Browse by Artist: VANDERMARK, KEN'S JOE HARRIOTT PROJECT

Artist:	VANDERMARK, KEN'S JOE HARRIOTT PROJECT
Title:	Straight Lines
Label:	ATAVISTIC
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	ALP 115CD

"Straight after the two Joe Harriott albums, Free Form and Abstract, were finally reissued on CD, I bumped into saxophonist Lol Coxhill on the street. 'I'd forgotten how posh that music was,' he said to me. I can see what he means. The Harriott band -- Joe on alto saxophone, Shake Keane on trumpet and flügel, my near-neighbor Coleridge Goode on bass, Pat Smythe on piano, and percussion from Bobby Orr and Phil Seamen and sometimes Fran Holder -- had a formalism around the unconventional tune statements which contrasted nicely with Harriott's astonishingly passionate sax playing. Producer/critic/guitarist John Corbett had the original vinyl Harriotts and copied the albums to cassette, handing them to his fellow Chicagoan Ken Vandermark. Vandermark picked up on the compositions, and here's a real historical parallel: people had made such a noise about the freedom of the improvising, they'd missed the fact that Harriott's tunes were also revolutionary. It's to Ken's great credit that this is in no way a revival band. The instrumentation is very different, the lack of a piano loosens the texture, and the melodies are sometimes transformed. It seems right that Chicago-based players- already very hip to the European free improvisation scene -- should have picked up on some of the earliest European recordings of free music. Ken Vandermark (born Rhode Island, 1964) has worked extensively with local and European players, and I particularly like the clarinet/trombone combination with Jeb Bishop, reminding me of the intimacy of Pee Wee Russell's frontline with Marshall Brown. Vandermark's longtime collaborator Kent Kessler plays contrabass, and Tim Mulvenna is the drummer. The band works and the tunes sound good and natural." - - Steve Beresford, London, February 1999.

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