Harry Carney - Harry Carney with Strings (Remastered Edition) (1954/2024) [Official Digital Download]

Harry Howell Carney was born in Boston on the first of April 1910 and grew up in the same neighborhood as alto saxophonists Johnny Hodges and Charlie Holmes. Together they gathered inspiration from 78-rpm jazz records. Carney cited as primary influences Sidney Bechet with Clarence Williams, Buster Bailey with Fletcher Henderson, and Don Murray with Jean Goldkette. At the age of 13, he blew clarinet with a band sponsored by the Knights of Pythias. After developing some proficiency on the alto sax, he visited New York with Holmes and gigged at the Bamboo Inn shortly before it burned to the ground.

Carney then began sitting in with Duke Ellington, who took him back to Boston for a series of one-nighters. After Duke sweet-talked Carney's mother into allowing the 17-year-old to continue his involvement with the band, a lifelong collaboration ensued. Over the years Ellington took to riding in Carney's Imperial automobile while the saxophonist quietly handled the steering wheel. This provided Duke with a friendly and intimate atmosphere wherein some of his most memorable melodies were conceived. Carney co-composed "Rockin' in Rhythm" and was usually responsible for executing the bubbling clarinet solo on this tune, but he generally confined himself to the big baritone sax. Examples of his arresting presence on this horn are myriad and include "Frustration," "Sono," "Perdido," and "La Plus Belle Africaine." A bonus track version of "Sophisticated Lady" on the CD reissue of the Verve album 'Soul Call' is a thrilling testimonial to Carney's lyrical profundity as a balladeer and his resilience as a practitioner of circular breathing, two of the many ways in which he influenced Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who in 1972 on his album A Meeting of the Times presented a duple portrait of Harry Carney and Barney Bigard by simultaneously blowing a clarinet and a baritone sax. Carney claimed to have originally mastered the baritone in order to help Duke broaden the palette of the ensemble, initially emulating Coleman Hawkins in the upper register and Adrian Rollini in the basement of the horn. Around 1944 he also took up the bass clarinet.

TRACKLIST

1. Harry Carney - I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You
2. Harry Carney - Take The A Train
3. Harry Carney - We're in Love Again
4. Harry Carney - Chalmeu
5. Harry Carney - Moonlight on the Ganges
6. Harry Carney - It Had to Be You
7. Harry Carney - My Fantasy
8. Harry Carney - I've Got It Bad and That Ain't Good



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