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Jazz Articles about Joe Harriott

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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