Asa Harris (Maggie Finley)

Where: St. Thomas the Apostle, 5472 S. Kimbark Ave.

Why: Jazz artist and student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago who keeps her family legacy alive while singing from the soul.

Music has also been a part of Asa Harris’ life.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Harris said she has early memory of hearing her father, Ace, at the piano plunking out bluesy jazz.

Her uncle, Erskine Hawkins, is best known to jazz aficionados as the trumpeter and composer of "Tuxedo Junction."

Both men were veterans of legendary clubs including the Savoy Ballroom in New York and Chicago’s very own Black Orchid.

In addition to music, Harris has also appeared in several films, most recently opposite James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall in the 1996 film appropriately named "A Family Thing."

This brown-eyed artist with the mixed gray locks has studied at Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. as well as the Philadelphia School of Acting.

A leit-motif in her life has been the use of art to gain an otherwise overlooked understanding of history, be it lessons based in her Catholic faith, her African-American heritage or her jazz lineage.

For over 30 years, this slender jazz vocalist has successfully married her faith to the sound that punched her ticket to travel across the nation and perform last year on the Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship backed-up by musicians from DePaul University.

At home in Chicago, this queen’s latest CD on the St. Louis-based MAXJAZZ label, "All in Good Time," mixes classic Cole Porter and Gershwin gems with songs close to heart like "The Late, Late Show" and, of course, "Tuxedo Junction."

The CD can be found in most Borders and Tower Records stores.

It can also be ordered online at www.maxjazz.com

BLACK CATHOLIC CHICAGO: What are your earliest memories of music?

ASA HARRIS: When my father and uncle were at home, I’d here music. My mother loved music and was quite talented but she never pursued a career, so it’s always been part of my background. When I first started Catholic school in Philadelphia, the sisters really encouraged me and pushed me in that area. In high school in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania– named after St. Katherine Drexel–I was persuaded to take up theater.

How did your music ever marry with your spirituality?

HARRIS: It married with it in the new spirit of our spirituality where you can’t really separate the sacred and the profane. And I think the sisters who pushed me saw it that way, they saw it as a gift from God, although I didn’t do a lot of sacred music when I sang.

Now, since the early 1980s, most of my music has been geared toward liturgy. And I believe that I have always ministered through music itself in such a powerful storytelling device. I’ve always looked at it in that way whether I was in a nightclub, a lounge or a sacred space. Music seems to be able to cross over so many boundaries, it is a perfect way to reach hearts.

Speaking of storytelling, did you get a chance to see Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary on PBS?

HARRIS: Can I be candid?

Yes.

I was disappointed. His work on "The Civil War" was groundbreaking. That style of docu-drama or whatever you’d like to call it, using still photos and film footage was good.

I’m afraid that the person who has no familiarity with jazz at all might think that the only people who made the music were the Duke Ellingtons and Louis Armstrongs. And while they might be points of light, that’s not the reality. The reality is that there were other people who were influential, and it didn’t mention a lot of those people. The documentary did tell me some things that I didn’t know. I guess given the amount of time they had, they made some artistic choices.

For me, it was kind of a painful thing because they mentioned the Savoy, they mentioned the Apollo, and a lot of major touchstones in which the jazz idiom was expressed, yet my family that was very much there wasn’t mentioned. I’m not in there. None of that was reflected.

When I watched it again, I did catch that my uncle’s name was up on a marquee, but it’s just in a still photo. So, I thought, "Well, it is in there." But it’s just a point of reference for something else.

I’ve read that some jazz artists had a problem with the limited perspectives presented in the documentary?

HARRIS: I’m sorry but Winton Marsalis doesn’t speak for me. If I can say that, I’m sure that there are a few others who feel the same way.

Thankfully, we have people like Quincy Jones. Quincy also gave a voice to some of the rappers, he gave them credence on his "Back on the Block" CD. It’s something that I can step off into. Part of our job as musicians is not only to share our gifts but to interpret what we see. Sometimes what we see will stir up some or alienate others. Still, there is probably some element of prophecy in there when telling the messy stuff.

As an artist, you can’t always comfort the afflicted. Sometimes it necessary to afflict the comfortable.

HARRIS: Yes. Still, I can’t relate to a lot of the rap music I hear. I wish it wasn’t so violent. I wish it wasn’t so anti-feminine. But I’m sure if I talk to the guys who do it, they will tell you it comes from the reality that they have to deal with, and I’m not sure what to do with that. I try to listen with an open heart.

 

Listen to a sample of Asa Harris' music.