Harrell was born with the tools to make a mark. His father, a retired Stanford Psychology professor, says that his son topped his own IQ of 146. Practically from birth, that gift was put in the service of jazz. Harrell’s father loved whistle along with big and records. At 2 Tommy was pulling Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong records off a shelf. “He wanted to know how to whistle,” says Harrell Sr., adding: “Now he whistles quite well.” Young Harrell quickly monopolized a piano bought for his older sister. At 8, he got his first trumpet, and from then on there was never any serious question of another career. But he also had a flair for cartooning and a sense of humor as dry as his dad’s. One comic book he drew at the age of 8 looks like the work of a professional He called it “How to Mountain climb,,, by “Hugo First.” Harrell played his first steady paying gigs when he was 13; by the time he finished high school, he was playing dances and wedding eve weekend.
It’s impossible to know how illness affected his music. His schizophrenia was diagnosed when, as a Stanford undergraduate, he attempted suicide; he also suffered five separate lung collapses. For four years he couldn’t compose, but his focus didn’t waver. “He was like a laser beam,” says bassist Ray Drummond, who played with him in the early ’70s. Harrell systematically picked apart the solos and arrangements of the greatest post-bebop writers and improvisors, from Charlie Parker onward. Even then, says Drummond, Harrell’s arrangements, copied in his own hand, were “the I’ve ever seen.”
Harrell’s heroes soon beckoned. He apprenticed with bandleaders Stan Kenton and Woody Herman, pianist Horace Silver and saxaphonist Phil Woods before he own band on road in 1989. All nine of his records are gems;St, “Labyrinths” (RCA Victor), is the first on a major label. Harrell writes memorable melodies and sets them off with innovative, subtle voicings. His solos can sound as logical as if they, too, were composed in advance, even though he says he simply tries to let the music play through him. He experiments with timbre, having an oboe take the lead on one lush big-band chart; other tunes flirt with dissonance. It’s typical of his uncompromising pursuit of a vision. While younger jazz stars were covering standards from the ’40s, Harrell has recorded almost exclusively his own compositions, tunes that can stand up with the best jazz writing of the ’60s and ’70s. Harrell also declines to boost sales by bringing in better-known “guests.” The new record brings together some of the most gifted-and underappreciated-of his contemporaries, including pianist Kenny Wemer, bassist Larry Grenadier, saxophonist Gary Smulyan and drummer Billy Hart. “I’m really lucky, and I have the responsibility to use talent to try to push the music in a new direction, says Harrell. Music, he says, is “like a religion’ a rehgion. Every note is beautiful.” His personal triumph is jazz’s blessing.
