CD release: A Rite for All Souls, long-lost recording by trail-blazing Mark Harvey Group

SOMERVILLE, Mass. - July 12, 2020 - PRLog -- The Mark Harvey Group's A Rite for All Souls (available July 17, 2020 via Americas Musicworks) is a newly discovered recording of a 1971 concert by the trail-blazing ensemble.  The recording reaches across nearly 50 years from a time of great social turbulence in the US to deliver a message of protest, compassion, and healing that resonates today.

Vittorio (MusicZoom, Italy) called the disc "a beautiful musical and historical document," while Donald Elfman at New York City Jazz Record praised the recording as "extraordinary...strange and wonderful…cosmically unusual…a deeply engaging series of improvisations, sound worlds and rich musical expression."  Troy Dostert (AllAboutJazz.com) wrote, "A Rite for All Souls is invaluable. Harvey and his partners are indeed wrestling with demons here, and it is a potent thing to behold."

Trumpeter, composer and bandleader Mark Harvey has performed at the Knitting Factory,  the Berlin Jazz Festival, the Baja State Theater (Mexico), other venues; he shared the stage with Jaki Byard, Geri Allen, Ricky Ford, other luminaries.  Among Harvey's 200 works are pieces for jazz legends Joe Lovano, Sheila Jordan, Jimmy Giuffre, and Ran Blake. Harvey is founder/music director of the acclaimed Aardvark Jazz Orchestra (48^th season).

His early quartet, The Mark Harvey Group, featuring woodwind player Peter H. Bloom and percussionists Craig Ellis and Michael Standish, takes listeners on an epic journey of discovery in A Rite for All Souls.   The fully improvised 90-minute concert encompasses serenity and turmoil, ravishing sounds and silence, poetry and melody. The exquisite monaural recording has been digitally remastered for release in a 2-CD set, available from Americas Musicworks.  http://www.americasmusicworks.com/mark-harvey-group.html
Preview the CD here:  https://youtu.be/8LBYVvSaS30



Peter H. Bloom's playing on A Rite for All Souls has been called "full-throated and enfolding" (New York City Jazz Record).  "His expansive creativity on a range of saxophones is one of the delights of this recording" (AllAboutJazz.com).  Bloom has performed with Mark Harvey since 1969, has been a member of The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra since 1976, has played with FiLmprov since its creation in 1996, is a founding member of the Modernistics, and has led his own jazz groups for decades. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Bloom has toured the world.  Composers such as Elliott Schwartz, Elizabeth Vercoe, Narong Prangcharoen, Karl Henning, Pamela Marshall and Richard Nelson have written for him. His discography of 47 recordings includes Sony Classical, Navona, Leo Records, 9Winds, other labels.