Jazz bagpipes? The one master is Rufus Harley, who does about all that can be done with that unpromising instrument. After all, once one blows a note, the sound is sustained until the air empties out. This well-conceived sampler draws its music from Harley's Atlantic albums (Scotch & Soul, Bagpipe Blues, and Deuces Wild), plus his guest spot on a Herbie Mann album. Harley, who also is heard playing a bit of soprano, tenor, and flute, performs such numbers as "Feeling Good" and "Pipin' the Blues," the latter teaming him with altoist Sonny Stitt. This sampler is worth exploring.

Just when you thought you'd heard it all, along comes a jazz bagpipe player. Make no mistake folks, this is more than a joke - whatever you might think, the cat can play. At first it sounds like some sort of weird organ, but a couple of minutes later you can't mistake it for anything but what it is. Like an organ, though, the bagpipe turns out to be remarkably suited for jazz. With little effort, one man can make an absolute ocean of sound. The groove here is nothing special, a solid soul-jazz feeling. Side one is all bagpipe. Side two is the leader on a number of different instruments. A talented fellow.

Although Rufus Harley also plays flute, soprano, and tenor on this record, it is for his bagpipe playing that the out-of-print album is most notable. The bagpipes tend to be a drone instrument and Harley cannot surmount the problem of cutting off notes quickly, but he plays his main instrument as well as anyone and is thus far the only jazz bagpipe player. With the assistance of pianist Oliver Collins, bassist James Glenn, drummer Billy Abner, and Robert Gossett on conga, Harley's versions of "Feeling Good" and "Scotch and Soul" are quite unique.

At the heart of Courage: The Atlantic Recordings (2006) are the four out-of-print LPs that multi-instrumentalist Rufus Harley (bagpipes/flute/sax) cut for the label during the mid- to late 1960s. Also featured are a previously unissued cover of "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" as well as "Pipin' the Blues," a Harley/Stitt duet from Sonny Stitt's Deuces Wild (1967) platter. Although criminally dismissed by many as a novelty, Harley successfully integrated the seemingly limited B flat and F drone of the bagpipes into the realm of (concurrently) modern jazz.