I was driving around downtown Milwaukee in the summer of 1991, accompanied by a good friend, trying to find an exit out of downtown Milwaukee, and we happened to pass a commercial looking CD store; but in the corner of the window was a neon sign that said "Jazz Cellar." Being big jazz fans, we parked the car to check it out. The Jazz Cellar was an all-jazz CD shop in the basement of a more commercial shop. In it was an African-American gentleman smoking a cigar and listening to jazz. My kind of person! My friend and I started looking through the selection of CDs, when we looked at each other in wonderment of what was being played over the sound system. It was some of the most killer Blues and Gospel infested jazz we had ever heard. The pianist was just a-stankin' it up! It was this CD, Gene Harris' Black and Blue. We both asked to buy a copy on the spot, but it hadn't been released to the public yet. Well, we bought some other CDs to patronize the business, but made a point, when we got back home to Illinois, to look for this CD. It is still a staple of my CD listening rotation, over 16 years after I purchased it. I have since collected all of Gene's CDs since his comeback in the 1980s. It is also worth it to check Gene out with the Ray Brown trio. This CD however, is my favorite example of Gene's work.