9 December 2007

Joe Harriott Quintet - Movement


Originally released in 1963 on Columbia, Movement was a follow-up to the earlier, fairly straight-laced Southern Horizons as well as to the experimental Free Form and Abstract. Movement draws upon both styles, the hard bop of the former (with Count Twelve reappearing on this album) and the daring explorations into time, harmony, melody and rhythm of the latter two. The album is roughly evenly divided between the two.

As innovative as the original Coleman quartet, but far less known and appreciated, Harriott was an innovator whose contribution to jazz is still criminally underrecognised. Though, rereleases keep seeping out, so there may be hope still ...

To me, this is as good as it gets. I'm an unreserved Harriott fan and this is another opportunity to pay tribute not only to the South African influence on British and European jazz (of which there will be more on this blog), but also to the Caribbean influence of Harriott and Keane (and others).

Taken off a cdr copy of a vinyl rip, acquired from a seller in the UK. The actual album is long gone.

Tracks

(side 1)
1. Movement
2. Beams
3. Count Twelve
4. Face In The Crowd
5. Revival

(side 2)
6. Blues On Blues
7. Spaces
8. Spiritual Blues
9. Movement

All Harriott originals, except (4) and (6) by (Michael) Garrick.

Line-up:

Joe Harriott - alto sax
Shake Keane - trumpet and fluegelhorn
Pat Smythe - piano
Bobby Orr - drums
Coleridge Goode - bass

Recorded in London 1963, originally released as (Columbia 33SX1627).

Both Free Form and Abstract should be obtainable on CD. The Horizons is long, long out of print (but I do have all three on vinyl, just in case).

32 comments:

kinabalu said...

High-quality mp3 here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/75412918/
Harriott_Movement.rar

Audio-freak quality version here:

http://rapidshare.com/files/75397384/
Harriott_Movement.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/75400586/
Harriott_Movement.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/75410024/
Harriott_Movement.part3.rar

ubu said...

Wow, thanks a lot! Any rare Joe Harriott is very, very welcome! And it's generous of you to also share it in FLAC format!

I have the two discs you mention plus the info-jazz twofer also on ReDial, but other than that, it's almost impossible to find anything else by this great musician!

Peter said...

Another killer!

Thx a lot, kinabalu!!

s. said...

Awww, "File Not Found".

Any chance of a re-up?

SOTISE said...

stephen
the files are there.
paste the url's into a word or text document.


kinabalu, thanks alot for posting this gem,the criminal who sold you this rip at least did a good job, its clean.
a delightful listen.
great album
but sui generis?? as people are suggesting in droves.

ive never agreed with comparisons with ornette coleman.
to me this is much more reminiscent
of the 1950's experiments of teddy charles and hal mckusick, or the woolier more experimental side of west coasters shelly manne, cy touff et al, what about george russell.
this isnt to disparage him at all, i like all the above.. but they all happen to be white.. critics and fans alike may not be receptive to the idea that a west indian may have been receptive to and influenced by white men.

theres much less abandon than ornettes classic albums of the time.
its the cautious formalism that reminds me of the experimental west coast stuff.

s. said...

Thanks, sorry -- I am an idiot :))

centrifuge said...

thanks mr k :) mice post!

free form is easy to get hold of, yuo reckon? i was lucky enough to get mine from duke bluesnik, otherwise..? (mind you i haven't looked in the obvious places lately, but it wasn't widely available last time i checked...)

sotise, very interesting thoughts of yours... now that you've mentioned the west coast i am unable to get that out of my head ;-) it really seems to fit this recording at any rate... but what a lovely player, just a beautiful voice on his instrument and with interesting and original ideas too... what more could one ask of a musician?

Jazz-Nekko said...

kinabalu:

thanks for the reminder about this early harriott work - if someone does not know this gem, then get it while the vinyl is hot. . .

sotise,

earlier comments have brought up a point that many forget about harriott' in his early work, he was very much influenced by west coast & soul jazz - before jumping the ocean and crossing into the wider, more open jazz that many associate with him.

i forgot where i read it, but i recall that someone remarked on his almost photographic memory of west coast jazz, its nuance and style -

cheers and keep up the hard work, my friend!

JN

SOTISE said...

hey jazz nekko, wow i had no idea that harriott had loved westcoast jazz that much, wasnt certain hed heard it i know absolutely nothing about harriott.
another thing he has in common with shorty rogers ,cy touff and those cats is the love of count basie rythmns that certainly comes through a lot on this one
i dont know why people make the ornette comparisons
about the biggest commonality there is the album titles.
free jazz... freeform... abstract...
people forget just how experimental the early west coast scene really was.

SOTISE said...

jeez i cant spell for shit

Tantris said...

Sensational. Another previously unknown avenue opens up.

Thanks

Tantris

Nuage fiché qui rêve said...

Kinabalu, merci beaucoup for this gem. I took the audiofreak version, and after two plays the sentimental, the avant-garde jazz amateur, even the audiophile in me join their forces to beg for a third play. It's a stylish record.

kinabalu said...

Yeah, this is stylish music, indeed. And it was the last record for Joe Harriott to stretch the boundaries of bop in new and unexpected directions. After this one he would head off in another direction, to concoct the indo-jazz fusions, at a time when nobody thought of any world music label to attach to it ...

Sotise ... the Coleman comparisons may not be so fitting, at least not in terms of any stilistic similarities. For example, Coleman did not have a piano plyer and Pat Smythe is quite integral to the overall Harriott group sound. If they have any validity, it may be that both were contemporaneous innovators and fully unaware of each other's work ...

West Coast influences ... well, the left coast tends to be somewhat overshadowed by the right coast ... for sure, there are things to be explored in more detail ... anything to be posted here?

George Russell ... yes, another innovator, though not as radical as some of the others. He's definitely east coast until he turned "scandinavian" in the late 60s. I will get to his scandinavian period in due course. BTW, the early Riversides are musts, all four of them.

Cent ... the Free Form is listed in amazon co uk as a cd release from this year. But there are no signs of any re-release of the "Southern Horizons" so expect it here on the blog sometime in the near future ...

I'll be taking a short break again, off to the Balkans this time, but I'll be back with some genuine rarities ... watch this space!

ghostrancedance said...

Looks like I was too late...

The RS links are dead :(

s. said...

Naw, the problem is that the links sprawl across two lines -- you have to concatenate both into one URL.

John V said...

kinabalu-thanks so much for this. I'm really looking forward to it. The "West Coast jazz" connection makes his music even more attractive to me.I had no idea .....but then what else is new....

John V.

ghostrancedance said...

Aha! Thanks, stephen... They work fine now that I figured out that little glitch.

And thanks to you kinabalu. The more Harriott the better!!!!!

SOTISE said...

kinabalu
this is a wonderful album, i mcant stop compulsively listening to it.

just to set the record straight i know george russell was not west coast, i simply meant west coast... and.. what about george russell as another point of comparison
a valid one , especially the second half of this album.

id love to post some russell, but so much has been around ,and easy to get hold of its hard to know what to post.. i was at one point going to post jazz in the space age .. but then reza posted it.

kinabalu said...

Sotise,

I'll see if I can't get around to posting some of his "Scandinavian" period stuff (and also his German gig with Don Cherry, if that hasn't been up somewhere else already) ...

Reza said...

Cant get enough of Mr Harriott

Happy New Year to all and thanks for the great posts :)

neil said...

Got the mp3 already; looking forward to the audio-freak quality version...

arshille said...

- just a quick line to say thank you for posting this wonderful music
linx okay
best wishes

Anonymous said...

Great, thank you! (new to me this one)
mara

bluebird said...

Movement

And this is the other one I don't have - many thanks kinabalu.

Some good listening ahead for me with the 2 Harriotts.

Greg Pickersgill said...

I have many reasons to thank you for your excellent work, but at the moment I feel especially grateful for your posting of Harriott's MOVEMENT, which is a set I have been playing repeatedly for the last three days and enjoying more and more every time. Just fantastic music, and I so very much appreciate having this opportunity to hear it.

I know some people (or idiots, as I think of them)believe that posting on blogs like this (for love rather than money) is somehow depriving someone of cash they deserve, but personally I think that there is a greater crime committed by those who by neglect allow this brilliant music to become unavailable. As far as I can tell this lp has been out of print since I was twelve years old. That's a LONG time.

Love Letters Journal said...

Thanks for all the Harriot albums it's certainly a beautiful 'new' mind you've alerted me to. Sure, recorded four decades As they say, poetry is news that stays news... Keep preachin papa Joe!

Love Letters Journal said...

Does anyone know if the 1964 "High Spirits" is being shared anywhere? Also oop as far as I can tell.

And to put my two cents in about the music - I'd agree that there's a bigger west coast influence than Ornette: we tend to forget that Mingus was a west coast musician after all...

Anonymous said...

I successfully downloaded tracks 1 to 8 via the part1 and part2 links, but when I tried to download the title track (9) via the part3 link all I got was a message saying file deleted. What a shame!

A Jazzfan

kinabalu said...

Ain't it a shame, indeed.
New link for this one:

http://oron.com/eoi6oxckywpy

Rob J said...

Joe Harriott was a class act.
I met two elderly jazz fans who knew him in the 1950s and 60s, and they both said he was a very polite
man who was very gracious.

It's nice to see him finally get the acclaim for those brilliant
free jazz albums which eluded him
in his lifetime.

The Proper box set "The Joe Harriott Story" is a magnificent start for new listeners.

francisco santos said...

this one deserves to be alive !....
THX !....

francisco santos said...

re post please !...
THX !...