The New York Sun
Arts
Will Friedwald
October 10, 2024
Loston Harris still seems like a young man even though he has already enjoyed a 22-year residency at the Café Carlyle and Bemelmens – where he got to know Bobby Short very well, at the end of Short’s career and the beginning of his own. He is a fine singer and an absolute demon of a piano player, a hardcore improviser who really digs into the chord changes and swings like crazy.
Mr. Harris conveys a reckless sense of abandon as well as an overarching capacity for structure and organization — somehow those two things can exist at the same time in his playing — qualities that always remind me of Erroll Garner. He also demonstrates an understanding of and respect for the Great American Songbook that places him in the same spectrum as Bill Charlap.
Mr. Harris started with “You’re the Top” and “At Long Last Love,” offering enough harmonic and rhythmic thrills in the latter to assure us that we were indeed in Granada, and not Asbury Park. His current trio features the veteran drummer Carmen Intorre Jr. as well as bassist James Camack. The latter played for so long with the legendary Ahmad Jamal that every time I now hear him with a younger, contemporary pianist, such as Joe Alterman or Mr. Harris, I can’t help but hear a little of Jamal in the mix. Together, the three of them translate not only Porter, but Andy Razaf (“S’posin’”) and Jule Styne (“All I Need is The Girl,” “I Fall in Love Too Easily”), into a series of rolling, rollicking riffs.
The Bobby Short Centennial Celebration at Jazz at Lincoln Center continues Thursday night at Dizzy’s and then, in two weeks, at Rose Hall with an all-star concert produced by the Mabel Mercer Foundation and hosted by the inestimable Natalie Douglas. That’s great news, but the way that the combined legacies of Bobby Short and Cole Porter continue to inspire young and contemporary musicians and singers is the best news of all.
