Photo by Margot Niederland
“The Mark Harvey Group have achieved a group rapport which makes their music homogeneous and approachable…When a group chooses to discard recognizable melody and standard repeating rhythm, they must engage their listeners in a commitment to sound-as-music. The Harvey Group has dealt with this challenge partly through a necessary theatricality and partly by using some very natural voices that draw the listener in through their human qualities.” (Mike Baron, The Boston Phoenix, November 7, 1972).
“Their unfolding free form improvisations, ever new and bold aural landscapes, provided fresh surprises and happy leaps of imagination.” (Ray Murphy, The Boston Globe, November 11, 1985).
“The proliferation of percussion instruments underscores a unique rhythmic sensibility generally eschewing motions of swing in favor of space, abstraction, breadth, and silence….Most important is the level of exploration from calm to sweetly cacophonous as led by Harvey’s trumpet and Peter Bloom’s tenor sax. Craig Ellis’ piano and Michael Standish’s percussion lend dimension.” (The Vinyl District, February 9, 2016 – review of The Mark Harvey Group’s live concert recording from 1972, included in the compilation CD The Boston Creative Jazz Scene 1970-1983, Cultures of Soul, 2016)
“Impressionistic in its approach, the group improvised impressions of visual objects, abstract ideas, literary scenes, or everyday sonic occurrences. In this case, the track involves a collective interpretation of the meaning of a tarot card, as Craig Ellis’s aggressively produced chords ground Harvey’s excursions on French horn and Peter Bloom’s passionate swirling on tenor sax.” (Bill Donaldson, Cadence Magazine, April 2017 - review of The Mark Harvey Group 1972 recording “Tarot, The Moon,” included in the compilation CD The Boston Creative Jazz Scene).
“Their unfolding free form improvisations, ever new and bold aural landscapes, provided fresh surprises and happy leaps of imagination.” (Ray Murphy, The Boston Globe, November 11, 1985).
“The proliferation of percussion instruments underscores a unique rhythmic sensibility generally eschewing motions of swing in favor of space, abstraction, breadth, and silence….Most important is the level of exploration from calm to sweetly cacophonous as led by Harvey’s trumpet and Peter Bloom’s tenor sax. Craig Ellis’ piano and Michael Standish’s percussion lend dimension.” (The Vinyl District, February 9, 2016 – review of The Mark Harvey Group’s live concert recording from 1972, included in the compilation CD The Boston Creative Jazz Scene 1970-1983, Cultures of Soul, 2016)
“Impressionistic in its approach, the group improvised impressions of visual objects, abstract ideas, literary scenes, or everyday sonic occurrences. In this case, the track involves a collective interpretation of the meaning of a tarot card, as Craig Ellis’s aggressively produced chords ground Harvey’s excursions on French horn and Peter Bloom’s passionate swirling on tenor sax.” (Bill Donaldson, Cadence Magazine, April 2017 - review of The Mark Harvey Group 1972 recording “Tarot, The Moon,” included in the compilation CD The Boston Creative Jazz Scene).
The Mark Harvey Group at the Hatch Shell, Boston, c. 1971.
L to R: Peter Bloom, Mark Harvey, Michael Standish, Craig Ellis. Photo by Margot Niederland
Mark Harvey is a musician, educator, minister and jazz community activist. He has blended these career paths for 50 years in Boston and beyond. He founded the Jazz Coalition, the Jazz Celebrations concert series, the Jazz All Nite Concerts, and the Boston Jazz Week festivals. In 2019, Jazz Boston honored Harvey with the Roy Haynes Award for “exceptional contributions to jazz and the jazz community.” In 2015, he was named Boston Jazz Hero by the Jazz Journalists Association.
Mark Harvey is the founder and music director of The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, now in its 47th season. Aardvark has released 15 CDs, including 9 discs on Leo Records, and has hosted such illustrious guest artists as Sheila Jordan, Ricky Ford, Geri Allen, Jaki Byard, and Jimmy Giuffre. Harvey has written more than 200 original compositions, and has received numerous awards and commissions. Premieres of his works have featured such notables as Joe Lovano, Steve Turre, Herb Pomeroy and Ran Blake. Harvey has performed in the U.S., Mexico and Europe;has recorded with George Russell and Baird Hersey; and has appeared with Gil Evans, Claudio Roditi, Howard McGhee, Sam Rivers, Kenny Dorham, and other luminaries. He is music director of Kate Matson's FiLmprov, and is Senior Lecturer in Music at MIT. |
The Mark Harvey Group (MHG) began as an eight-piece band in 1969 playing hard-bop, modal, and jazz-rock. Trumpeter Mark Harvey was an intern-minister at Boston’s Old West Church. The octet, featuring tenor saxophonist Peter H. Bloom, became the Resident Jazz Ensemble at the church. In the summer of 1970, the band was chosen as Jazz Ensemble for Boston’s Summerthing program, playing 42 shows across the city.
By late 1970, the MHG had evolved into a free jazz ensemble, incorporating influences from Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and especially the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The core members were Mark Harvey on brasswinds, Peter Bloom on woodwinds, and Craig Ellis and Michael Standish both playing percussion. The MHG played without charts, pushing the boundaries of collective improvisation and group composition, expressed in the piquant phrase “aural theatre.” The MHG toured the East Coast in the early 1970s and appeared twice at the All-Nite Soul Concerts at Saint Peter’s Church in New York City (the celebrated “jazz church”), on shared bills with Clark Terry, Rashid Ali, Roswell Budd, Billy Taylor and other luminaries. The group performed over subsequent decades as The New American Music Ensemble and The Aardett, always with Mark and Peter as the core of the ensemble. The Aardett performed for the Dada retrospective at the National Gallery in Washington DC in 2006, and recorded improvised soundtracks for the National Film Preservation Foundation’s DVD Series Treasures from the American Film Archives, between 2000 and 2007. A Rite for All Souls is a new archival CD that presents a live concert recording of The Mark Harvey Group from October 1971. The recording, made originally on reel-to-reel, was re-discovered in 2018 and digitally re-mastered for release in 2020 on the Americas Musicworks label. The recording is a significant document of the avant-garde musical scene almost 50 years ago. The live performance of A Rite for All Souls was presented on October 31, 1971 in the sanctuary of Boston’s historic Old West Church. As always, The Mark Harvey Group performed without prescribed score or musical notation. Recited “epigrams” served as prompts and references for the improvising musicians. The diverse acoustical musical instruments and “found” sound-making devices on stage were arranged as a sculptural installation. The space was illuminated by a few candles and a red exit sign at each of the three doors. As a “prelude,” performers processed into the space, sounding organ pipes and hooded in monks’ robes. In this new CD, we provide the entire, unedited recording of A Rite for All Souls. The concert was performed in two parts, each half approximately 48 minutes. Each disc in the set contains one complete and uninterrupted part. No material has been added, excised, or modified. A booklet provides historical context.
Mark Harvey, c. 2014. Photo by Kate Matson
Mark Harvey, c. 1975
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Peter H. Bloom, c. 2014. Photo by Erlyn Ordinario
Peter H. Bloom, c. 1972. Photo by Margot Niederland
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In a career spanning five decades, Peter H. Bloom has performed widely across multiple genres. His discography includes 45 recordings on labels including Sony Classical, Navona, Dorian, Leo Records, and many others. He has worked with Mark Harvey since 1969, has performed with The Aardvark Jazz Orchestra since 1976, has been a member of FiLmprov since its creation in 1996, and has led his own jazz ensembles for decades.
As a recitalist and chamber musician, Bloom has toured North America, Europe, and the Far East. He performed for The National Gallery in London, Animusic Portugal, Goethe Institute in Bangkok, New Zealand School of Music, The Metropolitan Museum, Jordan Hall, and the National Gallery of Canada, among others. He concertizes with Ensemble Aubade, the Karl Henning Ensemble, the Makrokosmos Orchestra, Ensemble Chaconne, and other groups. Composers who have written for Bloom include Elliott Schwartz, Richard Cornell, Elizabeth Vercoe, Narong Prangcharoen, Edward Jacobs, Karl Henning, Pamela Marshall, and Richard Nelson, to name a few. Bloom has served as consultant to The American Museum in Britain, The New-York Historical Society, The American Antiquarian Society and The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, where he performs and lectures regularly. He a winner of the American Musicological Society’s Noah Greenberg Award, and is contributing editor for Noteworthy Sheet Music. |
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Craig Eaton Ellis (1946-2006) studied musicianship with Fred Gump and veteran jazz drummer Ray Racle in Columbus. From 1966 to 1969, Craig was drummer/composer with Black Swan, an experimental band in San Francisco at the zenith of the psychedelic era. Black Swan appeared with such diverse artists as The Youngbloods, Santana, Dewey Redman, Jeremy Steig & The Satyrs, Blood Sweat & Tears, Buddy Guy, and Creedence Clearwater. Craig worked throughout the United States as a multi-media performance artist with dancers, choreographers, painters, writers, actors, circus troupes and puppeteers. He was a beloved member of the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra for three decades. As a poet, Craig published widely in periodicals including Aspect, Assembling, Gallimaufry, Intrepid, Nostoc, and Wormwood Review. His chapbook Sparrow in the Supermarket was published by Beehive Press in 1997. He was also a small press publisher. Under the imprints of AUGTWOFIVE and Dancing Bear Productions, he distributed works of Douglas Blazek, Robert Creeley, Larry Eigner, Theodore Enslin, James Schevill, Herschel Silverman, Jack Spicer, Jonathan Williams, and others.
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Craig Ellis at MHG 20th Anniversary Concert, 1990
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Michael Standish (1945-2014) pursued youthful studies in double-bass. He studied philosophy at McGill University and studied culinary arts in Lausanne, Switzerland. He had worked in Ireland, Spain and France and was studying philosophy at Boston University when he joined the Mark Harvey Group as the ensemble’s second percussionist in 1971. Musician, poet, graphic designer, silkscreen artist, Michael left Boston (and the MHG) in the mid-seventies and enjoyed life as an itinerant philosopher while working variously as a carpenter, a laborer in general construction, and the operator of a pile driver. He returned to Boston in the early 1990s where he devoted the remainder of his career to fine carpentry and writing eloquent articles for distinguished journals on woodworking and craftsmanship.
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