Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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HARRIOTT, Joe

(b Arthurlin Harriott, 15 July 1928, Jamaica; d 2 January 1973, Southampton, England) Alto sax, composer, leader. He studied clarinet at a boys' school, played in a dance band, emigrated to the UK '51; played in various jazz combos, toured UK with MJQ late '59. While in hospital '60 he decided that jazz was stagnating and became determined to innovate at the same time that Ornette Coleman was blazing new trails, but Harriott was probably not influenced by Ornette; he sought in particular to invent a fusion of jazz and Indian music.

Records included quartet tracks on MGM, Melodisc, Polygon, Columbia (EMI) '53-5, all with Phil Seamen on drums; Jump For Me '54 on Esquire with the Tony Kinsey Trio; quintet sessions '59-60 issued on Columbia and Jazzland with Bobby Orr; Freeform '60 on Jazzland with Seamen apparently also issued on Capitol (USA) as Abstract. More Columbia LPs: three quintet albums '61-4; Joe Harriott/John Mayer Double Quintet sessions '65-7 with Mayer on violin and harpsichord, three Indian musicians issued on three different albums with Kenny Wheeler on some tracks, including two-disc Indo-Jazz Fusions on EMI.

There was not enough of Harriott on record but what there was was intriguing; he had obviously heard Eric Dolphy. A nonet session '67 with Stan Tracey and trumpeter Kenny Baker (b 1 March 1921, Yorkshire, d 7 December 1999, Chichester; played lead for Ted Heath '46-9) was issued on LP with a '67 quintet date plus Lansdowne String Quartet and duet 'Abstract Doodle' with pianist Pat Smythe. His last album Hum Dono '69 had duo, trio and quartet tracks, various personnel including trumpeter Ian Carr, vovalist Norma Winstone, Indian guitarist Amancio D'Silva (b 19 March 1936, Mumbai; d 17 July 1996). 

His few records soon out of print, he won praise from a UK jazz establishment that was too small and disorganized to support itself, let alone black innovators, and was reduced to scuffling. Mayer revived Indo-Jazz Fusion for Asian Airs '96 on Nimbus. Chicago reedman Ken Vandermark's Joe Harriott Project CD was called Straight Lines '99, four of the Vandermark 5 playing Harriott's unique tunes. Hum Dono was finally reissued in 2015 on Dutton Vocalion, the vinyl original having fetched three figures for decades.