Harold Harris was a jazz pianist, who played, by the time he began recording, in a style that drew in roughly equal parts from Erroll Garner and Red Garland. Harris was born in Lafayette, Indiana, on August 22, 1934. He graduated from Jefferson High School and enrolled at Purdue University, majoring in Sociology and Physical Education; he also began playing gigs in and around Lafayette. After two years in the US Army, he moved to Chicago in 1958, where he took a day job with the Welfare Department and played gigs at night, first in a duet with Lennell Glass, then a trio with Glass and George Harps. What little we know about Harris has been taken from the notes to his first Vee-Jay LP, released in 1961, which were written by Barbara J. Gardner.

According to Gardner's notes, in December 1960 Al Williams, of the Four Step Brothers, heard the trio playing a National Guard Armory dance. Williams signed Harris to a management contract. In January 1961 Williams got the trio a job (the first contract was for 2 weeks, 3 nights a week) at the Playboy Club; the engagement was ultimately extended for at least two years. A contract with Vee-Jay soon followed the Playboy Club gig. Vee-Jay would record two Harris LPs.

In 1963 or thereabouts, Harold Harris made a second LP for Vee-Jay, "Live at the Playboy Club," which included 7 tracks by the trio. The front cover shows the trio at the club with two Playboy bunnies, but the recording was not actually live, it was either recorded in the empty club or in a studio. In 1995, after a long hiatus, Harris recorded two CDs at Sparrow Sound Design in Chicago. These were eventually released on the Japanese Absord/Interplay label.

Robert Pruter, Robert L. Campbell, Armin Büttner, and Dr. Robert Stallworth
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