Jesse Harris At The AdelaideInternational Guitar Festival

Sat 8th Nov, 2008 in Features

Jesse Harris, probably best known for playing guitar and writing with Norah Jones, is on his way to Australia for The Second Adelaide International Guitar Festival that kicks off on the 30th of November. Coming to Australia for the first time, we will be treated to his songwriting craft, and on this trip, he will be playing quite a bit of banjo. More on that in a bit, but first off a little background on this thirty-something singer/songwriter from New York City and how he became involved in this star making machinery.

“My mother is an actor and a writer and my father was, too. My father was also an avid music fan and he always listened to a lot of music. He was a big jazz fan. He loved Miles Davis, Coltrane, Bill Evans, but in the 70’s he was a big Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, and of course, Beatles fan. When I got into music myself I was of course into rock and roll, but growing up in NYC, I found myself in high school spending some nights in a jazz club and some nights in a rock club. I was exposed to quite a variety of live music. My first instrument was the piano and I took lessons on Bach and Beethoven and did it for about 4 years. Then I quit and started playing guitar when I was 17so I could learn to play Dylan and Neil Young songs and then became much more involved with the guitar,” recalled Jesse.

His records have not been released here in Australia that he knows of, but you can find them wherever good records are downloaded. Besides his solo work, he has been involved with various band projects before he hooked up with Ms. Jones. The Ferdinandos is one group of his that resulted in a handful of releases that are not bad records at all.

“The Ferdinandos started as a band that I formed while I was still in another group, Once Blue. I started The Ferdinandos just for fun and then after Once Blue broke up it became my first priority. The Ferdinandos really was about my collaboration with the guitarist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollensen. We made our first records at Tony’s house on an 8-track analog machine and we did 5 albums in total. The Ferdinandos was refreshing because in other groups I had played with highly skilled jazz musicians, not playing jazz, but tighter and cleaner arranged music. With The Ferdinandos I wanted to play something a little more earthy, so that was what it was about for me,” said Jesse.

Then of course something occurred that changed the profile of Jesse Harris as a singer and songwriter and this was his collaboration with the daughter of one Ravi Shankar, best known as Norah Jones. As Come Away With Me sold over 25 million copies worldwide, Jesse Harris may be collecting royalties for sometime for his involvement with the songs he wrote for Norah.

“Well, I met Norah when she was a student at the University of North Texas and I was driving there with a friend of mine and we were driving to California. We were going to see some friends perform at her school and she was asked to pick up the band, because she had a big car and she was the driver. We became friends and I started sending her songs almost right away because I had heard her sing and thought she was great. She moved to N.Y.C. about a year later and we started a band together. Then she got signed to Blue Note and because I had been involved with the band and wrote a number of songs, well the rest is history,” Jesse laughed.

Since then Jesse has released a number of records Secret Sun (2003), While The Music Lasts (2004) Mineral (2006) and the most recent, Feel (2008). His music sits well next to people like Paul Simon, M. Ward, Conor Oberst and other lighter rock/pop influenced music. His songwriting does stand the test of being covered as can be heard on the soundtrack to the Ethan Hawke film, The Hottest State.

“I have known Ethan for a very long time. He was making a film version of his novel and he needed some original songs as the lead actress was playing a singer/songwriter. In talking about it we came up with the concept of asking all these singers we loved, to sing songs of mine because he felt it was very important it be one writer, so even if it was The Black Keys or Feist performing, it would still have a continuity to it. We started asking people if they were interested in getting involved and we ended up getting such a positive response that we ended up with this incredible number of performances. It really was a great project,” said Jesse

The soundtrack is really worth searching out with performances by the aforementioned artists included with Willie Nelson, Norah Jones, Emmylou Harris, Cat Power, and Bright Eyes. It is one of those few soundtracks that stands as a great release just on its own.

Jesse will be playing at the A.I.G.F. on the 2nd of December and will be joined on the bill with Lior. Jesse will be playing the banjo, as I mentioned before, so how did the attraction to an instrument usually tied to bluegrass, find it’s way into the hands of Jesse?

“I am going to be playing as a duo with a percussionist named Robert Di Pietro and I am going to be playing mostly 6 string banjo. I play in a street band, a marching band, called The Himalayas. We were playing all these gigs on the street and I was playing acoustic guitar and I could not hear it and no one else could either. I went out to a guitar shop and bought the loudest instrument I could find and it was the banjo. I started playing it in the marching band and then at other people’s gigs and records, and for some reason, I lastly introduced into my own music. I used it on a few songs on my last record, Feel, and I have subsequently recorded my next record and used it all over that one. There is something about the banjo that just has punctuation and I have this pick up on it so it actually sounds better amplified then it does acoustic. It has nice warmth to it. It is a percussive punctuated sound and you can hear every note of every chord,” said Jesse.

Jesse Harris is playing exclusively in Adelaide for the festival. Make sure you don’t miss this excellent songwriter.

Adelaide International Guitar Festival Website