The Three Sounds - Beautiful Friendship [Limelight]

The Three Sounds - Beautiful Friendship - Limelight LS 86026 - Original Mercury Pressing, Pink Label, Stereo

Gene Harris - Piano
Andy Simpkins - Bass
Bill Dowdy - Drums

+ Orchestra  - [uncredited; Leonard Feather's notes credit seven brass, reeds]
Larry Bunker - Percussion

Arranged and Conducted by Julian Lee

Recorded - [not listed on sleeve, some discographies guess July 1965, Los Angeles]

Produced by Jack Tracy
Recording [uncredited]
Album Design - Daniel Czubak [very cool popup gatefold with booklet! See Above]

Released - November 20, 1965

Three Sounds-Gene Harris month continues with some Beautiful Friendship! This is the second of the group's three sides on Limelight/Mercury,  and also the second of their two collaborations with the Australian arranger/composer Julian Lee. Their first side/collaboration - 'Three Moods' (LS86014) circulates in some jazz collector  circles, and was released in Japan on vinyl in the late 1970s - but I don't believe that this side, 'Beautiful Friendship' has surfaced so far.

I know my friend, Dan ('The Gene Harris Fanatic') doesn't care for this side - or generally for anything the group recorded during their 1962-66 hiatus from Blue Note on Mercury/Limelight. The general consensus by critics who pay attention to the Three Sounds agrees, and generally dismisses these recording as lesser efforts. But I think these sides are quite listenable, as they serve as a nice bridge between the 'classic' Blue Note period of tasteful cocktail jazz, and the later post 1966 funky commercial efforts which to my mind are unsatisfying. 

These Limelight sides as well being beautifully packaged and designed, serve to break out of the 'The Three Sounds Formula' . This formula  I admit was getting a bit stale towards the end of the group's first Blue Note run. These Limelight sides then are something a bit different - while also not abandoning jazz together - in other words - The Three Sounds play Soul Jazz!