If You Believed In Me

NEW JESSE HARRIS ALBUM FOR 2025!

All orders get immediate full-album download in MP3 or WAV format.

SONGS
1. Dolores
2. If You Believed in Me
3. There’s a Real World
4. I’m Not Sure
5. Like a Leaf
6. Whoever Said
7. Having a Ball (feat. Norah Jones)
8. Nobody Else Knew, But We Knew (feat. Jake Sherman)
9. Rose du Ciel (feat. Marine Quéméré)
10. Where’s Your Shadow

VINYL DETAILS

+ High-quality black vinyl pressed by GZ
+ Limited Edition of 250

+ Mastered for vinyl by Stephen Marcussen

CD DETAILS
+ Gatefold CD sleeve with booklet.

+ Mastered by Stephen Marcussen

One evening at home in the fall of 2024, I wrote and recorded a song about a black cat with yellow eyes named Dolores. It was meant to be nothing more than a gift to its owner, but about a week later my old friend Maycon Ananias, a composer and arranger from Brazil, sent me a text saying he had something to propose: record his symphonic arrangements with an orchestra in Estonia, where he was writing a commission for the 95th birthday celebration of Arvo Pärt. The session was already scheduled and would also include other pieces of Maycon’s.

Never had I recorded any of my music with an orchestra, and, serendipitously, this new song, with its spaciousness and fluid chord harmony, seemed ideal. Albums like Harry Nilsson’s A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night and Frank Sinatra’s Where Are You had always enchanted me (both, by the way, arranged and conducted by Gordon Jenkins). These two I sent to Maycon as references.

We had first met in 2011 when he walked into my apartment in New York City with the Brazilian singer, Maria Gadu, and sat down smiling at the piano. We’ve been friends ever since and have collaborated on numerous albums and live performances. Now older, a bit more grey and mustachioed, he’s a man who touches his heart when he sees you and is given to wax spontaneously about his affections while waving a hand in the air.

After hearing what he wrote for “Dolores” and the quality of the orchestral recordings, I decided to do an entire album with him. His dense chord voicings and melodic interplay with the vocal flowed perfectly and stood firmly on the same ground that Jenkins had pioneered. The orchestra sounded old, rich and three-dimensional.

The only impediment was I had almost no songs, except two pre-existing ones, both from 2024: “Rose du Ciel,” which I had already recorded for an EP but deserved a new version with an orchestral treatment; and “There’s a Real World,” for a friend who had passed away the summer before, which also fit stylistically. The rest of the songs were written specifically for these sessions, over the course of a few months.

Things moved fast. Maycon would plan sessions, tell me the date, and I would send him the song recordings in time for him to send me demos of his arrangements with a midi orchestra, in order for me to request any changes before the actual recording date. Unfortunately, I did not make it to Estonia; on the other hand, each time I received the recording files it was like a magic gift to hear the orchestra filling up the songs. One day, I hope we can present this album together in a live concert.

Most of my sessions were done in my home studio, with me playing the guitar, bass and keys. But in early January ’25, over two evenings at the studio of Kassin in Rio de Janeiro, where I had ended up after a short tour, a wrecking crew of musicians contributed: Kassin and Frederico Heliodoro (bass), Vinicius Cantuaria (drums) and Guilherme Monteiro (guitar). We recorded “Having a Ball,” “Rose du Ciel” and “There’s a Real World” - plus overdubbing Guilherme’s jazz guitar solo and Frederico’s bass on “Like a Leaf.” Next in Mexico City, where I went for a weekend of shows, Erik Deutsch recorded keyboards on “Having a Ball” and “There’s a Real World.” And then in LA, I wrote “Whoever Said” and recorded it the next day with Jason Lader (who also added synths) at his studio up the hill from where I stayed in Laurel Canyon.

Back in New York, many friends dropped by to add touches. Norah Jones recorded vocals for “Having a Ball” - not only her lead but two playful tracks of scatting. On another day, Marine Quéméré, who was passing through town with the group Nouvelle Vague, sang lead vocal on “Rose du Ciel,” plus harmonies on “There’s a Real World.” One evening, after cooking dinner for some friends, I played them the album, and Jeremy Gustin ended up overdubbing drums on “Like a Leaf” and “There’s a Real World.” In similar fashion, Jon Dryden added wurlitzer to “Having a Ball” and glockenspiel to “Dolores.” Lastly, I visited Jake Sherman at his Bushwick studio, where he recorded chromatic harmonica on the only instrumental, “Nobody Else Knew, But We Knew.”

Once the album was finished, with the skillful help of Grant Milliken’s mixing and Stephen Marcussen’s mastering, I sent it to a few people, including Sébastien Vidal, whom I knew as the head of the French radio station, TSF Jazz, and the Paris jazz club, Le Duc des Lombards. Little did I know, he had also begun to run a label, Artwork Records. And here we are.

Each album is a discovery. This one took me to places I had often imagined for the albums of other artists I’ve worked with, but never myself.

• Jesse Harris, June 2025