[indo-jazz fusions] - [recordings] - [biography] - [reviews]
'Indo Jazz Fusions 1&2' (Joe Harriott/John Mayer)
John Fordham hails the saxophonist who, with John Mayer, invented a fusion of jazz and Indian music
Watching musicians queue to breach barriers and pile any pigeonholes remaining on to the scrap heap, younger listeners may struggle to imagine a time when putting an alto saxophonist on stage alongside sitars and tablas was cause for comment. The double quintet of Joe Harriott and composer/violinist John Mayer for instance, was among the first groups to invoke that dreaded word "fusion".
Highly regarded for the raw passion of his solos in, mostly, a bebop context, Harriott signalled a new direction with his Free Form, recorded in 1960 and hailed as a European counterpart to Ornette Coleman's free jazz. In the mid-sixties, he joined Mayer for the Indo-Jazz project that led to live performances and three albums, the final two comprising this CD.
As pioneers, they faced problems. How, for instance, to blend their quintets, especially on stage, when the jazz contingent tended to raise most decibels and the techniques of amplification were primitive by todays standards? For all the talk, the outcome often resembled the kind of dancing in which partners do everything but touch each other.
What stands out on their performances is the strength Harriott draws from the Indian challenge. Having latterly heard him with pick-up trios in jazz clubs, it was obvious to me that he thrived upon Mayer's compositions. These develop from a quiet opening, the ragas unwinding at leisure over the droning tambura and the clip-clopping tabla, until the moment when the alto sweeps in. His improvisations are in modal form - which by then was common enough, except that the more intricate Indian rhythmic patterns added a spicy touch.
From experience gained during the year seperating these recording sessions, Mayer grew bolder in meshing the idioms, giving the musicians their heads while keeping control, Harriott still dominates, but other instrumentalists have much stronger roles and, in this context, the addition of Kenny Wheeler's probing trumpet lines could not be bettered. These final four tracks, including a blues written by Mayer and pianist Pat Smythe, remain among the best Indian-influenced jazz, or whatever, on record. Live performances by the double quintet reached similar levels.
Chris Blackford: The Wire magazine
Rejoice! For at long last, Polygram have begun to reissue the wonderful Joe Harriott Quintet recordings which have been slumbering in their vaults for many moons. First into the daylight are two of the Harriott Quintet's collaborators with John Mayer's Indian quintet , Indo-Jazz Fusions (1967) and Indo-Jazz Fusions II (1968), here squeezed onto the one CD. Happily the excellent original sleevenotes by Max Harrison and Ian Carr have been preserved, alongside new notes by Mayer, which paranthetically reveal that Indo-Jazz Suite (1966) the Double Quintet's debut will also be reissued.
Calcutta born composer and violinist John Mayer was introduced to London based Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriott by producer Denis Preston at the latter Lansdowne studios in 1965. Mayer had previously composed orchestral works combining Indian scalar forms and western (ancient Greek) modes which incorporated Indian instruments, but Indo-Jazz Suite was his first attempt at blending classical Indian music with jazz.
Mayer's Indo-Jazz was not a new idea, however. In the late 50's, John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy were prominent among US musicians looking to Indian music to invigorate and expand a jazz language stagnating on chord based procedures. Both saxophonists were influenced by renowned sitarist Ravi Shankar, and the earliest most relevant forerunner to Mayer-Harriott , though probvably not a direct influence , was Shankar's 1961 group (see Improvisations) which featured Indian instrumentalists alongside US jazz musicians, including Bud Shank, Gary Peacock, Denis Buddimere and Louis Hayes, later, US trumpeter Don Ellis co-led The Hindustani Jazz Sextet with Harihar Rao. So, by the mid-60's Indo-jazz was certainly in the air (as was Indo-pop, thanks to George Harrison), though by no means a mainstream phenomenon, or as commercialy viable as its popular successor, World Music.
From the outset, Mayer's organisational dexterity was the guiding force, he established the structural frameworks within which both Indian and jazz musicians interacted, improvising on scales (ragas) over rhythmic patterns (talas). According to Mayer, the jazzers initially had difficulty "in restricting their melodic flair to the somewhat strict discipline of the raga notes". If 'Indo-Jazz Suite' at times sounds stiffily executed, by 'Indo-Jazz Fusions' such problems have been largely overcome and a fascinating integration of idioms is being achieved. Keshav Sathe's tabla, Coleridge Goode's double bass and Allan Ganley's understated drums provide 'Partita', the longest and finest piece at 17 mniutes, with an impressive swinging, pulsating rhythm section, while the tricky thematic phrases rebound beautifully between Harriott's alto sax, Shake Keane's trumpet and Chris Taylor's flute. The final final few minutes see some marvellous collective activity as Pat Smythe's piano and Diwan Motihar's sitar add to the contrapuntal complexity. TV addicts will instantly recognise 'Acka Raga', with its catchy sitar theme and rubbery bass pizzicato, as the signature tune to the BBC's long departed quiz show, Ask The Family, whereas freeform afficiandos may find 'Subject', stripped of its exciting eruptive dissonances, too genial in this Indo-jazz arrangement.
The Double Quintet's last recording , Indo-Jazz Fusions II, attains an even higher level of idiomatic and ensemble integration. Chris Taylor's flute playing the finest example here of how the vigour of jazz could be fused with the exotic timbres of Indian music. Solo's are kept short but achieve an emotional impact - Harriott's ardent tone hits the mark every time, and an elegant Kenny Wheeler also shines. 'Raga Piloo' is never less than compelling. 'Song Before Sunrise' pre-echoes ECM's atmospheric, satial World jazz, and the closing tutti in 'Purvi Variations' , after Smythe's delightful solo, is pure ensemble magic, sadly curtailed by a premature fade. Classic ethnic jazz. Reissue of the year.
Clive Davis: The Sunday Times
Nobody bats an eyelid today when the Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek joins forces with the percussionist Zakir Hussain. Back in the 1960's though, the notion of East meeting west on equal terms was still daring. All credit to Polygram's Redial label, then, for rescuing violinist-composer John Mayer's indo-Jazz Fusions from the archives 30 years after their first release aroused such interest. Here lie the ancestral roots of 1990's talents such as Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawhney and Trilok Gurtu. Mayer's approach is the more challenging, with Joe Harriott's caustic alto saxophone shadowed by Shake Keane's trumpet as they improvise on traditional Indian scales. The music hardly sounds dated at all; it also provides a less forbidding point of entry to Harriott's often ferocious brand of abstraction. Telly addicts may recall that insistent sitar melody of 'Acka Raga' enjoyed another life as the theme to Ask The Family.