) in ’78. It did pretty well. I think that part of it was because Mike Brecker. He was the top studio guy, and I don’t think he was given the opportunity then to play much jazz back then. Steely Dan. He was doing all kinds of interesting projects in mostly the pop world. So, it was a chance for him to stretch out on some jazz oriented tunes. That’s what people liked when they heard it. That did well enough for them to want to do a second album. That was 1 ½ to 2 years later. They had a bigger budget for that one, and they called in a larger group of people. We did one session where we recorded a bunch of my originals, about 7-8 tunes. After that, they did tunes that George and Jeff had picked, which were more “produced”. I did a string arrangement on the first record for the flute piece; Jorge Calandrelli was the guy who did the strings for everything else.”
Put together, the two albums, while slightly differently produced, create an amazingly wholistic compact disc that ranges from CITI-influenced jazz to some fiery fusion. Simon, figuring when the first session was being put together that he’d be joined by some of the local cats, remembers the first instant that he saw Brecker walk into the studio. “I thought, “whoa! I’m the luckiest guy in the world.” To get him to play some of my tunes was just unbelievable. At that age, you don’t realize how fortunate you are to play with musicians of that ability. It was playing with other great sax players at that time, Bill Evans among them. Joe Farrell, and he got to play a tune that I wrote, so it was really fantastic to get that opportunity.”
“He was working with the rhythm section, trying to get the feel of the music. Really taking care of business. And some of the material was kind of difficult to just come in, read and improvise on right away. I remember that when I was with Mike on one of the songs, I believe it was “Swish” which is an uptempo thing, he wanted me to sit next to him at the piano and ask me, “what do you mean by this chord?” So, I’d play it for him, and he’d say, “OK, I get what you mean.” Even with that, I was surprised that with the little rehearsal we’d get some pretty good results with such difficult music. “
Then, for some unexplainable reason, the records went nowhere. 30 years later, Simon still can’t explain what happened, “I don’t know exactly what it was, if it was legal issues, or just mistakes made in marketing, but it never got released with any kind of publicity when it was first recorded. At least in the states; in Japan it had some write-ups, but there was also some publicity done there. “
With no musical prospects on the horizon, Simon did what a number of fledging artists chose at the time; he moved abroad. “I decided to move to Europe for awhile. I played with some really good people over there. I did some gigs with (bassist) Red Mitchell while I was living in Sweden. I used to hang out at his apartment. He kind of enjoyed having someone over who spoke English. He was a great storyteller. I also worked with Sal Nistico, who was there in Germany. I was in Austria and worked with Ellie Wright, who was the wife of saxophonist Leo Wright. We did a couple of tours together. I toured all over Sweden, and got to see above the Arctic Circle, and did a couple tours in Poland as well. I was there for a couple of years, and was thinking of staying there, and had all my papers done. But, I came back to New York, and had a gig at a place, Gregory’s, for six weeks; at the end of it I realized that I was getting too homesick, so I cancelled all of the plans that I had in Europe and stayed in New York. “
Returning home, Simon also learned that “you can’t go home again,” as he returned as a different man. “I don’t know what it was,” he reflects, “ but I had all of this momentum in my career up to that point, and at that time I got a little discouraged. I kind of like pulled back from being on the scene as much as when I was in my early 20s. “
Since then, Simon’s career path has veered towards education, “I’m working at the college of William & Mary. My wife’s a classical pianist. I still live in NY; I have an apartment there, so I’m in NY half the time. I haven’t anything high profile things since, but maybe with the rerelease of this record, I can get some things happening.”
These days, the pianist takes annual excursions to Europe to keep his chops up, “My brother’s lived in Sweden, since 1968, so I go over every summer, timing it with the Stockholm Jazz Festival to combine family with the music. I’m still active in the summers in Europe. I’ve gone to the Stockholm Jazz Festival the past few years. There’s a fantastic trumpet player there, Peter Asplund, who I’ve worked with. The level of musicianship there is very high. I also work with a singer there, from The Real Group, who was doing some work with Peter, Margareta Bengtsson.”
Like the Indiana Jones character who teaches archeology, Simon gets raised eyebrows from his students who learn of his secret life. “It’s kind of interesting. My students hear it and go, “Whoa! You recorded with Michael Brecker?!? What are you doing teaching me in Williamsburg Virginia?!?”
Just as satisfying is the respect from one’s peers. Years later, Simon was able to learn that his session made an impression on someone else as well. “On an interesting side light; after the loft that I lived with Bill Evans, I moved to a different loft, and I had a roommate there, with a little keyboard and drums. We had rehearsals there, and one rehearsal there was for a gig that Randy Brecker was doing with Eliane Elias. They had never met yet; they met for the first time in my loft!”
“I actually got a vibe from Randy that Michael had felt good about the session. Randy said that Mike liked his playing on the disc, which was rare for him, as he was so hypercritical of his own playing. I had met him several times afterwards, and he was always putting himself down. He’d say how terrible he’d sounded. Randy said “I remember being very impressed with this CD when it was first released, partly because Mike was quite happy with his playing on it, (for once!). Everyone else involved is at ‘the top of their game’ too, so enjoy it!””
At this stage in career, Simon is able to appreciate his chance in a life time walk on home run with hall of famers, and put it in perspective as well. Give this disc a few hundred listens, and see what you missed back when gas was 75 cents a gallon.