DO-IT-YOURSELF 'MOVEMENT': JACKSON MUSICIAN RELEASES SECOND INDEPENDENT CD

JACKSON, Mo. -- Some musicians have lofty goals -- get the big record deal in L.A. or Nashville, tour the United States and be known worldwide.

Local musician Ryan Harper's goals aren't set that high yet. "I just want to maximize my audience," he said.

Harper looks to do that with the release of his second CD, "Movement," an album he feels can't be labeled. He said the mix of rock, jazz, blues, funk and gospel has left friends who have listened to it struggling to find one word to describe the style.

"That was my goal -- to make an album that can't be categorized or classified," he said, "and no one has been able to do that yet."

To celebrate the release, Harper and his bandmates -- Lance Farrow and Bryan Davidson on guitars, Brian Brinker on drums, Dana Johnson on percussion, Craig Marshall on keyboard and percussion, Sam Godwin on bass and Beth Poole on background vocals -- will play at the Jackson Jaycee Community Center at 8 tonight. The concert is free and open to the public.

Harper formed The Ryan Harper Band after he realized that he likes the interaction with people on-stage. He played with Farrow in another local band, Freelance October, and with the rest of the members at various times during his jazz band years at Southeast Missouri State University.

Harper said his band is great to play with. "I really like the energy of a full band on stage," he said. "There's so much humor, and there's that excitement and energy in the music that wasn't there when it was just me."

Produced record himself

As with his first CD, "Colours of the Sun," released in March 1999, Harper wrote all the music and lyrics, and he mixed, produced and performed all the vocals and instruments to "Movement" on his own at Riverside Recordings. But he feels "Movement" takes his musical endeavors to a higher level.

"It's more energetic," he said. "The tracks are more diversified and the arrangements more complex."

Harper also thinks more of the songs on the new CD, which will be available at CD Warehouse next week, are the voice of someone else and not himself.

"That's there a lot in the CD," he said. "I'm not necessarily the voice expressed in the song. That's the artistic liberty I take."

At the concert, the band will still perform a few of his old tracks and the cover songs they have played in the past but songs from "Movement" dominate the show.

"I just hope to make everyone walk out the door having experienced some sort of emotion," he said. "I hope that the people coming in expecting all joy leave with a feeling of questioning, and that the people coming in expecting all darkness leave with more joy than they anticipated."

Harper feels that a "stigma" is automatically attached to a Christian who makes music. While he doesn't leave his faith behind on his new album, he said he does want to leave religion as an industry behind.

But he'll never leave his faith behind, he said. He has made many good, supportive friends through his work with churches and area youth. "You can bad-mouth the church all you want to, but in every church you're going to find people completely willing to go to bat for you and support you in whatever you do, every single time," he said.

Harper, who is currently a graduate assistant in the English department at Southeast, plans to keep making music in the future but doesn't have his sights set on a record deal. "That doesn't enchant me as much as it used to," he said. "The only nice thing fame would bring would be that I would be able to use my music to help people on a larger scale."

Harper and his band have played benefit concerts for the Southeast literary magazine "Journey" and the Safe House for Women in Cape Girardeau. He said a lot of his favorite bands, such as U2, do a lot of charity and benefit work, and he would like to do the same. "That's the best opportunity celebrity could ever afford someone."

Want to go?

What: Ryan Harper Band concert celebrating the release of "Movement"

When: today at 8 p.m.

Where: Jackson Jaycee Community Center (formerly Stroder Country), across from Pioneer Orchard on Highways 34/72 in Jackson

Cost: Free

Other info: CD will be available at the concert and at CD Warehouse next week