WATCH NEW VIDEO! Allan Harris Releases Official Video for “My Funny Valentine”
Love Productions Records & Membran Entertainment Group announces…
The world-wide premier of the new music video by ALLAN HARRIS from his new recording Black Bar Jukebox
The new music video by award winning jazz vocalist, Allan Harris, will be released world-wide on Monday, March 30, 2015. The song is from Harris’ newest recording, Black Bar Jukebox, which has stayed in the Top 10 on the Jazz Charts for the past eight weeks and received rave reviews since its U.S. release on January 20, 2015 and it’s European release on February 20, 2015. Watch as Harris turns the song, My Funny Valentine, into a funk imbued gospel ballad which features a rich Hammond B-3 organ “backing the brandy of his baritone.”
Harris’ new album, Black Bar Jukebox, produced by Grammy® Award-winning producer Brian Bacchus (Norah Jones, Gregory Porter), is his most compelling and comprehensive recording to date. Inspired by the jazz, R&B, soul, country and Latin sounds that emanated from jukeboxes in African-American barbershops, clubs, bars, and restaurants, from the mid to late twentieth century. Black Bar Jukebox features thirteen selections that include several popular standards and originals penned by Harris. His soulful, silken bari-tenor voice dances and trances throughout an eclectic spectrum of moods and grooves: from the moving, mid-tempo, 4/4 swing of “You Make Me Feel So Young,” “A Little Bit Scared” and the Count Basie-ish, “Jumping at the Woodside” vibe of ‘I Got The Blues,” to the Ahmad Jamal, “Poinciana”-pulsed “Miami,” the Latin-tinged “Catfish,” “Take Me To The Pilot,” which can be compared to Les McCann’s soulful grooves, and an ebullient cover of pop singer John Mayer’s “Daughters,” which features Harris’ spare and syncopated guitar strains. Harris’ soulful sound on Black Bar Jukebox comes from his rich musical home life, which extended deep into the artistic world of Harlem. Harris’ mother, Johanna Chemina Ingram-Harris, was a concert pianist, and was a graduate of the first class of New York’s legendary High School for the Performing Arts. Growing up, Harris went to Apollo Sunday afternoon matinees, and he visited his aunt Kate Ingram’s famous soul food restaurant, Kate’s Home Cooking; located behind the Apollo Theater, which was featured on the cover of organist Jimmy Smith’s 1960 Blue Note LP, Home Cookin.’ In this soulful setting, Harris would meet many jazz and R&B stars who worked at the Apollo and came by the restaurant to eat and hang out.
The music video is directed by Simon C. F. Yu. Born in a family of musicians and film directors in Hong Kong, Yu has become a specialist working in both fields. Currently based in New York City, Yu graduated from Berklee College of Music for Production & Guitar Performance, and later attended New York Film Academy to study Digital Film making. Simon has worked for celebrity clients on both sides, toured as lead guitarist with Grammy Award winning Hip-Hop icon MS. Lauryn Hill, and filmed for Grammy Award winning artists Snarky Puppy & Lalah Hathaway’s best R&B performance “Something”. “I love working with Simon, he has a feel for capturing the moment and enhancing it beautifully with his musician’s ear and his director’s eye,” says Harris. As a Musician/Director, Yu has the ability to capture all the musical moments in the videos. This makes him unique because not only does he have the techniques of shooting and editing HD videos, he also knows the music.
