289: Hip Harp, by Dorothy Ashby

Dorothy Ashby (USA)
Hip Harp (1958)
7 tracks, 36 minutes
Spotify ∙ iTunes…just £2.49!

Finding out about good music you’ve never heard before is a drug. Sometimes it can be in a totally unexpected place like being dragged around a high-street clothes shop and hearing them pumping out groovy Sudanese pop (that happened, turned out it was Sinkane. Thanks Bonmarché); sometimes it’s a friend hipping you to something they know you’ll like. Other times, it can literally be an idle thought that turns into a YouTube search.

One day for me, that idle thought was ‘I wonder if jazz harp is a thing.’ Of course it is. Within seconds I was listening to Hip Harp by Dorothy Ashby, which had been uploaded to YouTube in its entirety. Wow!

I had heard jazz harp before, but that was in the hands of Alice Coltrane, and while her music takes you on a spectacular spiritual and orchestral journey, this album hit me in an entirely different way. From the very first piece, ‘Pawkey’, it was exactly what I had in mind – the classical harp used as a solo hard-bop instrument, with just as much verve as a saxophone or trumpet but with its own unique characteristics.

In Ashby’s hands, the harp lends the bop a slinky and silken edge. Her melodies are elegant and dignified, often bringing in classical elements (such as on the flowing cool jazz version of ‘Moonlight in Vermont’), but she’s not afraid to make it dirty when it needs to be by digging out some deep blues or teasing insistent dissonances out for as long as possible before resolving them with a playful flick of the wrist. As an additional bonus, this album was made alongside flautist Frank Wess, whose impish lines also reflect Ashby’s slight classical inclination.

Hip Harp is probably not as well regarded as Ashby’s more experimental records such as Afro-Harping or The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby (where she also plays the koto), but for me, it’s the one that stands out for its ultimately chilled vibe. It’s a really fun album, made with passion and skill and an evident joy in its music – it’s hard to imagine worries when you listen to this. And if you’re ever in a place where you simply need to hear some hard-bop harp, this album will hit exactly that spot.