Joe Harriott
Joseph Arthurlin Harriott (1928 – 1973) was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone. Initially a bebopper, he became a pioneer of free-form jazz. Born in Kingston, Harriott moved to the United Kingdom as a working musician in 1951 and lived in the country for the rest of his life. He was part of a wave of Caribbean jazz musicians who arrived in Britain during the 1950s, including Dizzy Reece, Harold McNair, Harry Beckett and Wilton Gaynair.
Joseph Arthurlin Harriott (1928 – 1973) was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone. Initially a bebopper, he became a pioneer of free-form jazz. Born in Kingston, Harriott moved to the United Kingdom as a working musician in 1951 and lived in the country for the rest of his life. He was part of a wave of Caribbean jazz musicians who arrived in Britain during the 1950s, including Dizzy Reece, Harold McNair, Harry Beckett and Wilton Gaynair.
Hum Dono
Released in 1969, 'Hum Dono' is a legendary 'lost' British jazz plate, described by Trunk as the best modern British jazz LP of all time that will set you back a good £2000 second hand - if you're lucky enough to find a copy. Its beguiling mix of East meets West rhythms, ideas and joy pits Jamaican free jazz virtuoso Joe Harriott and Indian guitarist Amancio D'Silva against some of the UK jazz elite's most essential players. Blending library-style exotica with tabla rhythms, cascading vocals and…
Indo-Jazz Suite
The magnificent Indo-Jazz suite by The Joe Harriott Double Quintet Under The Direction Of John Mayer. Features Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, band leader Joe Harriott on alto saxophone, sitar player Diwan Motihar and more. On Indo-Jazz Suite's release in 1966 its four tracks – ‘Overture’, ‘Contrasts’, ‘Raga Megha’ and ‘Raga Gaud-Saranga’ – freeze-framed something in Indo-jazz fusion that was unique to Britain. The States may have had ‘happening’ notables like Don Ellis but never a John Mayer or a Jo…
Free Form
Reissue, originally released in 1961. The West Indian-born alto saxophonist Joe Harriott was one of the most convincing boppers outside of the USA, though by the end of the 1950s he was exploring freer musical pastures, and the quintet with which he undertook the exploration was an outgrowth of the hard bop band with which he'd made a name on the British scene. Often in the past the group's music, in which trumpet and flugelhorn player Shake Keane figured alongside Harriott in the front line, ha…
Chronology (Live 1968-69)
Unreleased work from alto genius Joe Harriott – two different slices of material from a very under-recorded point in his career! The first five tracks feature Joe in that back to basics mode he was hitting at the time – working in a unique group that features Kenny Wheeler on trumpet and flugelhorn, Pat Smythe on piano, Ron Mathewson on bass, and Bill Eyden on drums – all players who are very open to modern ideas, but who also keep things on more of a groove here – with only a bit of the freedom…
Free Form & Abstract, Revisited
Unheard music from this key reedman on the British avant scene in the 60s – This double album features Joe Harriott working with a quintet that includes Shake Keane on trumpet, Pat Smythe on piano, Phil Seaman on drums, and Coleridge Goode on bass – playing in territory that's somewhat in the neighborhood of his Abstract and Free Form albums. 'Abstract is split over two dates some months apart, with some change of focus over the set. Free Form has more of the drama of a single creative moment. B…
Southern Horizons
This is Harriott on the verge of the free form/abstract period, but here, still anchored in the hard bop mode. This is stylish, elegant, tight, swinging; whatever label of appreciation you want to attach to it, this is still fresh music creation. This record sticks to the quintet line-up of sax, trumpet, piano, bass and drums (as on Movement), but with the added pizzazz of a superb bongos player on a couple of tracks, just to heighten the sense of hepness to the proceedings. Partly original comp…
BBC Jazz For Moderns
**Edition of 500** First ever commercial release of the 1962 Maida Vale session on 180gr vinyl. The Joe Harriott Quintet was one of the most forward looking in Britain, but no jazz man works in isolation from the past and the great tradition of jazz is never absent from the work of the Joe Harriott Quintet. "Shepherds Serenade", composed for the Joe Harriott group by Dizzy Reece, one of Britain's many distinguished gifts to the jazz scene in New York. But jazz enthusiasts not only like to know w…
Abstract
"'Audiences now seem to be understanding what we're doing. We've stepped up the amount of free-form to about fifty percent, and all over the country we're getting better receptions for this kind of music than we get for conventional modern jazz.' Free-form tries, says Harriott, to add color to jazz: 'Of jazz's various components -- constant time signatures, a steady 4/4 tempo, themes, chord sequences, and so on -- we aim to retain at least one in each piece. But we may dispense with all t…