Joe Harriott arrived in England from his native Jamaica in the same month that author Alan Robertson was born. In his twenties Robertson had become a jazz fan, and with the reading of Ian Carr's influential book, "Music Outside", he became hooked on the idea that eventually led him to research and write this biography: Joe Harriott, Fire In His Soul, Northway Publications, ISBN 0 9537040-3-3 (paper, 260 pages + 22 glossy photographs) (www.northwaybooks.net)

Although at the time, when the author's research led him to me, I could only recall one small story of my experiences with Joe Harriott (p. 150), reading this book has awakened numerous memories, memories that confirm the importance of Joe Harriott in our then developing musical taste. Although a figure somewhat unknown in the international chronicles of our music, it is readily apparent that his contributions brought to British jazz a sense of worth — not always appreciated — and by the mid-sixties, his Indo-Jazz Fusion experiments with violinist John Mayer, were unwittingly introducing early concepts of what would become known as "world music".

Harriott's origins — he was born on July 15th, 1928 — are extremely sketchy, and Robertson does a fine job of sorting through, with the assistance of Joe's sister, brother and a daughter, his early life. A most important factor is his being registered at the Alpha Boys' School.

"Run by the Sisters of Mercy, the school and orphanage in South Camp Road provided a complete environment for the boys. Alpha School's concentration on music has been so consistent and successful that, since its founding in the late 19th century, it has produced many first class musicians of international reputation". (p. 7)

"From music tuition at Alpha came brilliant musicians like Tommy McCook and Don Drummond, the originators of Ska, recognised as Jamaica's own music and the forerunner of reggae." (p. 8)

By the age of 17 he had become a professional, in bands playing in the swing style of Glenn Miller and Count Basie. However he was already travelling a different path. "Harriott was a committed Charlie Parker disciple by this time, and adept at producing Parker-like lines at breakneck pace". (p. 11)

It is apparent that such a talented musician, with a love of bebop, would become dissatisfied with the local scene, and through a series of adventures, described in some detail, arrives in England in May of 1951, to find that not every "modern" musician there was enamoured by this new music form. In this period there was a "British Musicians' Union edict restricting appearances by American artists" (p. 19), and permits were only issued on a reciprocal basis, making it difficult for British players to encounter this new form. "In reality the arrangement meant UK musicians had only two alternatives if they wanted to hear the new bebop music. Occasionally, imported 78 [rpm] records could be bought in London's specialists record shops. But to hear jazz live was, of course, the ideal. Many British musicians made it to New York's jazz clubs by plying their trade in dance bands on board transatlantic liners like the Queen Mary. The nick-name they adopted was 'Geraldo's Navy', after the band-leader who arranged bookings of musicians for the Cunard liners. Four of these 'sailors' were future musical associates of Joe's: Bill LeSage, Tony Kinsey, Ronnie Scott and Benny Green. Within as short a time as possible after disembarking, the British musicians would be ensconced in a jazz club, taking in, along with the cigarette smoke, the potent sound of bebop". (p. 20)

In those initial years Joe Harriott played everywhere he could, often with players that were stylistically of quite different persuasion, including on occasion "trad" bands. He even recorded later with Chris Barber and Acker Bilk! "In 1954, Harriott made his first record. The EP 'Cool Jazz with Joe', recorded in the second week of February by the Joe Harriott Quartet, featured Dill Jones on piano [his companion into the dixieland forays], Jack Fallon on bass and Phil Seamen on drums". (p. 31) The latter being his drummer of choice throughout his short life.

Jazz books, apart from their obvious use as reference material, can be frustrating in that they are describing music you often cannot hear. In this case there is, albeit minuscule, recorded music available. The 4 tracks from "Cool Jazz with Joe", are available as part of the CD Bop-In Britain, Volume 2 - Jasmine JASCD 638  (www.hasmick.co.uk), and even though the CD features prominent British musicians such as Vic Ash, Victor Feldman, Ronnie Scott etc., it is immediately apparent that the Parker influenced Harriott is a considerably more advanced musician. The four standards; "Summertime", "April In Paris", "Cherokee" and "Out of Nowhere", leap out with a brittle, exciting urgency, whereas most of the other material still has the remnants of a slightly developed dance band music.

That same spring Harriott replaced tenor saxophonist Tommy Whittle in drummer Tony Kinsey's group, which had been playing on a regular basis at two of London's premier clubs, Studio 51 and the Flamingo. "Joe's playing came as a tense surprise to the fans who had become accustomed to the easier flow of Whittle", wrote one commentator. "His alto was often hoarse in its urgency and he presented a strikingly new sound to British jazz". (p. 34)

Throughout the fifties his popularity increased, gaining him third place behind Johnny Dankworthin the New Musical Express Poll, and in spite of a lung infection  — tuberculosis being a common British illness in this period — was soon back in action recording with the Tony Kinsey group. A number of recordings in this period illustrate his diverse abilities, not only as a leader but as a member of the Kinsey group, one with the popular singer Lita Rosa, of "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" fame, and another, the Charlie Parker inspired Joe Harriott with Strings. "Thus he became the first British jazz artist to feature on a recording accompanied by strings". (p. 30) "…[A]fter around eighteen months with Kinsey, Harriott joined Ronnie Scott's newly formed eighteen piece orchestra. Ronnie commented, 'I admire Joe's playing very much. He should fit in with the new band very well. He will, of course, be strongly featured as a soloist". (p. 43) The band, although chock-full of talent, was not a success, and "Ronnie later admitted regret at forming the orchestra. He called the project 'one of my worst ever'". (p. 46) But all was not lost. "The big band lived on satorically at least. After its demise, Harriott and Seamen sometimes turned up independently at pubs and clubs wearing the navy-blue small-checked suits of the Scott orchestra. Among the company there would be a rush to shout 'Snap' first". (p. 46)

"In spring 1957, Harriott rejoined Tony Kinsey. He and tenorist Bob Efford replaced Don Rendell and Ronnie Ross in Kinsey's quintet. They made their debut at the opening night of the Flamingo Club's new premises in Wardour street on Sunday 7 April. The Jazz Couriers featuring Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes also made their first public appearance at the same event". (p. 47) In May the new quintet recorded Jazz at the Flamingo Session - Vocalion CDLK 4213 (www.duttonlabs.demon.co.uk), a superbly relaxed session with compositions by members of the group, Johnny Hodges and Duke Ellington.

1958 is a special year for Joe Harriott, and the year that I discover his music. A new club called the Marquee opened in London's Oxford Street, a room that was to be our hangout every Saturday night for years. Our clique are entering their first blush of manhood, very hip — or so we thought — and very stylish with our clobber being made by the tailor Sam Arkus of Wardour Street. Flat, American styled college boy haircuts, elastic sided boots, button down shirts — you get the picture —, and our music is to be the new Joe Harriott quintet. "The Harriott quintet appeared weekly at the Marquee, beginning a long, fruitful association with the venue. The NJF [National Jazz Federation] in this period had ten thousand members and the club often attracted a capacity crowd of 800…" (p. 56). "Jack Cooke recalled that, around this period, Harriott was beginning to develop radical musical ideas: 'I can remember being in the old Marquee one Friday afternoon in 1958 when Joe and Dizzy Reece [the Jamaican trumpeter was a longtime friend of Harriott] were trying with some success to get out of the idea of playing on chords and into some kind of free melodic playing that Ornette Coleman was just beginning to put on record, though at the time none of us had heard him, or hardly even heard of him'". (p. 57) The beginning of British 'free jazz'. However all was not well, as his respiratory problems returned. "He was suffering from bronchial pneumonia, pleurisy and lung infection". (p. 59)

Throughout this book are numerous stories to do with racism — rampant in Britain in the fifties, although not so prevalent among musicians — and also about the humour that is intrinsic to the British way of life. An absurdist reality. One story that I particularly like is by trumpeter Shake Keene, another Jamaican that played an important part in Joe's life, who "used humour to ridicule racism". Although not about racism, this story illustrates its jocose form.

"Bobby Orr [drummer in the quintet] encountered Shake's puckish humour. 'We'd go into the pub at the interval. I was dressed up and had a new tie on. He had this thing he did. He would say, 'I love your tie.' If he said he loved your tie — you had to give him it, swap ties with him. And he had a rotten old tie on! Yours might be a brand new one, like one my wife had just bought me. Later on, someone else would come up and say it and the ties were on the move again.'

'But eventually you'd get it back?' I asked.

'Not a lot', said a whistful Orr.'" (p. 70)

Listening to his so-called radical music on CD all these years later, and indeed at the time in the Marquee, it doesn't seem quite so 'out there' as some were making it. And he seems not to have thought of it in those terms either. "Early in the 1960s, jazz photographer and journalist Val Wilmer discussed with Joe his new concept, which he called abstract music or free form. 'He was quite intellectual. I remember when I went to see him he was talking about Paul Klee, the painter, and Picasso. In fact I had to go home and brush up on my Klee. At the time I couldn't understand why he was comparing his music to abstract painting. Of course, I can now. I did afterwards, but at the time I was too young to appreciate it, I think. He thought of himself as an artist.'" (p. 75)

The title of Chapter 5 is "so far nobody has thrown anything at us", describing the prevalent opinion of the time. Now instead of being accused of being a Charlie Parker disciple he was to be an Ornette Coleman copier. When listening to Free Form - Redial CD 535 184-2 recorded in November 1960, there seems to be no relationship between what the two musicians were thinking and it is only the word "free" that creates the confusion. "Jazz writer Richard Williams also thought Harriott's and Coleman's innovations were distinct. 'The basis of the group's success was Joe's brilliant composing. Tunes like "Calypso Sketches" welded a rhythmic and melodic effervescence to a very delicate kind of impressionism which made Joe's claim that he wasn't in the least influenced by the contemporary innovations of Ornette Coleman'. Something entirely new had arrived in jazz and Harriott was its inventor." (p. 76)

"By the winter of 1961 Joe's quintet had Shake Keene back in its ranks as well as Phil Seamen, Coleridge Goode [bass] and Pat Smythe [piano]. It was his dream band." (p. 91) They recorded the album Abstract. "That Abstract was a very important album was confirmed when it was reviewed in America's Downbeat, then the premiere jazz magazine in the world. The reviewer was quite sensationally enthusiastic. Reviewer Harvey Pekar began by pinpointing differences from Coleman's music." (p. 92) "Pekar gave the album the magazine's highest rating, five stars, unprecedented for a British jazz group." (p. 94)

A peculiar recording from this period, all live material and issued in 2000, is Genius - Jazz Academy Records JAZA 6 (www.jazzservices.org.uk). The quintet with Les Condon on trumpet, play two funky jazz standards, "Moanin'" and "Round about Midnight", and two of Joe's original compositions. There are also two compositions featuring Harriott with Michael Garrick bands, but the most unusual material is five standards performed in duet with pianist William Haig-Joyce. They were recorded at jazz fan Kenny Baxter's house. "The tapes emerged after Haig's death when his son gave them to Michael Garrick [Owner of Jazz Academy Records]. Coleridge Goode listened to them with Garrick and recalled: 'We thought they were marvellous. It was just Haig and Joe and somebody else on brushes on a telephone book or something. I said to Michael: 'It will sound more full if I put a bass part to it'". (p. 146) A charming document of Joe Harriott playing with friends.

As with many great musicians in jazz, Harriott did not remain ensconced in one idiom, and worked with poets, blues musicians, singers, and in 1965 began working with Indian classical violinist John Mayer. Between them they created an early example of 'world music', which was called Indo-Jazz Fusions. A music I personally never cared for. "Some jazz fans and musicians never took to the Fusions music, referring to it disparagingly as 'curried jazz'. It may well have been Phil Seamen who first dubbed the band 'Confusions' in his inimitable way. Benny Green also needed convincing: 'I confess when I first heard Harriott and Mayer working together, not only did Mayer's group sound out of tune to me, but they seemed to make Harriott's players sound out of tune also. Being a typical jazz musician and therefore something of a bigot, I wrote them off, but further hearings have suggested to me that it is just possible that it was my ear and not their playing that was at fault.'" (p. 163)

This book is a compelling and rather sad story of the life of one of Britain's most important jazz musicians, a musician who was admired by fans, musicians and critics alike. One that was not always treated with the dignity and acclaim that he should have been afforded. A book that is not only about him, but gives, also, an inside view of the British jazz scene of the fifties and sixties; especially London.

Illness and poverty eventually overtook him. "Joe Harriott died on the morning of 2 January 1973 in the Wessex Radiotherapy Unit. He Was 44." (p. 207)

"On 10 January, the day of Joe's funeral at Bitterne Church, many of the local mourners met in the Red Lion pub opposite. Del Southam said, 'There was a darkly humorous aspect to the funeral. Pete King had come down from London and we were all in the bar. Suddenly the hearse turned up and someone called out to drink up as Joe had arrived. "Yeah, that's Harriott, late again!' said another voice." (p. 208)

"On the gravestone his friends had his familiar proud words inscribed: 'Parker? there's them here can play a few aces too…'" (p. 214)

The preceding disquisition is based on Alan Robertson's intelligent and informative book, the music on four CDs in my collection, and to a small degree on my own personal experience of Joe Harriott. A fine companion book is Bass Lines: A Life in Jazz, by Coleridge Goode & Roger Cotterrell, Northway Publications (reviewed in Coda Issue #311, p. 17)