Rufus Harley profile picture

Rufus Harley

About Me


Rufus Harley was the greatest jazz bagpiper to have ever lived. True, he was the only one, but that doesn't take anything away from it. He'll likely go down as the greatest jazz bagpiper of all time: even his own son, Messiah, took up the trumpet, and no one could blame him.

Beyond his musical experiments, his offbeat wordplay and positive philosophy of life were, and are, a great inspiration. He was often dismissed as a novelty or simply bizarre, simply for using a different instrument or using different words to get his point across; so often his point was often missed. It is hoped now and in the future people realize music does not have to be orthodox to be taken seriously, or even serious to be taken seriously.

Rufus was about the unity of the human race through the joy of music. He was sincere without seriousness, and active without anger. He carried no group's banner: his message excluded no one. May it live on in all positive musicians and peoples.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 03/08/2006
Band Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Harley
Band Members: Rufus Harley: Great Highland Bagpipes, Tenor Sax, Soprano Sax, Flute, Vocals

with: Billy Abner, Peter Amahl, Laurie Anderson, Georges Arvanitas, Justin Bransford, Tony Cesarano, Oliver Collins, Eric Gale, James Glenn, Robert Gossett, Messiah Harley, Jimmy Johnson, Byard Lancaster & the Blues Messengers, Herbie Mann, Nadi Qamar, Chuck Rainey, Sonny Rollins, The Roots, Montego Joe Sanders, Keno Speller, Sonny Stitt, Sun Ra, Richard Tee, Emmanuel Hakim Thompson, Joshua Yudkin...
Influences: The Black Watch, Sonnny Stitt, John Coltrane
Sounds Like: If someone else starts sounding like Rufus Harley, let me know.
Type of Label: Major

My Blog

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There was an error. Sorry.
Posted by on Sat, 16 Feb 2008 11:01:00 GMT

Videos!

Thanks to LT for the tipoff. I hadn't ever thought to look.Guy is making a little movie or something, got some Rufus footage. Doesn't allow embedding, so head over to YouTube. This is the link to a li...
Posted by on Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:09:00 GMT

Courage

When I heard Rhino was re-issuing the 4 Atlantic albums (66-70), I was pretty excited. I've only got them as scratchy LPs and/or mp3 made from such. Then I heard it would only be as a boxset. I was le...
Posted by on Tue, 26 Dec 2006 18:01:00 GMT

New Rufus!

Well, 2005 new. But, I figure if I hadn't heard about till now, I figure most people haven't. The record is called Sustain on Philly Jazz records (which records in Philly, but puts out the records in ...
Posted by on Fri, 18 Aug 2006 15:59:00 GMT

Notes on the Catharsis Radio Call-In

Broadcast live on October 6th, 1995 (Columbus Day).Catharsis was a phone-in talk show on Temple University's Jazz FM (90.1 WRTI) in the early 90s, hosted by Reggie Bryant. As host, he normally played ...
Posted by on Mon, 14 Aug 2006 09:41:00 GMT