REVIEW: Dorothy Ashby Afro Harping 2024 reissue

The 1960’s gave birth to a hive of jazz legends creating albums of eternal substance that still ring true in circles of fans 50 odd years later; Bobby Hutcherson San Francisco featuring the steady groove of Ummh; Love Supreme by John Coltrane featuring the stunning Resolution and Green Street by Grant Green capturing his unmistakable playing on Green With Envy.

1968 not only gave us the Mexico Olympic games, the same year another extraordinary feat of musical engineering was given wings to fly. Dorothy Ashby Afro-Harping, originally released on the Cadet label, recorded at the Ter Mar Studios Chicago, is still spoken of in hallowed terms as a quite simply stunning piece of work. Space aged, futuristic and underrated firmly spring to mind when listening to the album afresh, but with the album receiving a remastering taken from the original 1⁄4 inch tapes with work by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios, the album has been even an added healing with the highest audio quality now shining through.

Sweeping through the album is a wide breath of moods displayed by Ashby on the harp. Little Sunflower, a cover of well known jazz trumpeter Freddy Hubbard track, is transformed into something from another world, something cool, sophisticated and some unique depth to the track that is missing on the Hubbard version. Games is another momentous track with a pulsating seemingly never-ending beat, the harp again being showcased exquisitely, the same can be said for Action Line, whisking the listener off to avenues of romanticism, closed eyes day dreaming, if albums were always this good we’d all be guilty of late work arrivals and continued blissfully unaware limp bones listening to these ultimate grooves.

On this remastered release there are a bunch of previously unreleased outtakes from the album sessions, all of which add heart stopping moments. Action Line Take 2 sounds like it’s had a fresh squeeze of lemon in a lemonade making the taste sweeter than ever, the added count in’s and chit chat from from Ashby and the players tops it off nicely. Theme From Valley Of The Dolls Take 6 could easily be matched with the poetic timings of Ginger And Rogers, sublime and classy, Lonely Girl Take 1 doesn’t differentiate much from the final album track but to hear the band sequence together with what appears to be effortless showmanship is just perfection, finally Soul Vibrations Alt Take is probably where The Soundcarriers gained some of their influences for their gigantic funk overtures.

It’s not often you come into contact with an album of such timeless character, the remastering given to this old master is first class, instrumentation sounds like you’re sitting right by the players, only making the listen experience one to remember.

Afro Harping is availalbe to order via the following link