‘Dorothy Ashby: With Strings Attached 1957-1965’ Review By Martin Johnson

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“Although Casper Reardon and Adele Girard preceded Dorothy Ashby in the genre of jazz harp, Ashby’s improvisatory style was innovative for harp playing in the 1950s. Her harmonic choices, alterations and agility diminished the construct that jazz and harp are not compatible due to the challenges of the pedals. Ashby experienced a successful career as both a bandleader and as an assisting band member in many prominent artists' recordings such as Earth, Wind and Fire, Louis Armstrong, Stevie Wonder, Barry Manilow, Diana Ross, Freddie Hubbard, Natalie Cole, and the Emotions. Her plethora of albums as bandleader exhibits a wide variety of styles. Her innovation was apparent in her ability to constantly push the harp into new genres. Ashby’s work in musical theater strove to reach social change and addressed issues relevant to this day.”

• THE INNOVATION AND INFLUENCE OF JAZZ HARPIST DOROTHY ASHBY (1932-1986) Jennifer J. Betzer, BM, MM Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF MUSICAL ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2020

“To achieve fame as a harpist is not an easy task. To achieve fame as a jazz harpist is infinitely more difficult.”

• Bob Rolontz, a noted jazz commentator 

“During an interview with jazz authority W. Royal Stokes in 1983, for his book “Living the Jazz Life,” Ashby commented on her career. “It’s been maybe a triple burden in that not a lot of women are becoming known as jazz players,” she said. “There is also the connection with Black women. The audiences I was trying to reach were not interested in the harp, period—classical or otherwise—and they were certainly not interested in seeing a Black woman playing the harp.”

• Quoted in Herb Boyd, New York Amsterdam News, June 14, 2018

Dorothy Ashby

HARP

born 6 August 1932; died 13 April 1986

The fact that Ashby managed to work convincingly in the bop and post-bop music of the 50s and 6os alone earns her place in jazz history. Although she also played piano, she performed and recorded primarily as a harpist, and in some heavy company: Frank Wess (on flute, a piquant and complementary voice), Roy Haynes, Richard Davis and ]immy Cobb were among her sidemen on record. She worked primarily in and around her hometown of Detroit (where she also had her own radio programme for a time), and her husband John was a drummer who sometimes worked with her. She was still making the occasional record after relocating to the West Coast in the mid-6os (one of them is called Afro-Harping!), but despite finding a way to make her instrument occupy a plausible middle ground somewhere between the piano and the guitar, at the time of her early death she was almost forgotten.”

• Richard Cook’s Jazz Encyclopedia

“The New Grove Dictionary of ]azz describes Ashby as 'the only important bop harpist', which might seem a rather empty accolade, given a somewhat scant subscription to the instrument in this music. On balance, though, it's a fair comment. Ashby came to notice in her early twenties, playing with no less a man than Louis Armstrong. Remarkably, she saw a place for herself in the new idiom and managed to fit her seemingly unwieldy instrument to the contours of an essentially horn-dominated style. There are affinities between her harp playing and some contemporary guitar stylings, notably Wes Montgomery's, but she also learned something from bebop pianists like Bud Powell, bringing an unusually dark tonality and timbre to a notoriously soft-voiced instrument. Ashby's determination to lead her own groups allowed her to develop a personal language and style. Although she recruited such fine players as Roy Haynes and Jimmy Cobb, her most fruitful association was with Frank Wess, whose flute playing (still much undervalued) was perfect for her. The best of their partnership can be sampled on the Prestige. This found her working with two equally good rhythm sections, Haynes and Gene Wright, Art Taylor and Herman Wright. The absence of a more familiar piano or guitar left some of the harmonies quite open, and there are unexpected chromatic sweeps in some of these tracks - 'It's A Minor Thing' and 'Alone Together' - which seem ahead of their time.”

• Richard Cook and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.

‘Dorothy Ashby: With Strings Attached 1957-1965’ Review: Her Bebop Harp

A new boxed set tracks the jazz musician’s early development through her first six albums and celebrates her fearless work, showing she was well ahead of her time. 

By Martin Johnson June 13, 2023, WSJ 

“A decade ago, a Dorothy Ashby (1930-1986) revival seemed unlikely; now it seems perfectly natural. Jazz in the 21st century has embraced many instruments beyond the conventional ones—such as the bassoon, French horn, viola and accordion—so why not the harp?

Ashby adapted the harp to bebop in the ’50s and continued to make her instrument a lead voice in several subsequent jazz styles. But following her death in 1986, she faded into obscurity (save for a song bearing her name by the group the High Llamas). In the past few years, however, many roads have led back to her music. First, the works of Alice Coltrane, who often played harp, were the subject of thorough reconsideration. Then Brandee Younger, a harpist, established herself as a rising jazz star, and her most recent recording, “Brand New Life” (Impulse!), pays homage to Ashby. So the release of “Dorothy Ashby: With Strings Attached 1957-1965,” a six-disc boxed set (New Land Records, out now), feels consistent with trends in jazz instead of a fluke.

Ashby emerged from Detroit’s thriving post-World War II jazz scene. She switched her primary focus from piano at Cass Technical High School, which had a program devoted to the harp (Coltrane was also an alumna). Following her graduation from Wayne State University, she played piano locally before founding a band with harp as a lead instrument. It won acclaim and opened for major ensembles when they played Detroit. Frank Wess, a noted sideman with the Count Basie Orchestra, invited Ashby to New York for recording sessions. Wess appears on three of the six albums featured in the boxed set, which includes the work of several other jazz luminaries, such as drummers Jimmy Cobb, Roy Haynes and Art Taylor as well as bassists Richard Davis and Wendell Marshall.

“With Strings Attached” offers six of Ashby’s first recordings: “The Jazz Harpist” (1957), “Hip Harp” (1958) and “In a Minor Groove” (1958), each co-led by Wess, and “Soft Winds: The Swinging Harp of Dorothy Ashby” (1961), “Dorothy Ashby” (1962) and “The Fantastic Harp of Dorothy Ashby” (1965). It also features an essay from Ms. Younger as well as extensive liner notes from arts journalist Shannon Effinger. Each album captures a distinctive and unusual voice taking shape. Her approach initially resembles that of a piano player or a guitarist, but the sound of the harp adds a unique texture and richness to her ensembles. On Oscar Pettiford’s standard “Bohemia After Dark,” she deftly frames the playing of her bandmates, then digs into her solo by first quoting lines from other standards as she builds intensity. It’s a strategy that suggests that she spent a good bit of time in jam sessions proving both her musical mettle and that her instrument belonged.

By the mid-’60s, Ashby’s sound is more assured and relaxed. On her composition “Flighty” she alternates leads with Davis, often adding shimmer and grace. On the Duke Ellington/Frankie Laine “What Am I Here For,” her arrangement adapts the song to her instrument rather than vice versa. On “The Fantastic Harp of Dorothy Ashby,” she experiments with the sound of her instrument. At times her harp sounds like a theremin; at others, she harks back to her first recordings and refers to noted pianists. Also, while on her earliest albums she mostly shared a front line with Wess on flute, in the later ones here she gets away from lighter tones and employs a horn section.

The recordings in this collection set the stage for Ashby’s rise. She relocated to Los Angeles, and in the early ’70s—an era of rampant experimentation in music—she became a first-call sidewoman for both jazz and pop recordings. She contributed to sessions by Bobbi Humphrey, Minnie Riperton, Stanley Turrentine and Bill Withers. Her biggest break came from Stevie Wonder. He and Ashby duetted on “If It’s Magic” from his landmark 1976 recording, “Songs in the Key of Life.” On her own albums, she continued to adapt with the times. “The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby” (1970) presents spiritual themes and Asian musical influences. “Afro-Harping” (1968) is an early jazz-funk classic, and its tunes and passages have frequently been sampled in hip hop.

Ashby was well ahead of her time. Her instrument and her innovations prefigured the ambitions of many of today’s musicians. This revival of her work should result in the kind of significant recognition that she has long deserved.”