I have the proverbial "older woman" to thank for introducing me to silk sheets and jazz bagpipe player Rufus Harley.I was a not inexperienced 25 when I was invited to the home of a woman perhaps five years my senior, although in my mind's eye I seemed much younger and she older and much more sophisticated. She was an afficianado of finer things, including bed sheets and music, and it so happened that a Rufus Harley album was on her turntable.
Would I like to listen to it?
Of course.
Jazz bagpipes would seem to be an acquired taste, but I fell into Harley's funky style immediately and he became a lifelong favorite whom I caught several times at Ortleib's Brewhaus in Philadelphia.
Harley, who died Tuesday at his longtime Philadelphia home at age 69, began as a saxophonist and flutist, but adopted the Scottish great highland bagpipes after seeing the Black Watch perform in John F. Kennedy's funeral procession in November 1963.Harley released several recordings on the Atlantic label and recorded with Laurie Anderson and The Roots.
He first tried to replicate the bagpipe sound on sax and then set out to find a set of pipes, which he located in a New York City pawnshop for $120, a month's mortgage money.
Asked how he played the bagpipes, Harley answered simply:
You play off the air that's in there.
2 comments:
The first recallable memory I have of any bagpipe is seeing Rufus Harley on the BBC,in Glasgow, in 1969. Today, I'm a full time piper, all I do is pipe. I was trained in the tradition by some of the best Scots masters of the instrument, and since have played for Presidents and Queens, Rock stars and just about everything you can imagine.
I had the honour of playing a couple gigs with Rufus, on pipes. It was an experience I'll always cherish. A mind-opening session. How many lights went on in my musical brain as I jammed with him!! I physically felt the bonds of style break...I knew I could never go back to 'ordinary' piping. Those who havent played with him will never understand what it is to have been a jazz piper. How I wish I couldve piped with him just once more.
Yet Rufus had been denounced from the get-go by much of the 'piping establishment'; mostly by candy-assed tartan boys flogged up in a kilt and pompous Pipe Majors who insist everyone regurgitate songs like "Col. Pickle's Farewell to the seige of Maffeking", and then argue with yourselves about the setting... to you I say : Up yer kilt!, and mean it.
Only Rufus had enough balls to do something completely different on pipes and succeed with it, probably the first to do so in about 200 years.
Precious few of the top pipers knew this, and to their credit, refrained from denouncing his work. Let me tell you, there was more originality in Rufus little finger than in all the current "Grade 1" Pipe bands combined.
So this is to all the piping snobs + 'Tartan Police' who consider Rufus to be a 'less than yourselves', a 'pretender', someone who 'cant play'(and I know there's a lot of you out there)...think again before you cough up your pitiful and now obsolete opinion.
Rufus, you are irreplaceable.
I will miss you.
Adieu, mon ami, adieu.
True words! I love the bagpipes! But I don't like the narrow minded snobs, who think, that playing the pipes is more like a sport, than actually making music. Rufus Harley reintroduced me to the pipes again. And today I'm playing for the fun of it! Thanks Rufus!
Post a Comment