by Tom Benton

I stood at the beer tent at the 1999 Austin Jazz and Arts festival and watched four men take the main stage for what would be a brief set, a hint of things to come at the their headlining performance that evening. Two other musicians joined me just in time for our jaws to drop in quiet unison and remain that way for 35 minutes.

From their first note, the group onstage boiled and churned with an energy that seemed implausible considering the heat of the day. The drummer and bassist merged into some kind of rampaging free-bop tornado while the pianist boldly pitched dense chordal bombs into the fray. Standing in the eye of the storm was a young man, a very young man, leaning over a vibraphone. But such a snapshot would only last for a second - seemingly without warning he would throw his whole body into some angular melodic line, jerking this way and that as he hammered up and down the tines of his instrument. Stefon Harris displayed a capacity for melodic invention and improvisational wit that day that belied his 26 years on this planet and, more inconceivably, his scant four years as a jazz musician.

In stark contrast to many of his peers, 20-something musicians who had been exploring jazz virtually since they picked up their instruments, Harris was well on his way towards earning a classical percussion degree at the Eastman School of Music when a roommate sat him down with the Charlie Parker record that proceeded to abruptly turn his life around. In no time he was relocated to NYC, where he would complete degrees at the Manhattan School of Music in both classical percussion and jazz performance. He became entrenched in the live music scene, gigging and jamming with jazz as well as latin bands. His skills and reputation accelerated at an alarming pace: Max Roach, Joe Henderson, and Steve Coleman were amongst his employers, Blue Note wanted a record. They received A Cloud of Red Dust and the doors burst wide open. Stefon Harris the Virtuoso was revealed as Stefon Harris the Composer, the Arranger, the Bandleader. Things slowed down not in the slightest, with more high profile sideman work (Charlie Hunter, Cassandra Wilson) as well as the Blue Note New Directions Tour, where some of the venerable label's most talented young stars assembled for a critically acclaimed recording and tour. The New Directions project allowed him to deepen the musical bond with some of his NYC compatriots with which he had developed a particularly strong rapport: saxophonist Greg Osby, pianist Jason Moran, bassist Taurus Mateen, and drummer Nasheed Waits. This was the band that Harris would take into the studio to record Black Action Figure. Whereas A Cloud of Red Dust was orchestrated somewhat tightly out of necessity to accommodate the confluence of sounds Harris sought to capture and document, 'Black Action Figure' felt looser, more open: the band had grown comfortable in its own skin and Harris devoted his energies as leader and composer towards exploiting this and, quite simply, just letting the band play.

That and more is exactly what the band did on their first trip to Austin - with Moran's piano seat filled by Billy Childs (a veritable elder statesman by comparison with the quartet's three young turks) the free-wheeling ferocity of Mateen and Waits was reigned in ever so slightly; Harris deftly soared over the top of it all, interjecting quick bits of melody and occasional abstract clusters of sound into the proceedings. It was the kind of excited, vibrant jazz, rooted in the tradition but moving continually forward, that needs to be played.

Stefon Harris' return to Austin will find him with a new band and, without a doubt, much new music. Take the opportunity to experience his evolution in action.