Indian Blues

iTunes Review

Donald Harrison is a saxophone prodigy from New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. The irony of his life is that to achieve success he had to move to New York, where he cut his teeth in the 1980s playing hard bop with Art Blakey, Roy Haynes and Jack McDuff. Indian Blues recaptures the spiritual energy of Harrison’s hometown, but the subtext is even more personal. Harrison’s father, Donald Harrison, Sr., is a prominent Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief, and he handles the vocals on this album. Indian Blues is an invaluable document of the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, but here that tradition is deepened and electrified by Harrison’s Coltrane-influenced sax playing. You may have heard “Indian Blues,” “Ja-Ki-Mo-Fi-Na-Hay” and “Hiko Hiko,” but you’ve never heard them like this. The group’s interpretation of “Indian Red” is so powerful that it at times resembles something from Pharoah Sanders. To top it off, you get Dr. John leading the band on “Big Chief and “Shave ‘Em Dry.” This is more than a Louisiana souvenir — it’s an incredibly deep, naturalistic, and edifying piece of American musical culture.