Everette Harp was born in Houston, Texas, on August 17, 1961, the youngest of eight children. His father was a minister and his mother played organ, and gospel was one of his first musical influences. His label biography says he began on piano at two and saxophone at four. He started playing jazz in middle school at Marshall Junior High under the drummer Buddy Smith, attended Houston's High School for the Performing and Visual Arts under Robert "Doc" Morgan, and majored in music at North Texas State University in the early 1980s. In high school he was listening to Grover Washington Jr., Hank Crawford and Stanley Turrentine. After college he worked briefly as an accountant while playing in Houston bands and picking up studio jingle work. The best known of those bands, a jazz-funk group called The Franchise, released a local album in 1987 that carried the first recording of his composition "There's Still Hope," which he re-cut on his 1992 debut.

He moved to Los Angeles in 1988 and became a working sideman. He toured briefly with Teena Marie, then with Anita Baker, an association that continued on and off until 1995, and he also played with Sheena Easton and Kenny Loggins. In 1990 George Duke signed him to Capitol to record with Duke's group 101 North, and Discogs credits him on that group's album Forever Yours (Capitol, 1991). Before the group album was released, Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note signed him as a solo artist.

The debut, Everette Harp (Blue Note, 1992), was produced by Duke, who also played keyboards on it, alongside Brian Simpson on keyboards, Paul Jackson Jr. among six guitarists, Paulinho Da Costa on percussion, and backing vocals from Rachelle Ferrell, Chanté Moore and Phil Perry. It reached No. 6 on Billboard's Contemporary Jazz Albums chart and No. 54 on the R&B albums chart, and his cover of Janet Jackson's "Let's Wait Awhile" reached No. 80 on the Hot R&B singles chart. His own biographies place him on the road in 1991 with Duke and Marcus Miller and in 1992 with Ferrell. Duke presented him as a featured guest at the Montreux Jazz Festival, and he appeared weekly on The Arsenio Hall Show. His part on John Tesh's Sax by the Fire (1994) led to playing the Entertainment Tonight theme, and he also played the Soul Train theme, produced by Duke, and the main title music for Roger Ebert at the Movies. He shared a stage with President Bill Clinton at the Arkansas Ball.

The Blue Note years produced four more albums. On Common Ground (Blue Note Contemporary, 1994) Duke was executive producer, Harp arranged and produced most of the tracks himself, and Jeffrey Osborne sang on "Jeri's Song." It reached No. 6 on Jazz Albums and No. 5 on Contemporary Jazz Albums. What's Going On (1997) was his entry in the Blue Note Cover Series, a full-album treatment of Marvin Gaye's 1971 record. Harp produced it, played saxophone, flute, electronic wind instrument and keyboards, and arranged the horns with Jerry Hey, with Yolanda Adams among the backing vocalists and Arsenio Hall delivering spoken word on "Save the Children." Better Days (1998) added Marcus Miller on bass for one track and Wayman Tisdale for another. On For the Love (2000) he turned to a plainer, song-first approach, co-wrote "I Miss You With Me" with Brian Culbertson, and sang lead on "We Don't Have to Say Goodbye."

After Blue Note he released All for You (A440 Music Group, 2004), with Earl Klugh on acoustic guitar for one track, Norman Brown on guitar, George Duke on piano and Howard Hewett singing. At Shanachie he made In the Moment (2006), which reached No. 4 on Jazz Albums and No. 1 on Contemporary Jazz Albums, then My Inspiration (2007), a tribute to his father, who passed away in February 2007, and First Love (2009), which includes a version of John Coltrane's "Central Park West." "Old School," from My Inspiration, reached No. 4 on the Smooth Jazz Airplay chart. Through the 1990s he was also a regular on Los Angeles recording dates, favored by producers including Babyface, Peter Wolf, Peter Asher and Barry Eastmond. His saxophone is credited on George Duke albums from Snapshot (1992) through Dreamweaver (2013), on Dianne Reeves's Blue Note album Quiet After the Storm (1994), on Joe Sample's Sample This (1997), on Stanley Clarke's 1, 2, to the Bass (2003) and on several records by Brian Bromberg. Around 2000 he was opening Loggins's concerts with his own band and then joining Loggins as keyboardist, saxophonist and backing vocalist, and in later years he reduced his side work to concentrate on his own projects.

In 2014 he formed Jazz Funk Soul with the keyboardist Jeff Lorber and the guitarist Chuck Loeb. The three produced the trio's first album, Jazz Funk Soul (Shanachie, April 29, 2014), which was nominated for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2015 and gave Harp his first Grammy nomination. The album's "Serious Business" went to No. 1 on the Smooth Jazz Airplay chart, and More Serious Business followed on January 22, 2016. Loeb passed away from cancer on July 31, 2017, at 61. Paul Jackson Jr. took the guitar chair, and the group has since released Life and Times (January 25, 2019), Forecast (2022), whose closing track is titled "CLS (For Charles Samuel Loeb)," and Simpatico (July 11, 2025), on which Harp is credited on saxophone and produces three tracks. Outside the group, he is the featured saxophonist on Brian Culbertson's "Keep Movin'" (2020) and on Eric Valentine's "Q's Vibe" (2022), both No. 1 on Smooth Jazz Airplay, and on Adam Hawley's "Electric" (2026), also a No. 1 on that chart. As of November 2026, All About Jazz lists Jazz Funk Soul concert dates at Keystone Korner Baltimore on December 4 and 5.

Harp is a smooth jazz and R&B saxophonist, and his records say so openly: hip-hop and classic soul grooves, vocal tracks, gospel-rooted ballads and radio-length melodies, with straight-ahead playing as an occasional visitor rather than the main subject. Scott Yanow of AllMusic called him an emotional, R&B-oriented saxophonist whose background is in gospel and R&B and who sometimes shows an ability to improvise. He plays tenor, alto and soprano, and he doubles on flute, keyboards and the electronic wind instrument, and he produces and arranges much of his own work. All About Jazz described his early Blue Note albums as ahead of the curve in folding hip-hop and R&B textures into smooth jazz. He names Grover Washington Jr., Hank Crawford and Stanley Turrentine as the jazz saxophonists he listened to, and the church he grew up in as the other half of his sound. He credits Anita Baker with teaching him stage presence and audience rapport, Kenny Loggins with musicianship, and George Duke with production and the idea that simple music communicates best. The jazz side shows in the Blue Note contract, the Jazz Albums chart placements, a Coltrane tune on First Love, and the Grammy nomination in the contemporary instrumental category.