Westword: Interview by Jon Solomon
“Long before alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa topped numerous jazz critics' polls for his fiery playing, he was a kid growing up in Boulder, studying with Mark Harris, now a teacher at Metro State University. Harris was a sophomore at the University of Colorado Boulder when he took on Mahanthappa, then a fourth-grader, as his first student.
“I consider him the best teacher I ever had,” Mahanthappa says of Harris, with whom he studied for eight years. “He was really on top of saxophone and jazz stuff, per se, but he just had this whole attitude of openness. I’d see him play all the time I was studying with him. He might be playing with a trio, like with another saxophonist and a drummer, playing some really out-there shit; then I'd see him with the Afropop band, then see him with a big band, and then see him playing classical saxophone.”