Joe Harriott: Abstract – VINYL LP

‘Audiences now seem to be understanding what we’re doing. We’ve stepped up the amount of free-form to about fifty percent, and all over the country we’re getting better receptions for this kind of music than we get for conventional modern jazz.’ Free-form tries, says Harriott, to add color to jazz: ‘Of jazz’s various components – constant time signatures, a steady 4/4 tempo, themes, chord sequences, and so on – we aim to retain at least one in each piece. But we may dispense with all the others.’ As Harriott also advises, don’t expect all of this music to swing – it isn’t meant to. Listen instead for the exciting, revelatory explorations of bi-tonality within the ensemble, the constantly alert unity of the group as a whole, and the frequently lyrical, nakedly impassioned playing of trumpeter Shake Keane and alto sax man Joe Harriott himself.