- Jazz saxophonist (alto).
- In 1969, Harriott made an appearance at Stan Tracey's Duke Ellington tribute concert, which was also released as the album We Love You Madly on Columbia. Harriott contributed a moving solo on "In a Sentimental Mood" that was captured for posterity by TV cameras, thus leaving the only existing footage of him in performance.
- 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.
- Harriott began recording under his own name in 1954, releasing a handful of EPs for Columbia, Pye/Nixa and Melodisc throughout the 1950s. However, the majority of his 1950s recordings were 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.
- Harriott was always keen to communicate his ideas, be it on stage, in interviews or album liner notes. In 1962, he wrote in the liner notes for his Abstract album, "of the various components comprising jazz today - constant time signatures, a steady four-four tempo, themes and predictable harmonic variations, fixed division of the chorus by bar lines and so on, we aim to retain at least one in each piece. But we may well, if the mood seems to us to demand it, dispense with all the others".
- He was virtually destitute in his last years, and ravaged by illness. He died of cancer on 2 January 1973. On his gravestone, his own oft-quoted words provide his epitaph: "Parker? There's them over here can play a few aces too.".
- Harriott's free-form compositions normally formed only a portion of live gigs. Indeed, the final album recorded by the quintet, 1964's High Spirits (Columbia), was a straight-ahead jazz interpretation of compositions from the musical of that name, which was based on the Noël Coward play Blithe Spirit.
- 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 was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone. Initially a bebopper, he became a pioneer of free-form jazz.
- A four-CD set entitled The Joe Harriott Story (Proper Box) was issued in 2011.
- During the late 1960s he and violinist John Mayer developed Indo-Jazz Fusion - an early attempt at building on music from diverse traditions. This involved a "double quintet" of five Indian and five jazz musicians playing together on a number of compositions largely conceived by Mayer. Opinion is divided on the success of these experiments.
- He formed his own quintet in 1958, and their style of hard-swinging bebop was noticed in the United States, leading to the release of the Southern Horizons and Free Form albums on the American Jazzland label.
- He caught the attention of London's jazz scene while sitting in at the Feldman Club on Oxford Street on 26 August 1951.
- Harriott arrived in London in the summer of 1951, aged 23, as a member of Ossie Da Costa's band. British subjects did not require work permits or immigration visas at that time. When the band had completed their tour, Harriott decided to stay in London.
- He took up the baritone and tenor saxophone while performing with local dance bands, before settling on the alto saxophone.
- Since his death, Harriott's often overlooked contribution to the birth of free jazz has gradually been recognised. While he influenced important European free jazz pioneers such as John Stevens, Evan Parker and Albert Mangelsdorff, in the States his profile and influence was much smaller, despite the admiration of such figures as Charles Mingus.
- Harriott moved to the United Kingdom as a working musician in 1951 and lived in the country for the rest of his life.
- Harriott's work in 1969 was to be the last substantial performances of his career. While he continued to play around Britain wherever he was welcome, no further recording opportunities arose.
- Harriott also appeared alongside visiting American musicians during this period, including a "guest artist" slot on the Modern Jazz Quartet's 1959 UK tour.
- 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.
- Like the majority of alto players of his generation, he was deeply influenced by Charlie Parker. Harriott 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, Harriott's roots were always audible. However, it was his mastery of bebop that gained him immediate kudos within the British jazz scene upon his arrival in London.
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