I've been Rufusized - this morning - but why? I don't know what started me looking for Rufus Harley's music, not having heard any since the 80s, when I was lost (blissfully) in Jazz World for the whole decade. Had I seen his name somewhere recently? Whatever, I hit YouTube and first found this, which proved a joyful wake-up call...
Whoever killed John F. Kennedy (if you know, do tell) inadvertently gave Rufus Harley his new career as a bagpipe player. The Black Watch pipe band played at Kennedy's funeral (they'd been guests at the White House a few days earlier) and they inspired a certain young black man who was watching to buy a set of pipes. The rest is his story and although hardly going on to set the Jazz world alight he could claim to be utterly unique.
But there are similarities with Roland Kirk - the eccentricity, Kirk's three-horned attack and the three, er, whatever those attachments on the bag are called. The transformation of the chant into a medium for blues, Jazz and renditions of Pop tunes - the chant of the weird. Unlike Kirk, who was accepted as a wayward genius of sorts, Harley remains to this day simply wayward, off in a cul de sac of his own on the vast map of Jazz history.
The 1972 album, The Re-Creation Of The Gods (Transparency reissue) has been filling my ears today - a wonderful thing - fusing the musical mood of the times via Harley's strange drone yet serving up the 'street' sound (Funk) with bite and boosted by Bill Mason's organ. Here's a track I uploaded....
Harley was also a guest on Laurie Anderson's Big Science album...
Finally, it could only happen in America? Harley on the quiz show To Tell The Truth. It's hard not to think of the audience applauding what they see as a freak show but the appearance presumably got him more gigs. They play Chim Chim Cher-ee, which John Coltrane recorded for The John Coltrane Quartet Plays in the same year. The performance starts at 6.54 if you can't be bothered to watch the quiz. 'Blow when ready, Rufus...'
Mafia used signature weapons to kill JFK to stop his brother's crusade against them. It was pals of his father who delivered the election. Bobby was killed by his bodyguard, a mafia plant. I learned all this from a New Orleans DA 20 years ago. Down there it was common knowledge in the law enforcement community.
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