JOE HARRIOTT - Helter Skelter-Live, Rare and Previously Unreleased Recordings 1955 - 1963
ACROBAT ACMCD4392
Featuring the Joe Harriott (alto saxophone) with the Joe Harriott Quartet; The Melody Maker all Stars; Kurt Edelhagen And His Orchestra; DailyMail International Jazz Festival All Stars
Simon Spillett is a great sleeve note writer. People, often nostalgic about the notes on the back of LPs, complain about the meanness of the notes on CDs. They have obviously not encountered Spillett’s work.
Normally Spillett writes to increase our knowledge of the work on the accompanying disc. This time he does something different. Joe Harriott is one of the most intriguing figures in UK Jazz. Harriott arrived in Britain in 1951 from Jamaica. The Britain of the 1950s is an era that Spillett knows well. Eventually Harriet developed his own version of bop and, eventually in the 1960s formed a group that played free jazz. The myth that has grown up around Harriott and his free jazz sees him as a martyr, a lost soul brought down by musical conservatives and racism. True? Harriott was undoubtedly difficult. Record producer Denis Preston who knew Harriott well described him ‘as not a lonely man but an unknown man’.
Wikipedia sums up Harriott’s final years: ‘He was virtually destitute in his last years, and ravaged by illness. He died of cancer on 2 January 1973, and is buried in Bitterne churchyard, in Southampton. On his gravestone, his own oft-quoted words provide his epitaph: "Parker? There's them over here can play a few aces too."’
Spillett attempts to demolish the picture of Harriott as a neglected genius and he uses the tracks on this CD to support his case.
Right from the start on “What Is This Thing Called Love?’ you hear the astringent tone of Joe Harriott cutting through like Charlie Parker. This was 1955. It was new and fresh. The tone did not have the kind of blandness that we got from fellow altoist Johnny Dankworth, as he was called then.
In demolishing Harriott’s apartness Spillett uses his willingness to take part in gatherings like the Melody Maker All Stars. Might it be possible that he needed the money, the publicity? Even so when Harriott surges out of the arrangements he brings with him vivacity and freshness.
When Joe plays Monk’s ‘Jackieing’ with the Daily Mail All Stars, he is flanked by Shake Keane on flugelhorn and the two of them make the kind of music that should have enraptured the audience. Spillett remarks graciously that this is the piece that ‘gets closest to the essence of Harriott’s music during this period, a juncture where freedom and form seem to have found a perfect balance.’
If you have the slightest interest in the music of Joe Harriott then you need to buy this package so that you can read Spillett’s thirty-page essay and listen to the CD evidence. While you are about it, root out the CDs: ‘Free Form’ (1960), ‘Abstract ‘(1962) and ‘Movement ‘(1963). As Spillett says ‘In some senses he remains as impenetrable to us at this distance as he did to those close to him during his lifetime’
Reviewed by Jack Kenny
ACROBAT ACMCD4392
Featuring the Joe Harriott (alto saxophone) with the Joe Harriott Quartet; The Melody Maker all Stars; Kurt Edelhagen And His Orchestra; DailyMail International Jazz Festival All Stars
Simon Spillett is a great sleeve note writer. People, often nostalgic about the notes on the back of LPs, complain about the meanness of the notes on CDs. They have obviously not encountered Spillett’s work.
Normally Spillett writes to increase our knowledge of the work on the accompanying disc. This time he does something different. Joe Harriott is one of the most intriguing figures in UK Jazz. Harriott arrived in Britain in 1951 from Jamaica. The Britain of the 1950s is an era that Spillett knows well. Eventually Harriet developed his own version of bop and, eventually in the 1960s formed a group that played free jazz. The myth that has grown up around Harriott and his free jazz sees him as a martyr, a lost soul brought down by musical conservatives and racism. True? Harriott was undoubtedly difficult. Record producer Denis Preston who knew Harriott well described him ‘as not a lonely man but an unknown man’.
Wikipedia sums up Harriott’s final years: ‘He was virtually destitute in his last years, and ravaged by illness. He died of cancer on 2 January 1973, and is buried in Bitterne churchyard, in Southampton. On his gravestone, his own oft-quoted words provide his epitaph: "Parker? There's them over here can play a few aces too."’
Spillett attempts to demolish the picture of Harriott as a neglected genius and he uses the tracks on this CD to support his case.
Right from the start on “What Is This Thing Called Love?’ you hear the astringent tone of Joe Harriott cutting through like Charlie Parker. This was 1955. It was new and fresh. The tone did not have the kind of blandness that we got from fellow altoist Johnny Dankworth, as he was called then.
In demolishing Harriott’s apartness Spillett uses his willingness to take part in gatherings like the Melody Maker All Stars. Might it be possible that he needed the money, the publicity? Even so when Harriott surges out of the arrangements he brings with him vivacity and freshness.
When Joe plays Monk’s ‘Jackieing’ with the Daily Mail All Stars, he is flanked by Shake Keane on flugelhorn and the two of them make the kind of music that should have enraptured the audience. Spillett remarks graciously that this is the piece that ‘gets closest to the essence of Harriott’s music during this period, a juncture where freedom and form seem to have found a perfect balance.’
If you have the slightest interest in the music of Joe Harriott then you need to buy this package so that you can read Spillett’s thirty-page essay and listen to the CD evidence. While you are about it, root out the CDs: ‘Free Form’ (1960), ‘Abstract ‘(1962) and ‘Movement ‘(1963). As Spillett says ‘In some senses he remains as impenetrable to us at this distance as he did to those close to him during his lifetime’
Reviewed by Jack Kenny
