An early champion of “free form” jazz, Joe Harriott is now widely recognised as a major British Caribbean innovator. As a 4-CD box set The Joe Harriott Story is released and the biography Fire In His Soul is reprinted, Kevin Le Gendre says Harriott was ahead of his time, yet his pioneering direction and musical accomplishments in the studio and at gigs came at a heavy cost. Those who know his music well, including Gary Crosby, Soweto Kinch, Coleridge Goode, Michael Garrick and Val Wilmer, also describe their thoughts about the great Jamaican, while Jack Massarik recalls the night he was astonished to find himself sharing the bandstand with Harriott in his local pub of all places.

The figure of the tragedian in jazz is indelibly associated with the early part of the music’s history, roughly the 1920s to the 1950s. Those talents who passed away prematurely, succumbing to either the iniquities of a pre-civil rights America, the temptation of substance abuse, or a lethal combination of both, are sadly numerous. Horn player, pianist or vocalist as burnt-out, jailed junkie is part of the gallery of images that are indelibly associated with black music born in humble circumstances.

Nothing as sensational as a bottle or a needle defines the story of Joe Harriott. There are no scene stealers like a narcotics bust that leads to a spell behind bars or a whisky-soaked disaster in the studio, yet it is impossible not to see the Jamaican alto saxophonist and composer as one of the great losses jazz has endured in the last 50 years. Joe Harriott was more than a bright spark who could have gone on to shine.

This is an extract from Jazzwise Issue #159 – to read the full article click here to subscribe and receive a FREE CD...