Joe Harriott - Early Career

Early Career

Like the majority of alto players of his generation, Harriott was deeply influenced by Charlie Parker. He developed a style that fused Parker with his own Jamaican musical sensibility - most notably the mento and calypso music he grew up with. Even in his later experiments, his roots were always audible. However, it was Harriott's mastery of bebop that gained him immediate kudos within the British jazz scene upon his arrival in London in 1951.

During the 1950s, he had two long spells with drummer Tony Kinsey's band, punctuated by membership of Ronnie Scott's short lived big band, occasional spells leading his own quartet and working in the quartets of drummers Phil Seamen and Allan Ganley. He began recording under his own name in 1954, releasing a handful of E.P. (extended play) records for Columbia, Pye/Nixa and Melodisc throughout the 1950s. However, the majority of his 1950s recordings were as a sideman with the musicians previously mentioned, also backing a diverse array of performers from mainstream vocalist Lita Roza to traditional trombonist George Chisholm to the West African sounds of Buddy Pipp's Highlifers. He also appeared alongside visiting American musicians during this period, including a "guest artist" slot on the Modern Jazz Quartet's 1959 UK tour. He formed his own quintet in 1958, and their style of hard-swinging bebop was noticed in America, leading to the release of the Southern Horizons and Free Form albums on the American Jazzland label.