I know a guy who plays bagpipes in one of those bagpipe clubs that is always appearing at funerals and parades and such. I thought I'd impress him by dropping Rufus Harley's name and mentioning that he was one of the few jazz bagpipe cats out there. My guy said, yeah, he knew about Rufus, but wasn't that impressed with his piping.No music conversion points for me, boo hoo, but then I said (begin embellishment here),"oh yeah, well you've probably only heard the records he made in the 60's for Joel Dorn at Atlantic (Reissued in their complete form-Courage:The Atlantic Recordings by Rhino Handmade). Have you heard his later self-released stuff." My piper said, "no." Aha vindication! So folks, this is the good Rufus, from '72's Re Creation of the Gods. Never (for me) have drums, b-3, and bagpipes come together like this, and lord knows, this is plenty. Jazz dancers resurrected Malika (track 7) in the late 80's and I've been grooving ever since.
Since, I made this post I found out two things. The first is that Rufus Harley passed away in 2006 (Times Obit) and the second is that Re Creation of the Gods has been reissued. RIP, Mr. Harley.
Rufus Harley-Re Creation Of the Gods (Complete LP)
Tracks from Courage
Feelin' Good
Scotch & Soul
A Discog and a nice essay about Rufus at Hip Wax
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