Shhh, he’s in the quiet. Jacket off, fedora tossed aside, at the piano.
When finally alone Harry plays like a man who doesn’t get to do this often and savours it like a Michelin dinner. The music is different from what comes out of this building on other nights — no organ, no carnival, no barker cadence. Just piano. James Verse — noir pop, cinematic and precise. You’ll also hear a hint of Billy Joel’s architecture, the emotion of Elton’s melody.
Listen and you’ll find a melancholy underneath his sound that doesn’t perform itself. It flows from his fingers as they slide like silk against those keys.
He looks too familiar. Don’t mention it.
Harry doesn’t discuss the past. A man of very few words, you know without it being said that he has seen a lot in his life — and much of it is probably things you wouldn’t wish upon your most hated enemy. He will sit at the piano playing like a man breathing the air he doesn’t always have access to.
Harry James is APRA AMCOS registered and released through Seeker James Publishing.