Artist: Eddie Harris

Eddie Harris was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone, and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the electric piano and organ. His best-known compositions are "Freedom Jazz Dance", popularized by Miles Davis in 1966, and "Listen Here". 

Harris was born and raised in Chicago. He studied music under Walter Dyett at DuSable High School, as had many other successful Chicago musicians (including Nat King Cole, Clifford Jordan, Johnny Griffin, Gene Ammons, Julian Priester, and others). He later studied music at Roosevelt University; by that time he was proficient on piano, vibraphone, and tenor saxophone. While in college he performed professionally with Gene Ammons. 

After college, Harris was drafted into the United States Army, and while serving in Europe, he was accepted into the 7th Army Band, which also included Don Ellis, Leo Wright, and Cedar Walton. 

Leaving military service, Harris worked in New York City before returning to Chicago, where he signed a contract with Vee Jay Records. His first album for Vee Jay, Exodus to Jazz. The single, "Exodus", climbed into the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached No. 16 in the U.S. R&B chart.  He moved to Columbia Records in 1964, and then to Atlantic Records the following year, where he re-established himself. In 1965, Atlantic released The In Sound, a bop album which won back many of his detractors. 

During the next few years, he began to perform on electric piano and the electric  Varitone  saxophone, and to perform a mixture of jazz and  that sold well in both the jazz and rhythm and blues  markets. In 1967, his album The Electrifying Eddie Harris  reached second place on the R&B chart. The album's lead track, "Listen Here", was issued as a single climbing to No. 11 R&B and No. 45 on the Hot 100. Harris released several different versions of his composition over the years, including both studio and live concert recordings.

Further information about Eddie Harris is found at EddieHarris.com.

This content was excerpted from the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Harris, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).