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FRESHLY PRESSED
SOUL SYMPHONY
The Three Sounds
SOUL JAZZ • 1969 (2026 REISSUE) • BLUE NOTE
We've got a deep chunk of The Three Sounds' catalog already (the trio put out over twenty albums between the late 50s and 1970) and several solo records from Gene Harris, but we keep finding reasons to add more. A proper Kevin Gray, all-analog, 180g reissue of this is an easy 'yes, please,' for us.
Soul Symphony was the group's last record, and by this point pianist Gene Harris was the only original member left, playing alongside bassist Henry Franklin ("the Skipper") and drummer Carl Burnett. Monk Higgins is behind the whole record, credited on every song and arranging a full string section around the core trio in the same setup as the record before it, 'Elegant Soul.' This is a deep, grooved-out record, all blues and gospel and funk, without some of the pop 'cross-over' attempts that make some of the Sounds' later catalog feel a little lightweight.
Here, the title cut fills the entire A-side, running close to 26 minutes, and it's less a single composition than a string of blues-rooted ideas that keep circling back into each other, with Harris steering the whole thing from the piano.
Flip the disc over for "Repeat After Me," which leans hard into gospel call-and-response over a choppy bassline, and "Popsicle Pimp," a short one where the French horn does something you don't expect from a soul jazz record.
This new pressing is from the Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition, mastered from the original tapes in stereo and pressed at Optimal. If you want to hear soul jazz at its finest, without the schmaltz that sometimes crept into the genre, this is a pretty solid place to start.
LISTEN & BUY
If at all possible, buy it at your local record store.