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Joe Harriott

Joseph Arthurlin 'Joe' Harriott was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone.

Initially a bebopper, he is now widely acknowledged as one of the worldwide pioneers of free jazz. He was educated at Kingston's famed Alpha Boys School, which produced a number of prominent Jamaican musicians. He moved to the UK as a working musician in 1951 and lived in the country for the rest of his life. Harriott 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.

While recovering from tubercolosis in 1958, Harriott developed his own style of free jazz independently from Ornette Coleman, although he used a piano-based quintet (sax, trumpet, piano, drums, bass). They recorded "Free Form" (1960) and "Abstract" (1962), considered the manifestos of British free-jazz, and an even more radical experiment, "Movement" (1963).

In 1965 Harriott met Indian violinist John Mayer, who, after relocating to Britain in 1952, had already composed "Raga Music" (1952) for solo clarinet, "A Violin Sonata" (1955), the suite "Dances of India" (1958) for sitar, flute, tabla, tambura and orchestra, and "Shanta Quintet" (1966) for sitar and strings.

The two musicians formed the ensemble Indo-Jazz Fusions. Harriott thus pioneered the fusion with Indian music culminating with "Indo-Jazz Fusions" (September 1966) and the "Indo-Jazz Suite" (October 1966), two albums (mostly composed by Mayer) recorded by a double quintet: Harriott's jazz quintet and an Indian quintet led by Mayer plus Diwan Motihar on sitar, flute, tambura and tabla. He pursued this idea on "Hum-Dono" (1969), featuring Indian guitarist Amancio D'Silva, trumpeter Ian Carr and vocalist Norma Winstone.

Harriott died of cancer in January 1973.

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Album Review

Joe Harriott: Free Form & Abstract Revisited

Read "Free Form & Abstract Revisited" reviewed by Stefano Merighi


La serie “revisited" della ezz-thetics, prodotta da Werner Uehlinger, ha raggiunto ormai un cospicuo numero di CD, tale da costituire un effettivo e riassuntivo corpo sonoro, a disposizione per ri-sistematizzare la storia del jazz d'avanguardia degli anni Sessanta del secolo scorso. Certe edizioni però sono più importanti di altre, nel senso che meritavano sul serio una ristampa (molti titoli invece continuano ad esseere facilmente reperibili nelle edizioni originali...). È il caso di queste due opere del sassofonista Joe ...

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Album Review

Joe Harriott: Swings High

Read "Swings High" reviewed by Chris May


Like many players who are primarily thought of as “experimental" and/or “free form"—and virtually all of the best of them--the Jamaican-born, later London-based alto saxophonist Joe Harriott was also a master of straight four/four jazz and Great American Songbook balladry. Yet in 2022, Harriott (1928-1973) is almost exclusively remembered either for his adventures in Indo-jazz fusion with the violinist John Mayer and, separately, guitarist Amancio D'Silva, or his own harmolodic-esque, but not Ornette Coleman-beholden, albums such as Free Form (Jazzland, ...

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Album Review

Joe Harriott: Free Form & Abstract Revisited

Read "Free Form & Abstract Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Call it partisanship or maybe musical chauvinism, but North American audiences have traditionally had little appreciation for jazz musicians from the United Kingdom or, for that matter, Europe. Rewind back to 1961, and explain why Americans were not hip to the Joe Harriott Quintet? His two releases, Free Form, released in 1961, and Abstract, in 1963, if released by an American artist would have been held in the same regard as the music of Sonny Rollins or Ornette Coleman. That ...

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Album Review

Joe Harriott Quintet: Free Form & Abstract Revisited

Read "Free Form & Abstract Revisited" reviewed by Chris May


A tiny island, Jamaica has punched far above its weight musically. Dub and reggae are the primary manifestations, but the island has also produced a disproportionately large number of notable jazz musicians, many of whom left during the late 1940s and 1950s to relocate to Britain, Jamaica's so-called mother country during the colonial era. Alto saxophonist Joe Harriott moved to London in 1951. Other early arrivals included flautist Harold McNair, tenor saxophonist Wilton Gaynair, trumpeters Dizzy Reece and Eddie Thornton, ...

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Album Review

Joe Harriott: Chronology: Live 1968 - 69

Read "Chronology:  Live 1968 - 69" reviewed by Chris May


One of not-for-profit archive label Jazz In Britain's first releases in early 2020--then only on vinyl, but in summer 2021 reissued on CD—the Jamaican-born alto saxophonist and composer Joe Harriott's Chronology Live 1968—69 is also of interest for the spotlight it throws on another player who moved from his homeland to London in the 1950s, the Canadian-born trumpeter and flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler. The duo are found on all seven tracks, the first five of them quintet recordings from 1968, the ...

Book Review

La rivoluzione di Joe Harriott nel jazz britannico, tra guerra fredda e spy stories

Read "La rivoluzione di Joe Harriott nel jazz britannico, tra guerra fredda e spy stories" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Subversion Through Jazz—The Birth of British Progressive Jazz in a Cold War Climate Matt Parker 286 pagine ISBN: #978-1-9163206-3-5 Jazz In Britain 2020 Nei primi anni sessanta è stato il sassofonista giamaicano Joe Harriott a condurre il jazz britannico nella sua fase adulta, sganciata dai modelli del New Orleans revival e del be-bop di stretta osservanza parkeriana. Un percorso innovativo e autonomo dal free jazz statunitense che anticipò l'onda d'urto dei musicisti ...

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Extended Analysis

Joe Harriott Quintet: Movement / High Spirits

Read "Joe Harriott Quintet: Movement / High Spirits" reviewed by Duncan Heining


Joe Harriott QuintetMovement / High Spirits Dutton Vocalion2012 (1963/1964)The acquisition, ownership and handling of a back catalogue of classic British jazz from the sixties by first Polygram and then Universal is a story of meanness and incompetence. It meant that key recordings by the likes of saxophonists Joe Harriott and John Surman, pianists Mike Westbrook and Stan Tracey, the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet and quite a few others have either never been ...

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Video / DVD

Joe Harriott Quintet: At the BBC

Joe Harriott Quintet: At the BBC

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Given up for adoption in Kingston, Jamaica, soon after he was born in 1928, Joe Harriott learned to play the clarinet, starting at age 10, while attending the city's Alpha Boys School. In 1951, when Harriott turned 23, he toured in the U.K. as a member of Ossie DaCosta's band. After the tour, Harriott decided to remain in London, since British subjects didn't need work permits or immigration visas. His entry into the London jazz scene came while sitting in ...

Recording

Joe Harriott; Free Form

Joe Harriott; Free Form

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Yesterday I posted about Jamaican tenor saxophonist Wilton Gaynair. Today, I want to hip you to Jamaican alto saxophonist Joe Harriott. Like Gaynair, Harriott was educated at the Alpha Boys School in Kingston. And like Gaynair, Harriott moved to Europe, but instead of relocating to Germany, he settled in the U.K. in 1951 and became a Charlie Parker-influenced bebop player. But in the mid-1950s, Harriott began thinking about free-form jazz—music without measures or set melodies. In Nov. 1960, Harriott recorded ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Swings High

Cadillac Records
2022

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Chronology: Live...

Jazz In Britain
2021

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Joe Harriott Quintet:...

Dutton Vocalion
2012

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Partying With Joe

Kedar Entertainment Group
2011

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Journey

Kedar Entertainment Group
2011

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