Dorothy Ashby - Hip Harp & In a Minor Groove (2017)

This LP brings together for the first time, HIP HARP and IN A MINOR GROOVE, the two albums recorded in 1958 by the legendary jazz harpist and polistrumentist Dorothy Ashby. Dorothy Ashby had a unique soul jazz harp sound, and although the instrument she used is probably more thought of in terms of bedtime lullabies, she actually makes it swing nicely, and with a soulful sound that draws back to traditions of African stringed instruments. Ashby was part of the same scene as Yusef Lateef, and like Lateef, she managed to use odd instrumentation in new contexts, to get a very unique jazz sound.

In HIP HARP in addition to the interpretations of standards like Moonlight In Vermont, Dancing In The Dark, Charmaine and There's A Small Hotel, Dorothy and Frank work out on three Ashby tunes: Pawky, a minor-key blues, Back Talk, major-key blues and Jollity, a medium-up original. Dorothy Ashby has added to the basic territory that the harp previously occupied. In fusing her sometimes guitar-like, swinging line to the expected harp effects, she has added another step to the instrument-scope of jazz(...) (from the original liner notes)


IN A MINOR GROOVE is so named because all of the tunes are set in that particular mode. They represent a mixture of standards, jazz originals and one fairly recent pop song. Like the first set featuring Dorothy Ashby and Frank Wess (Hip Harp), this is not rock 'em, sock 'em jazz, it is far from the cloying effects of the kind of performances often associated with jazz of a low decibel nature' (from the original liner notes)