Mike Harris is neither a professional musician nor a behind the scenes employee of the music industry; he has earned his living as an optical physicist. But he's someone who Bill Evans' hardcore fans should adore. 　　Harris, himself a truly devoted fan, taped numerous Evans appearances at Manhattan's Village Vanguard in the '60s and '70s and asked owner Max Gordon for permission when he first started taping. Originally, 　　Harris didn't mean for any of the recordings to be released commercially; they were strictly for his private collection. But 　　Harris eventually realized that his gold mine needed to be shared with other Evans devotees, and in 1996 (after he went through the proper legal channels), many of those recordings found their way to Milestone/Fantasy's eight-CD, 104-track box set.