07/27/2007

Odessa Harris is this week's headliner in Manistee

Concert is part of weekly summer series

BY EMMY PARSONS

eparsons@record-eagle.com

Odessa Harris

MANISTEE — The shores of Manistee get a bit livelier during the summers on Tuesday nights. That's when the sounds of jazz and blues drift inland across the neighborhoods of downtown Manistee and out to Lake Michigan from the Manistee ShoreLine ShowCase.

"Usually the weather is nice and you just sit there and relax and some people take along picnic lunches and the beach is right nearby and often tennis players are playing and often you can hear them and of course, cars cruise by and you hear them,” said Lyn Houtman, founding co-chair of the ShowCase.

Stretching for 10 weeks between June and August, the ShowCase features performers who are each participating in a week-long World Class Jazz Production summer concert series. Founded by Tim Scully, World Class Jazz Productions organizes the series that takes professional musicians around Michigan on week-long tours. Manistee hosts the first leg of the tours on Tuesday nights.

Odessa Harris and RJ's Rhythm Rockers will join the lineup this coming Tuesday.

"She used to tour with B.B. King and was his featured vocalist,” Scully said. "He'd bring her up to break up the show and do a few tunes in between his songs, that's where she first got started back in the late '50s, and is a very good entertainer, real strong and vital for her age.”

After leaving King in the early 1960s, Harris went on to record with famed music producer Clive Davis, eventually leaving to become a freelance vocalist. This is the first year that Harris will be part of the series.

"Our schedule always includes some new groups, and admittedly you might not like them all equally well, but it's refreshing to see new musicians as well as some of the regulars on the schedule,” Houtman said.

The Manistee ShoreLine ShowCase continues through Aug. 21 with performances every Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Douglass Park Gazebo at the First Street Beach in Manistee. Harris and The Rhythm Rockers perform this Tuesday in Manistee. Other stops on the World Class Jazz Production summer series include Pentwater, Reed City, Baldwin and Cadillac.

For more information on Odessa Harris or the series, contact Tim Scully at (231) 642-1388.