Joe Harriott
“WSIMC”
From Chronology (Live 1968–1969)

“Parker? There’s them over here can play a few aces too.” Joe Harriott’s self-spoken epitaph could just as easily have been: “Ornette? Ahead of you, man.” They came from quite different musical backgrounds which is why the initials based title is the main similarity here, but Harriott’s conception of free or abstract jazz was in its way almost as important in the evolution of the music in Britain. He’s buried at a bend in the river, down in Southampton. His own life took a sorry turn after these magnificent tracks were made, but his legacy is all around us again. Harriott is the permanent revolution in British jazz, always elusive, but always returning to help reshape the lineage of blues and bop.

The Michael Garrick Septet featuring Joe Harriott
“Jones”
From ...At Short Notice

It’s said that Joe Harriott and Ian Carr, two of the pioneering names in British new jazz, fell out either at or shortly after this gig from University College London. What they might have done together is more than compensated by what they did apart, though Harriott’s life and career were already moving into overtime. That Garrick’s groups were usually harmonious is a tribute to the personality of the leader, who emerged only rather quietly as a composer, too generous a spirit to be a martinet or auteur. This is the septet at their best, combining the nimbleness of a combo with the orchestrated weight of a much bigger band.

Ray Russell Quartet
“Dragon Hill”
From Spontaneous Event – Live Volume 1: 1967–69

Ah, the heady days when CBS briefly got behind British free jazz! Sometimes all it took was a sympathetic ear somewhere in the corporate cloisters. Tony Oxley and Howard Riley are perhaps the best remembered beneficiaries, but guitarist Ray Russell’s “Dragon Hill” was a key document, too. This early live version with Peter Lemer in place of Roy Fry, who played on the album, has all of the studio track’s mysterious atmosphere, part pastoral, part industrial, a perfect soundtrack to a moment when British jazz was shaking off 51st state jitters and following its own bold line of development.

Tubby Hayes Quartet
“I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
From Free Flight: The Ron Mathewson Tapes Vol 3

I was at this gig, or a subsequent night, with a girl called Monika, the first of several AWOLs during my first term at uni. Monika was from New York and waxed contemptuous of all things English, especially the food and the music. I remember that she sniggered when Tubby Hayes came on. He was a funny looking fella. She wasn’t sniggering ten minutes later as the band booted through the opening standard. Hayes managed to combine hardness of tone with a melting lyricism, keeping the melody always in sight but reinventing it in a way that, yes, really did get under the skin.

Ron Mathewson’s Mystery Machine
“A Love Supreme” (excerpt)
From A Love Supreme

There would be a much smaller Jazz In Britain catalogue if it weren’t for Ron Mathewson’s tape archive, but then jazz in Britain at the end of the 1960s would have been smaller without the Viking sensibility of the doughty bassist. It’s rumoured that it was Mathewson, rather than Dave Holland, that Miles Davis wanted to recruit on his own raiding part to British shores. Mathewson was born Rognvald, in Lerwick, Shetland, which is closer to Norway than it is even to Edinburgh. That’s probably all you need to know. That, and the fact that we lost him in December, a victim of the Covid pandemic. It doesn’t matter that we don’t know who the musicians are here. Ron Mathewson rarely enjoyed the spotlight and it’s time.

Holdsworth/Warleigh/Mathewson/Spring
“Warleigh Manor, Part 1”
From Warleigh Manor: The Ron Mathewson Tapes Vol 1

He’s present again, in more familiar role, on this astonishing rediscovery, which had lain in a box, unsuspected, for decades. It’s a chance to hear four British experimenters stretch out in the trust-inducing atmosphere of a home studio (the ever underrated Warleigh’s, hence the title) and find their own routes through a music whose rule book had quite suddenly been thrown out. Guitarist Allan Holdsworth tended to dominate later recordings with his still astonishing virtuosity, but here it’s Warleigh, Mathewson and the wonderfully elastic time sense of Bryan Spring (probably best known for his tenure with Stan Tracey) that make the music special. How much more stuff like this in the Valley of the Kings?

Read more on Jazz In Britain by Brian Morton in The Wire 444. Subscribers can access the article via the digital archive.