TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT: Allan Harris Presents "Kate's Soulfood" This Summer

Allan Harris Set To Tour Critically Acclaimed New Album Kate’s Soulfood This Summer 

The acclaimed vocalist and guitarist will perform in New York, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia in July, plus Maine and Michigan in August

Critically acclaimed soulful crooner Allan Harris will be bringing his hit album Kate’s Soulfood on the road this summer! As a recipient of a prestigious SouthArts Jazz Road touring grant, Harris will utilize these funds to take his Harlem-inspired studio recording down the East Coast. A collection of vignettes from his Sundays spent traveling from Brooklyn to Harlem as a child, Kate’s Soulfood is an expressive showcasing of Allan Harris’ proficiency in songwriting and love for a strong and lively community. Harris is thrilled to present this music to live audiences throughout the month of July, with additional dates in June and August. 

The main leg of the tour will kick off from July 8-10 with five performances at the legendary Birdland Jazz Club in New York City with an expanded band, followed by a streamed event in Pompano Beach, FL on July 17 and an outdoor house party in Pittsburgh, PA on July 21. The following day, Harris will perform at the MCG Jazz Summer Series. Next up, Harris will travel to Virginia Beach, VA, where he will perform at Zeider’s American Dream Theater, followed by a hit at the Sunrise Theater in Southern Pines, North Carolina, and another house party in Hilton Head, South Carolina the following day. On July 29th, Harris will perform for WUCF Radio in Orlando Florida, followed by an intimate performance at Heidi’s Jazz Club located in Cocoa Beach. The July leg will end with a special performance on July 31st at South Miami Dade & Cultural Arts Center. On August 7th and 12th, Harris will perform at the Blue Llama in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Vinegar Hill Music Theater in Maine, respectively. 

Joining Harris is his long-standing, tight knit ensemble of contemporary musical greats including Arcoiris Sandoval on piano and keys, Marty Kenney on bass,  Norman Edwards on drums and saxophonist Irwin Hall.

Kate’s Soulfood is an homage to Harris' Aunt Kate, who owned a luncheonette behind the Apollo Theater in Harlem called Kate’s Home Cooking. While visiting, Harris would witness parts of the Civil Rights Movement and relish the embrace of a vibrant musical community. In composing the music featured on Kate’s Soulfood, Harris drew from these moments, and in doing so, has produced a wide-ranging sonic tapestry of his beloved neighborhood. 

With the help of GRAMMY Award-winning producer Kamau Kenyatta, Harris’ 14th release as a leader was brought to life. The sounds and voices on Kate’s Soulfood have an infectious spirit synonymous with Harlem. Since it’s release on February 12, Kate’s Soulfood has been celebrated for the sensation that it is:

"Kate’s Soulfood is a delicious taste of Harlem revisited, spiked soul sprinkled with a message to the people, Harris’ ballads dipped in his original smoky honey croon sauce and a searing anthem to keep the truth in sight." - Ron Scott, Amsterdam News

"Begun before and completed during the coronavirus crisis, Allan Harris’ Kate’s Soulfood (Love Productions) celebrates the post-Renaissance Harlem of the guitarist/singer’s youth. These 10 tracks reverberate with gospel-infused inspiration." - Suzanne Lorge, New York City Jazz Record

“Quarantine inspired wanderlust might be fine for some, but not for Allan Harris whose Kate’s Soulfood is a valentine to his beloved Harlem." - John Chacona, Let’s Call This

With his commencing tour performance less than a month away, Harris is ready to share his powerful memories live, at what will be the first live performance for many concert-goers in over a year. As the world re-opens and live music resumes, Harris will be a revitalizing sonic force this summer. 

He shares his excitement on his upcoming tour: "Hallelujah is the term that describes what I’ve been feeling for the past few weeks! The road beckons to me once again and like a troubadour who's been exiled to a foreign land I cannot wait to finally embrace and share those many smiles and hearts that have been awaiting my return. But I hope that my friends, fans and loved ones are prepared for the onslaught of music and joy that they will be receiving from me when I climb, no jump, back onto the stage. So to coin the title of that rousing tune by the Temptations, “Get Ready 'Cause Here I Come”!" 

Jazz Road is a national initiative of South Arts, which is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation with additional support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. An artist-centric touring program that supports small tours for emerging and mid-career artists, Jazz Road grants promote deeper engagement between jazz musicians, presenters, and communities, often those located in areas traditionally underserved by the genre.

KATE’S SOULFOOD TOUR SCHEDULE

July 8-10 Birdland Jazz Club, New York, NY    Indoors, reduced capacity

July 17 Pompano Beach Cultural Center, Pompano Beach, FL    Streaming event, limited audience

July 21 House Party - Pittsburgh, PA    Outdoor house party

July 22 MCG Jazz Summer Series - Pittsburgh Playhouse - Highmark Theater    Indoors

July 23 Zeider's American Dream Theater, Virginia Beach, VA    Reduced capacity seating (50%)

July 24 Sunrise Theater, Southern Pines, NC    Indoors

July 25 House Party - Hilton Head, SC    Outdoors, house party

July 29 WUCF Radio on air concert, Orlando    On-air performance 

July 30 Heidi's Jazz Club, Cocoa Beach, FL    Indoors, reduced capacity Jazz club

July 31 South Miami Dade & Cultural Arts Center, FL    Outdoors, spaced seating

August 7 Blue Llama, Ann Arbor, MI    Indoors, reduced capacity Jazz club

August 12 Vinegar Hill Music Theater, ME    Indoors, reduced capacity (50%)

Allan Harris: The Kate's Soulfood LP will be released in August 2021

The Kate's Soulfood LP will be released in August 2021. This LP will feature a bonus track of an unedited version of Run Through America only available here.

The vinyl version of Kate's Soulfood features an unedited bonus track Run Through America. This track was edited for radio on the CD, but on the vinyl version you will hear it the way it was originally recorded with the original lyrics. Run Through America is a protest song about the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and all the other black people killed by police in the US.

Ships out within 5 days

Edition of 100 

Pre-order

Allan Harris - The Genius of Eddie Jefferson (RESILIENCE MUSIC ALLIANCE 2018)

With his gruff, gravelly voice, his penchant for hep cat diction, and the serpentine bebop turns of his vocalese creations, the late Eddie Jefferson might not seem the ideal match for a classic romantic crooner like Allan Harris. The Brooklyn-born singer has previously paid homage to the songs of Billy Strayhorn and Nat King Cole, repertoire that seems like a more ideal fit.

Until embarking on the project that became The Genius of Eddie Jefferson, Harris would have agreed wholeheartedly with that assessment. “In my wildest dreams I never imagined I’d tackle Eddie Jefferson’s material,” he admits. “But once I started to sit down with his material and delve into what he was singing, it blew all of my stereotypes and prejudices out the window. How wrong I had been over the years not to give this incredible genius credit.”

Not only did Harris discover the depth of Jefferson’s estimable talents and innovations, but he found his own way into Jefferson’s idiosyncratic takes on the classic solos of jazz giants like Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins. The Genius of Eddie Jefferson, due out May 4 on Resilience Music Alliance, is an ideal blend of Harris’ rich, beguiling baritone and Jefferson’s bantering cool. The album follows Harris into adventurous new territory, at once embracing the challenge and making these bop classics as embracing and celebratory as his takes on jazz standards and swooning ballads.

Harris didn’t take the plunge alone. Though he’d previously covered Jefferson’s most famous piece, “Moody’s Mood For Love,” he needed to plunge deeply into the singer’s catalogue and methodology. Harris worked closely with pianist Eric Reed (Wynton Marsalis, Christian McBride) and GRAMMY® Award-winning producer Brian Bacchus (Gregory Porter) to immerse himself in the tricky contours of Jefferson’s work. “It was daunting,” Harris says. “Sometimes it seemed like I was taking a master class at MIT. But I wanted to grow as a jazz vocalist -- I’ve done the American Songbook. No one has really tackled a full project of Eddie Jefferson’s with the type of voice that I have, and I wanted to get it exact.”

It helps to have a band that can provide the ebullient swing and fierce chops that can drive the tunes that Jefferson built his creations upon, and Reed assembled an ideal one: bassist George DeLancey (Houston Person, Tia Fuller), drummer Willie Jones III (Roy Hargrove, Arturo Sandoval), and tenor saxophonist Ralph Moore (Kevin Eubanks, Freddie Hubbard). The band is joined by special guest saxophonist Richie Cole, who worked closely with Jefferson in the singer’s final years, up to the night of his tragic death outside Baker’s Keyboard Lounge in Detroit.

“To have Richie Cole there was a blessing from above,” says Harris. “His knowledge of what Eddie was doing was paramount because he was right there beside him. He not only gave me a pat on the back that was sorely needed, but he gave me a few pointers and a kind of permission to open things up a little bit to what I’m about.”

In his liner notes, writer and musician Greg Tate compares Jefferson to such pioneering hip-hop lyricists as KRS One and Public Enemy’s Chuck D, poets of the vernacular who could combine urban jargon and socially pointed messages. Harris agrees, saying, “Eddie Jefferson used the guise of his street language to create some really wonderful English literature on that stuff. Because his voice was so streetwise and rough, until you really listen to him in depth you don't understand that he was very erudite in his lyrical value. He didn't just rely on nursery rhyme rhythms and prose. He really dealt in some really hip street stuff.”

He also celebrated the jazz musicians whose work he was repurposing, often painting musical portraits of these legends through his lyrics, as on the album’s opening track, “So What.” Following the lines of Davis’ classic solo, he recounts a famous incident in which both the trumpeter and then-sideman John Coltrane left the stage mid-performance, deciding they needed a bit of extra rehearsal before resuming the show. Harris’ rendition is soulful and warm, vividly capturing the vintage nightclub atmosphere.

For all his protestations, Harris has no problem with bringing the grit and funky edge to Horace Silver’s “Sister Sadie” and “Filthy McNasty,” or tearing his way through a blistering Lester Young solo on “Lester’s Trip to the Moon.” At the same time, he brings a heartbreaking tenderness to the classic “Body and Soul” and a down-home blues to “Memphis.” He courses along with bop vitality on Dexter Gordon’s lively “Dexter Digs In” and Charlie Parker’s gymnastic runs on “Billy’s Bounce.” His romantic soul emerges on Duke Pearson’s lament “Jeannine,” while Cole’s “Waltz for a Rainy Bebop Evening” is a wistful reflection on the music’s rich legacy.

Despite his initial reluctance, taking on Jefferson’s oeuvre has made an indelible mark on Harris as a singer. “This has tainted me,” he says. “This feels so good, like reaching a high. Doing Eddie Jefferson’s music has taken me out of the arena of being just the guy singing jazz standards in front of a smoking band, to feeling like a part of the band. It would be hard now for me to turn back.”

1 So What 3:59

2 Sister Sadie 4:09

3 Dexter Digs In 3:31

4 Billy's Bounce 3:53

5 Body and Soul 4:30

6 Jeannine 4:18

7 Filthy McNasty 3:29

8 Lester's Trip to the Moon 3:51

9 Memphis 3:54

10 Waltz for a Rainy Bebop Evening 5:17