Joe's Quintet was the support group for the Dave Brubeck Quartet during their 1961 UK Tour.
This is not a complete set as Joe says before the first number...'continue with a composition...' but it is a typical live set with a mixture of jazz and free form. Joe's ground-breaking album 'Free Form' had been recorded a couple of months earlier but the public and critics had mixed views about this 'new' jazz. Joe thought that a concert audience might be more receptive to this music than club audiences but whilst the applause here for the free form numbers is polite, it is far from enthusiastic.
The drummer is Phil Seamen who plays more or less as usual ignoring the 'free' conventions but his days with the group were numbered as his addictions made him unreliable and notoriously unpunctual.
I saw Phil performing just once. He was part of the support group for one of the American touring bands, perhaps Woody Herman, at the Odeon Cinema in Leeds during the 1960s and he was the last to appear on stage. He looked absolutely dreadful - a walking skeleton, chalk white. He played the first number with the group and then left the stage. We never saw him again that night but his musical colleagues seemed unperturbed. They just played on without him as though this was a regular occurrence. Perhaps it was.
Coleridge Goode the bass player in the Joe Harriott Quintet recalls that ..... 'Phil could scarcely have chosen a worse night to miss the band call than their Brubeck tour performance at the Hammersmith Odeon in London.' Coleridge remembered how the other members of the Quintet were forced to take the stage without Seamen who then appeared suddenly from nowhere just as the performance seemed doomed. 'And there and then, in front of everybody, he was sick all over the place with Brubeck standing watching us.'
Joe announces the numbers speaking slowly and enunciating beautifully. He was immaculately turned out, always wearing a suit and tie wherever he was appearing and he was always the professional.
FLAC from cd with 'cover picture' and track/personnel details.
Les Condon - trumpet
Joe Harriott - alto
Pat Smythe - piano
Coleridge Goode - bass
Phil Seamen - drums
01 Moanin' (Timmons) (6:39)
02 'Round About Midnight (Hanighen, Monk, Williams) (6:31)
03 Joe Explains Freeform: Coda (Harriott) (8:20)
04 Tempo (Harriott) (9:56)
Recorded: January 27 1961
Thank you very much for this ,some great concerts at the Trade Hall back in the 60s, the bloke that did the sound engineering used to record a lot of stuff and then give it to friends on acetates One story goes that Woody Herman spent all night suspiciously looking at a rogue mike that was precariously hanging from the ceiling above his head,Walking up and down the stage and all the time raising his head up to see if the said mike was still hanging there, seems he knew what was happening but never said anything,I'm going to do a bit of investigating through a couple of people i know well who used to frequent there back then to see if they have any recordings.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds good, danair, We are living in hopes of more to pad out our meagre program of planned posts.
DeleteThere's a Herman Anglo-American Herd concert from Manchester FTH posted on this blog.
DeleteThank you for this. I remember hearing the Harriott Quintet frequently at the Esquire in Leeds and a bit later the Marquee in London, but always with Shake Keane. Was Les Condon a dep on this one?
ReplyDeleteLes Condon was a dep of sorts.
ReplyDeleteShake Keane left the Harriott Quintet in October 1960 to go back to London University and Les took his place leaving the band in October 1961, when Shake returned, and then resumed his freelance work.
Les said of his year with the band .... 'I was lucky to last a year. He was a difficult guy to get on with, Joe and I had bad vibes about his health. I thought, this guy isn't going to last'.
Thanks for this session, I was especially pleased to see Phil Seamen and Les Condon in the lineup as it adds an extra dimension.
ReplyDeleteAll the best
Thanks very much. Interesting comments also.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Not a big fan of free form jazz but this looks good and I enjoyed the write up.
ReplyDeletemany thanks. total treasure here. not least for Les Condon. Harriott here very impressive. where the -- er -- heck did he pick up that accent ? BBC c 1953 but without the gs, the sole Jamaican vestige.
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful. Many thanks, Rodney. I only saw Joe once but that was in a bar unfortunately and not on stage. He was indeed impeccably dressed.
ReplyDeleteMany Thanks, guys. Happy to be here.
ReplyDeleteThank you bluebird and to you as well Rodney.
ReplyDeleteJoe Harriott is always welcome. Plus there's Les Condon whom I only recently got to know.
Maybe I can contribute some music - are there any preferences?
What music would be appropriate?
@onxidlib. The current policy on contributions is as set out in the Header, just under the BJ banner, and in the post Contributions etc below. Anything not clear, let us know. We might have to adjust the policy a bit, in the light of experience.
DeleteDouble good fortune to be visiting right now. Not only do I find this tempting Harriott treat but also interesting comments to go along with the fine write-up.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot, bluebird and Rodney. Downloading straight away.
Thank you - I can't wait to listen to it.
ReplyDeletehttps://cjoint.net/?b63mmc2ous
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