HARPIST ENTERTAINS AT SUNDAY PROGRAM

Presumably, Harvi Griffin is billed as a jazz harpist because no musical genre really can get a rope around a performance that includes "The Lord's Prayer," Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" and Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey."

It's jazz as in "and all that ..."

Griffin's thoroughly entertaining performance Sunday afternoon at Academic Auditorium was that of a musical Will Rogers who never met a song he didn't like.

Sitting astride his 23-carat gold concert grand harp, the wonderfully animated Griffin ranged the musical spectrum for songs: from Han~del's baroque "The Harmonious Blacksmith" to the "M-A-S-H" theme ("Suicide is Painless") to "Greensleeves" and a Mantovani-ish "Satin Doll."

He sang capably on some numbers the calypso "Jamaica Farewell," the '60s touchy-feely tune "I've Never Been to Me" and his encore, the instant chestnut, "The Wind Beneath My Wings."

Perhaps the most satisfying of Griffin's selections was the bonafide reading given the jazz number "Lotus Bud," which Griffin explained was written about a flower that in a parable saved the Buddha's life. Griffin's set off the lovely with delicate oriental phrasings.

Midway through the show, which was attended by about 60 people, Griffin gave an often hilarious mini-clinic in the harp, explaining its parts and the techniques required to play the instrument.

After demonstrating how the harp's pedals are used to sharp and flat the 47 strings, "By the time you finish doing that you feel like you've been double-clutching a high-class Mack truck."

Griffin, who grew up in Detroit and now lives in St. Louis, took up the harp in high school. He was an applied harp major who received bachelor's and master's degrees from Michigan State University.

He has performed all over the world and often at the White House.

Griffin displayed obvious delight both in performing and in the discoveries of his own playing on the retro-exotic instrument, which he reminded the audience usually is played by someone who is "tall, blond, svelte and female."

He had fun with the stereotypes about the instrument, the teas he's played "wallpaper gigs," he calls them for ladies who love "angel music," and the admirers who say they haven't heard such a good harpist "since Harpo Marx."

Griffin turns the angel music glissandos and the Harpo Marx chuckle chump image on their ears almost as surely as New Age harp virtuoso Andreas Vollenweider does.

The performance was sponsored by the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts and Southeast Missouri State University Cultural Programs.