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Joe Harriott: Swings High

By Chris May
September 27, 2022
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Like many players who are primarily thought of as "experimental" and/or "free form"—and virtually all of the best of them—the Jamaican-born, later London-based alto saxophonist Joe Harriott was also a master of straight four/four jazz and Great American Songbook balladry. Yet in 2022, Harriott (1928-1973) is almost exclusively remembered either for his adventures in Indo-jazz fusion with the violinist

John Mayer

guitar
b.1977

" data-original-title="" title="">John Mayer and, separately, guitarist Amancio D'Silva, or his own harmolodic-esque, but not

Ornette Coleman

saxophone, alto
1930 - 2015

" data-original-title="" title="">Ornette Coleman-beholden, albums such as Free Form (Jazzland, 1960) and Abstract (Columbia, 1962), both, incidentally, remastered and reissued in 2021 on Free Form & Abstract Revisited (ezz-thetics).

Harriott's roots were in bop, however, a style he revisited from time to time. Swings High, first released in 1970 and in 2022 remastered from the original vinyl and reissued by Cadillac, is one such album. Fronting a quintet completed by trumpeter

Stu Hamer

trumpet

" data-original-title="" title="">Stu Hamer (the lesser known brother of trumpeter

Ian Hamer

b.1932

" data-original-title="" title="">Ian Hamer), pianist

Pat Smythe

piano
1923 - 1983

" data-original-title="" title="">Pat Smythe, bassist

Coleridge Goode

bass
1914 - 2015

" data-original-title="" title="">Coleridge Goode and drummer

Phil Seaman

drums

" data-original-title="" title="">Phil Seaman, Harriott offers eight tracks which range from bop (the furiously paced original "Tuesday Morning Swing"), through hard bop (trumpeter

Dizzy Reece

trumpet
b.1931

" data-original-title="" title="">Dizzy Reece's quirky "The Rake" and "Shepherd's Serenade"), through the blues (the originals "Just Goofin'" and "Blues In C"), through R&B retentions (

Harry South

b.1929

" data-original-title="" title="">Harry South's "Strollin' South") and exquisite ballads (Johnny Mandel's "A Time For Love" and Jimmy Van Heusen's "Polka Dots And Moonbeams").

Harriott's passionate, astringent sound stamps his mark on all the material, and the music is lifted by a superb band. Seamen, who set the great

Ginger Baker

drums
1939 - 2019

" data-original-title="" title="">Ginger Baker on the high road to jazz (in more than one sense), was undoubtedly the best of Britain's hard bop drummers and Goode, another Jamaican-born player, who passed aged 100 years in 2015, was one of the country's all-time finest bassists. Smythe, an upper class Scot who was a prot��g�� of Harriot's and who passed in 1983, deserves to be better remembered. So, too, Hamer, whose muted trumpet lights up "A Time For Love" but who, sadly, was out for the other ballad, the Harriott feature, "Polka Dots And Moonbeams." (There seems to be no YouTube footage from Swings High, but the clip below provides a great taste of Harriott the balladeer.)

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Track Listing

Tuesday Morning Swing; A Time For Love; The Rake; Blues In C; Shepherd��s Serenade; Polka Dots And Moonbeams; Strollin�� South; Just Goofin�� (Count Twelve).

Personnel

Joe Harriott

saxophone

Stu Hamer

trumpet

Pat Smythe

piano

Coleridge Goode

bass

Phil Seamen

drums

Album information

Title: Swings High | Year Released: 2022 | Record Label: Cadillac Records

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