British Jazz - The 1960s and 70s

The 1960s and 70s

In the 1960s and 1970s British jazz began to have more varied influences, from Africa and the Caribbean.The influx of musicians from the Caribbean brought to the Uk shores excellent musicians like the Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriot, firmly established as an outstanding bebop soloist before his arrival in the Uk he went on to claim a leading spot in British Jazz.Harriott was an important voice and innovator whose constant search for new ways to express his music was to lead to collaborations with fellow Jamaican Alpha Boys school alumni like trumpeter Dizzy Reece and then subsequently from the Island of St Vincent trumpeter Shake Keane.Harriott turned to what he termed "abstract" or "free form" music. He had been toying with some loose free form ideas since the mid 1950s, but finally settled upon his conception in 1959, after a protracted spell in hospital with tuberculosis gave him time to think things over. At first he struggled to recruit other like-minded musicians to his vision. Indeed, two of his core band members, Harry South and Hank Shaw, left when these ideas surfaced. He finally settled on a line-up of Shake Keane (trumpet, flugelhorn), Pat Smythe (piano), Coleridge Goode (bass) and Phil Seamen (drums). Les Condon temporarily replaced Keane on trumpet in 1961, while Seamen left permanently the same year, his place taken by the return of the quintet's previous drummer, Bobby Orr. The subsequent groundbreaking album "Free Form" was released in early 1960, historically prior to celebrated American saxophonist Ornette Coleman's own experimental "Free Jazz" album.

Harriott's free form music is often compared to Ornette Coleman's roughly contemporary breakthrough in the US, but even cursory listening reveals deep divisions between their conceptions of 'free jazz'. Indeed, there were several distinctive models of early free jazz, from Cecil Taylor to Sun Ra. Harriott's was another of these. His method demanded more complete group improvisation than displayed in Coleman's music, and often featured no particular soloist. Instead of the steady pulse of Ornette's drummer and bass player, Harriott's model demanded constant dialogue between musicians which created an ever shifting soundscape. Tempo, key and meter always free to alter in this music, and often did so. The presence of Bill Evans-inspired pianist Pat Smythe also gave the band a completely different texture to Coleman's, which by then had dispensed with the need for a pianist. Harriott's own playing style underwent some changes during this period, dispensing with orthodox bebop lines in favour of more angular, cut up phrasing. What remained however, was his lyricism, searing tone and sense of attack.

Harriott was always keen to communicate his ideas, be it on stage, in interviews or album liner notes. In 1962, he wrote in the liner notes for his Abstract album, "of the various components comprising jazz today - constant time signatures, a steady four-four tempo, themes and predictable harmonic variations, fixed division of the chorus by bar lines and so on, we aim to retain at least one in each piece. But we may well, if the mood seems to us to demand it, dispense with all the others".

He recorded three albums in this vein, Free Form (Jazzland 1960), Abstract (Columbia (UK) 1962) and Movement (Columbia (UK) 1963). "Abstract" received a five star review from Harvey Pekar in Down Beat, the first such honour for a British Jazz record. "Free Form" and "Abstract" together formed a perfect pair of cohesive, trailblazing free jazz sessions. The next album, Movement, featured some of his most fiercely abstract compositions, but these were tempered by some other, more straight ahead pieces.

One important aspect was the South African jazz musicians who had left their home nation, including Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Johnny Dyani, Harry Miller and later Julian Bahula.

There was also a growth in free jazz inspired by European models more than from American music. It helped to influence the development of a strong European identity in this field. South African and free jazz influences came together in projects like the Brotherhood of Breath big band, nominally led by McGregor. Added to this, more musicians had been raised on rhythm and blues or English forms of rock and roll, which became increasingly significant to the genre. These influences mixed in a way that led to British contemporary jazz of the time developing a distinctive identity distancing it to some extent from American styles. Highly original jazz composers such as Mike Westbrook, Graham Collier, Michael Garrick and Mike Gibbs began to make major contributions during the period and after. The local scene was not unaffected by, what elsewhere came to be known as, the British Invasion; the jazz audience was in numerical decline at this time. One branch of this development was the creation of various British jazz fusion bands like Soft Machine, Nucleus, Colosseum, If, Henry Cow, Centipede, National Health, Ginger Baker's Air Force, to name a few. Some of the most significant musicians to emerge during this period include John McLaughlin and Dave Holland (both of whom joined Miles Davis's group), pianists Keith Tippett and John Taylor, saxophonists Evan Parker, Mike Osborne, John Surman and Alan Skidmore, and the Canadian-born trumpeter Kenny Wheeler who had settled in Britain.

The Jazz Centre Society was founded in 1969 to develop a national centre for jazz in London and efforts to secure and fund premises for the centre continued until 1984; the JCS's many jazz promoting activities in London, Manchester and elsewhere survive as Jazz Services Ltd. Similar promotional organisations such as Platform Jazz in Scotland were formed in the 1970s to widen opportunities to hear and play jazz. The music continued to be presented in a wide range of venues in major British cities, but with most activity still focused in London. A National Jazz Archive was set up with its base at Loughton Library in Essex. Today it is the main location for jazz documentation in Britain, with rapidly expanding collections.