Joe Harriott Innovative Free Form Jazz Creator.
Recovering from Tuberculosis Joe Creates A New Form Of British Jazz.
Aug 21, 2009
Joe Harriott was born in Jamaica on July 15th 1928. He was educated at Jamaica’s very famous Alpha Boy’s School. Many of Jamaica’s most prominent musicians attended that school
Making An Impression On The British Music Scene.
After making an impact on the local Jamaican scene, Harriott moved to England with the Eddie Da Costa band. At that time many great or soon to be great musician who had left their homeland in the Caribbean and Africa, were flooding the London Scene. People like saxmen Harold McNair and Wilton Bogey Gaynair and trumpeter Dizzy Reece, who managed to impress the great Miles Davis the first time he heard him.
Harriott quickly aligned himself with the new scene and was soon a part of the modern British jazz luminaries. He played with people like pianist Michael Garrick, recording a number of albums with him. He also worked with Saxman and vibist Tubby Hayes. He was also a member of the Ronnie Scott short lived big band.
Recording Innovative Music As A Leader And Sideman
Harriott played on many recording throughout the fifties mostly as a sideman, supporting a wide variety of the working musicians in Britain at the time. These included mainstream vocalist Lita Roza and the West African sounds of Buddy Pipp’s Highlifers. He also worked with many visiting American musicians which eventually led to him being invited to appear as a guest artist with the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1959.
Joe began recording as a leader in 1954 releasing a series of E.P’s for labels like Columbia, Pye/Nixa and Melodisc. During this period he became the first British Jazz Artist to be featured on a recording with strings when his recording Joe Harriott With Strings was released.
Recovering And Finding New Directions.
In 1958 Harriott spent six month in hospital recuperating from a bout with Tuberculosis. It was in the hospital he began to develop his new approach to making music.
This new music that he wanted to create would be free from harmonic and rhythmic patterns, giving him as he put it the ability to paint sound. According to writer Bobby Hancock in an article for All About Jazz, Joe Harriott described it this way:
“All the others, they play inside the room, in here. What I play is out de window, out de window.”
His idea for Free Form music was made in parallel with the American Ornette Coleman’s concepts, but without any knowledge of them. Thus making him a pioneer in developing these ideas and as some put it the grandfather of the subsequent European free-jazz movement of the 60’s and 70’s.
Harriott formed his free form quintet after leaving hospital. The quintet was made up mostly of other Caribbean immigrant musicians some of them were also students at the time.
Ellsworth Shake Keane on Trumpet, Pat Smythe on Piano,Coleridge Goode on Bass, Bobby Orr on drums, he was later replaced by Phil Seaman..
The musical ideas Harriott developed with these men were less abrasive and not based on the blues like Ornette’s free form, theirs’ took shape based on Classical music, be-bop and calypso.
They first performed this music on a trip to Frankfurt Germany and then recorded and released two highly praised albums in the early sixties. Free Form in 1960 and Abstract in 1962.
In its review of the album Free Form Downbeat magazine gave it a five star rating.
Fusing Indian Music With Jazz Idioms
Always a restless thinker, by the mid sixties Harriott was looking for another way to create music and found it by exploring Indian music. He joined Indian Violinist John Mayer and created a fusion of Indian music with jazz.
To do this he pitted six jazzmen opposite four Indian musicians to create a new synthesis of music, Indian classics with modal and free jazz.
The resulting three albums all recorded in 1966 all met with critical acclaim. They were Indo Jazz Fusions 1 and 2 the third was Indo Jazz Suite.
Despite all the critical acclaim Joe Harriotts' music went largely ignored in his life. He made the requisite appearances at jazz festivals and a few other clubs in Britain and Europe, but he was never able to live comfortably. He could never really keep a regular band together.
Neglect And Sad End To A Brilliant Career
Joe spent the rest of the sixties and early seventies freelancing around the UK with pick up bands sleeping on the couches of friends and some local promoters.
Joe Harriott died in 1973 of cancer he was only 44. These days his music is witnessing a revival of sorts; new musicians and writers are discovering him.
In the 90’ the albums Free Form and Abstract were released on CD and more and more lovers of experimental music are rediscovering the genius of Joe Harriott.
In 2003 the London Jazz Festival paid tribute to him with an evening dedicated to him and his music.
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