Wendell Harrison

Wendell Harrison ( born 1942 in Detroit ) is an American tenor saxophonist and clarinetist.

Life and work

Harrison attended Northwestern High School in Detroit, where he met the trumpeter Lonnie Hillyer, alto saxophonist Charles McPherson and percussionist Roy Brooks, who got acquainted him with the Jazz. Harrison's mother was a teacher, his father taught sociology at Southern University in Baton Rouge. At age five he played the piano, took lessons with pianist Barry Harris, before he moved to the Conservatory of Detroit. After the clarinet, he moved at age 13 to alto saxophone. In 1960 he moved to New York and played in various jazz, blues, R & B and Latin bands, also with Lou Rawls, Joe Henderson, Kenny Dorham 's Big Band, Hank Crawford, Grant Green, Sun Ra and Eddie Jefferson, Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

A heroin addiction interrupted his career; In 1967 he began a rehabilitation at Synanon. In 1970, he returned to Detroit and taught at Metro Arts. In 1971 he was co-founder of the nonprofit organization Tribe, which hosted concerts, records and published a magazine, like the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians in Chicago, the Black Arts Group in St. Louis and Strata in Detroit. After the dissolution of Tribe 1977 he created the organization Rebirth.

His most famous publication is probably the album The Battle of the Tenors with Eddie Harris. In 1994 was built on the Enja label under his own name the album Rush & Hustle with musicians such as James Carter, Harold McKinney and Jerry Gonzalez. 2011 appeared the album It's About Damn Time.