Changing times aren’t always kind to stalwarts of a particular approach to jazz. Of course, the best of them are always able to transition into a new style, but even that doesn’t assure anyone of being successful. There are a few folks, though, that were able to pretty easily move from one sub-genre to the next with nothing short of ease. And while Eddie Harris today isn’t remember by too many folks apart from those that scour dusty used bins of records, he’s a player that has as much funk and soul in his sax as anyone else.

With his penchant for doing as he pleased, though, Harris ran into a bit of trouble every few years. His earliest recordings were even panned critically, but that only means that the pencil pushers and key plunkers just don’t always know what’s what. That being said, Harris soldiered on working in increasingly creative approaches to saxophone including running it through electronic effects. Beyond even that, he theorized on some reeded trumpet. Again, the forward looking musician was basically chastised by journalists far and wide for only doing what he thought proper to advance the art of jazz.

Too bad for those folks.

Harris’ recorded legacy might be a bit spotty – but that’s only by virtue of its depth and breadth. Performing in tandem with Gene Ammons, though, resulted in some tremendous highlights. But as a date leader too Harris found success – with fans at least, ‘cause you know, writers are mostly hacks.

As the ‘60s bop and free jazz thing began to give away to harder edged blues stuffs being inserted back into the genre and the impending dominance of soul jazz in the coming years, Harris recorded a date that, while acoustic, still attained some of the fiery highlights of folks working with electric bands at the time.

Smokin’, released on Janus Records in 1970, isn’t exactly what it looks like based upon a cover image that finds the sax player festooning those hippified looking pillows. There isn’t any other-worldly, spiritual jazz ala Pharaoh Sanders here, though. And while that might disappoint some folks, Harris getting in some straight bop fire as well as some hard blues makes Smokin’ an anachronism, but one that should be broadly appreciated.

“Indonesia,” the title again hinting at some foreign approach to jazz and not delivering, isn’t a downer. The track’s not all modal, but serpentine and bouncy when the piano (helmed by ‘who knows’ seeing as there’s no info about the disc anywhere on the interwebs) takes the lead. Harris’ melodic work, which doesn’t point to a clear theme, but a stream of interrelated melodies sends the sax player to the brink of jazzbo craziness as his horn shutters some odd noises out before sending things back over to that unknown pianist.

This Janus released disc doesn’t offer up any clunkers – and while Smokin’ could have been more than what it is, the album still comes off as an early ‘70s throwback while attempting to incorporate the new decade’s proclivities.