Joel Harrison - The Great Mirage '2023

Tracks list

A two guitar collaboration between Joel Harrison and Anthony Pirog.
Pirog and Harrison tend to finish each other sentences when they play. Twenty
five years separate them in age, and yet they seem to have common ancestry. Both
are from Wash. D.C., both love jazz, rock, fusion, avant garde, folk, funk, and
country music, and both often do all of it all at once.
On The Great Mirage each composed and arranged music for the session, the music
caterwauls between heavy and light, really loud and really soft, gorgeous,
spiky, grooving and free. The record reaches towards a 21st century essay in
what the guitar can do. The band’s sense of joy and adventure is palpable
as they extend their range and reach deep into American guitar history and
future.
The rhythm section adds a tremendous amount to the pieces. Allison Miller,
herself a D.C. kid, wallops and caresses the drums with authority and finesse.
Crump, who is better known for his upright playing, grooves like a modern day
Jamerson, and then puts a delicate bow around a lyrical series of modern jazz
chord changes.
Harrison’s “There’s Never Enough Time” and
“I’ll See You in the Shining World lean towards pathos.” But
then moments of thunder, Pirog’s “It Slipped Through My Fingers,
his arrangement of Keith Jarret’s “Mortgage on My Soul.”
There’s the windswept ballad “Desert Solitaire,” and the
final track where two Les Pauls light up a Neil Young-style groove penned by
Harrison called “Buffalo Heart.” The CD takes its name from the
first tune, The Great Mirage, a Paul Motian-inspired number which Harrison wrote
in a flash after reading a book on Tibetan Dream Yoga.
For guitar fans, modern jazz lovers, and rockers alike, this release takes you
on a circuitous, thrilling journey. 

Joel Harrison and Anthony Pirog: guitars
Stephan Crump: bass
Allison Miller: drums
Bruce Katz: Hammond B-3 on track 10



1.01 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - The Great Mirage (5:27)
1.02 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - Critical Conversation (3:50)
1.03 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - There's Never Enough Time (4:28)
1.04 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - Mortgage On My Soul (4:21)
1.05 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - Desert Solitaire (4:11)
1.06 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - It Slipped Through My Fingers (3:21)
1.07 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - Last Rose of Summer (1:15)
1.08 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - I'll See You in the Shining World (6:30)
1.09 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - East Hurley (4:58)
1.10 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - Clarksdale (6:22)
1.11 - Joel Harrison, Anthony Pirog - Buffalo Heart (5:41)

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