Joe Harriott

Joseph Arthurlin Harriott (15 July 1928 – 2 January 1973) was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone. According to George McKay in Circular Breathing: The Cultural Politics of Jazz in Britain, Harriott was 'responsible for a series of brilliant experiments in new music in Britain through the 1960s'. His work was 'crucial' in two areas of innovation: free music and then global music fusion.

Initially a bebopper, he became a pioneer of free-form jazz. Born in Kingston, Harriott moved to the United Kingdom as a working musician in 1951 and lived in the country for the rest of his life. He was part of a wave of Caribbean jazz musicians who arrived in Britain during the 1950s, including Dizzy Reece, Harold McNair, Harry Beckett and Wilton Gaynair.

Background

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Harriott was educated at Alpha Boys School, an orphanage in the city. At Alpha he learned to play the clarinet, the instrument that was assigned to him shortly before his tenth birthday. He took up the baritone and tenor saxophone while performing with local dance bands, before settling on the alto saxophone. Harriott arrived in London in the summer of...

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