Joe Harriott

LIMITED EDITION ON CLEAR VINYL

4 STARS ALL MUSIC GUIDE

The West Indian-born alto saxophonist Joe Harriott was one of the most convincing boppers outside of the USA, though by the end of the 1950s he was exploring freer musical pastures, and the quintet with which he undertook the exploration was an outgrowth of the hard bop band with which he'd made a name on the British scene. Often in the past the group's music, in which trumpet and flugelhorn player Shake Keane figured alongside Harriott in the front line, has been compared with that of the early Ornette Coleman quartets, but here it's far more interactive, a fact borne out most obviously by the lack of soloists. Here on Free Form (1961) is where the rhythm of that indigenously West Indian form is extraordinarily maintained in the midst of characteristic group exchanges.

PERSONNEL:

• Joe Harriott - (alto sax)
• 'Shake' Keane - (trumpet, flugelhorn)
• Pat Smythe - (piano)
• Coleridge Goode - (bass)
• Phil Seamen - (drums)

Recorded in London, England; 1960.

TRACKS:

• SIDE A
• A1. Formation
• A2. Coda
• A3. Abstract
• A4. Impression

• SIDE B
• B1. Parallel
• B2. Straight Lines
• B3. Calypso Sketches
• B4. Tempo