Dancing By a Rainbow

If Musicmasters' claim that Freedom Jazz Dance is the last "fully authorized" Eddie Harris studio session is to be believed, what are listeners to make of this baby, which followed the Musicmasters date by nearly a year? Whether authorized or not, Dancing by a Rainbow is actually a better capstone to his studio legacy. Recorded in a reverberant Munich studio, with old '70s cohort Ronald Muldrow back on electric guitar, Nolan Smith on trumpet and flugelhorn, and a strutting rhythm section (electric and acoustic bassist Jeff Chambers, drummer Gaylord Birch), the music-making is hotter, the styles more diverse, and the 60-year-old leader — who had a little more than a year and a half to live — is in just as splendidly inventive shape. All the compositions are Harris', nearly half of which are remakes of some of his best, less-often-encored stuff from his heyday in the '60s and early '70s. If anything, this hard-swinging, nearly 13-minute remake of "Mean Greens" is even better than the original, with Muldrow's rhythm guitar serving as the main engine. Harris' solo is a career-encompassing summary of his funk style, and further down on the track he starts comping on piano right in the middle of Chambers' solo — which has the electrifying effect of driving everyone even harder. "Set Us Free" (originally recorded with Les McCann) goes at a faster, more brittle, percolating tempo, and "Boogie Woogie Bossa Nova" is brighter in tone and funkier in pace. The newer tunes range from truckin' soul-jazz ("The Grand Strut") through the loose-jointed syncopated funk of the title track, the good-time Brazilian samba "It's Just Fun and Games," and the more straight-ahead manner that Harris often cultivated in the last years. For old times' sake, Harris also cuts loose a bop-scat vocal on "An April to Be Remembered," with an occasional reminder of his Leon Thomas-style yodel. Clearly, the Europeans understood Eddie Harris' versatility perfectly. ~ Richard S. Ginell, Rovi