Dorothy Ashby - Afro Harping

Remastered from the original ¼ inch tapes by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios, Afro-Harping is filled front-to-back with sumptuous and hypnotic grooves. Its African percussion, soulful orchestrations, in-the-pocket rhythms and Dorothy’s virtuosity take it far beyond jazzy mood music and made it a favourite of beat heads and producers; sampled by Pete Rock, Kendrick Lamar, Jay Dee (aka J Dilla), Madlib, Flying Lotus and many others.

This deluxe version features eight bonus tracks, alternate takes from the surviving four-track session reels that are arguably superior to those on the album, including an explosive rendition of the single, ‘Soul Vibrations’, extended versions of its title track and ‘Little Sunflower’ and two fantastic jazzy readings of ‘Theme from Valley of the Dolls’.

Additional flavour is provided by some of the in-studio ‘atmosphere’ that accompanies the bonus cuts. The session reels also featured the voices of Dorothy, Evans and others: encouragement, laughter, a brief burst of beatboxing and a mild disagreement over how many bars had been played, for example. In many cases these elements have been left where they were found, the better to experience the sheer joy of being in the room with Dorothy and some of the Chicago’s finest musicians in the winter of ’68.

By that time, Evans was running every aspect of Cadet Records, applying his emerging funk formula to new and established artists, with an overflowing pipeline of work for Ramsey Lewis, John Klemmer, Frank D’Rone, Odell Brown and many more. His growing Afrocentricity, coupled with Ashby’s desire to highlight the Black struggle that had been the subject of several plays (from which three of the tracks on Afro-Harping were drawn) that she and her husband John had produced in her hometown of Detroit, provided the foundations for the recording of Afro-Harping. “Her jazz playing was very New York-ish, very sophisticated,” Evans said. “But I wanted things to be very Black, very funky at Cadet.”

Jazz harpists are uncommon, and Dorothy is rightly regarded as probably the greatest of a rather exclusive club that also includes Gail Laughton, Corky Hale, Alice Coltrane and, more recently Verve’s own Brandee Younger. Though all her recorded output is strong, Afro-Harping is truly special. “She was an expert on the harp and did things very instinctively. I think she just wanted to please me, and that’s why those recordings are different,” Evans remembered.

Unfortunately, on release Afro-Harping came and went without significant fanfare and, not long after their third and final record together, The Rubaiyat…, the Ashbys left Detroit and moved to LA, where Dorothy concentrated on session work, appearing on records for Bill Withers, Bobby Womack, Stevie Wonder and others. Two years after her final solo album was released in 1984, she died of cancer at the age of just 53 and didn’t get to witness her star rising as her work was widely rediscovered, a process that really began at the turn of the ‘90s.

Evans soldiered on at Cadet as the Chess empire crumbled away following its sale to GRT in 1969, but continued to arrange, produce, and perform for other artists and labels. He released a brace of solo albums, in 1972 and 1979, before becoming professor of music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, a position he held for more than two decades. He died at the age of 81 in 2014. Unlike Dorothy, he was blessed to see his work reach new audiences when Afro-Harping and countless other records he had presided over were rediscovered and sampled by hip-hop producers and DJs like Gilles Peterson and 4Hero.

Together their partnership scaled new summits, beginning with this record. It was the convergence of two individual journeys through jazz, soul, and funk, and the blueprint for what would become a legendary triumvirate of rare quality. This special release is testament to its lasting appeal, the bonus tracks shedding new light on the inner workings of Dorothy Ashby at the peak of her creativity alongside a visionary producer able to highlight her gifts in a way that perhaps only he ever could. As Marshall Chess says, “You know, I get asked about The Blues and Chuck Berry or The Rolling Stones all the time, but Dorothy Ashby and Richard Evans were both geniuses that a lot of people still don’t know about today.”