Joe Harriott

Joe Harriott ( born July 15, 1928 in Jamaica as Arthurlin Harriot; † 2 January 1973 in London) was a British saxophonist Jamaican origin.

Life and work

In Jamaica, grew up, where he played during his school years at the Alpha Boys School with Harold McNair and Wilton Gaynair, Harriott 1951 emigrated to England. He first played in Tony Kinsey Quartet and toured with him on the Jazz Festival Paris 1954. Subsequently, he led his own quartet, but also played with trumpeter Pete Pitterson in its Highlifers, with Kenny Baker's Jazz Today Unit, the quintet with drummer Tony Kinsey and the Ronnie Scott Orchestra., Also since 1953, he took EPs with cool jazz and in 1959 his first, still fairly conventional album under his name on ( "Southern Horizons " on the label Jazzland ).

Regardless of the U.S. free-jazz musicians, he sought new forms of improvisation. With its freeform LP (1960 ) he documented the departure from the control system of the conventional jazz improvisation. In the liner notes he writes: "If there are abstract painting, why should it not then also be abstract music? Although ... our music has form and even though our subjects have a structure that is abstract our relationship to it. We use no clock division, and there is no predetermined harmonic or chord progression. But there is an interplay in the musical form. And in the rhythm section, we maintain a steady four-four beat. "

Its importance for the European free jazz was recognized by critics and jazz research 15 years after his death. Leading the way was next to " Freeform " continues the albums " Abstract " (1962) and " Movement" (1963). Harriott also dealt in a collaboration with Indian musicians John Mayer and Amancio D' Silva with mixed forms of jazz and ethnic music.

In the last years before his death he held himself with occasional appearances in the province over the water; but he was - also due to illness - not more successful in the British jazz scene and died penniless in 1973 from cancer. " Abstract " was included in the list of The Wire 's " 100 Records That Set The World On Fire (While No One Was Listening ) " the magazine The Wire.

Auswahldiskographie

• Freeform ( Emarcy or Redial, 1960) with Shake Keane, Pat Smythe, Coleridge Goode, Phil Seamen
• Abstract ( Redial, 1962) extended by Bobby Orr, Frank Holder
• John Harriot / John Mayer Indo- Jazz Fusions I & II ( Redial, 1966, 1967) with Kenny Wheeler and Shake Keane, Chris Taylor, Pat Smythe, Coleridge Goode, Alan Ganley, sofa Motihar, Chandrahas Paigankar, Keshav Sathe

• Chris Barber: The Classic Concerts ( Chris Barber Coll, 1959/61. )