One of the biggest hit
jazz LPs of the
post-rock & roll era,
Eddie Harris'
Exodus to Jazz seemed to come completely out of left field. It was the debut album by a previously unknown artist from an under-publicized scene in Chicago, and it was released on the primarily
R&B-oriented
Vee Jay label, which had originally signed
Harris as a pianist, not a tenor saxophonist. The impetus for its breakthrough was equally unlikely;
Harris adapted
Ernest Gold's stately, somber theme from the Biblical film
Exodus -- which had been covered for an
easy listening hit by
Ferrante & Teicher -- and made it into a laid-back
jazz tune. Edited down to 45-rpm length, it became a smash, reaching the
pop Top 40 and pushing the album to the upper reaches of the charts -- a nearly unprecedented feat for instrumental
jazz in 1961. Its stunning popularity sent
jazz critics into a tizzy -- after all, if it was that accessible to a mass audience, there just had to be something wrong with it, didn't there? In hindsight, the answer is no.
Exodus to Jazz is full of concise, easy-swinging grooves that maintain the appealing quality of the strikingly reimagined title track (particularly
Harris' four originals). Far removed from his later, funkier days,
Harris plays a cool-toned tenor who owes his biggest debt to
Stan Getz's
bop recordings, though there are touches of
soul-jazz as well. He's no slouch technically, either; he plays so far -- and so sweetly -- in the upper register of his horn that some still mistakenly believe he was using an alto sax on parts of the record.
Exodus to Jazz paved the way for numerous other crossover successes during the '60s (many in the
soul-jazz realm), and while that may not be a credibility-boosting trend to start, the music still speaks for itself. ~ Steve Huey
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