Joe Harriott

Jamaican-born, British saxophone player
Born July 15, 1928 in Kingston, Jamaica, died January 2, 1973 in Southampton, England, UK (aged 44).

Educated at the Alpha Boys School, a Catholic orphanage, in Kingston, he settled in the United Kingdom in 1951. Initially a bebop player, Harriott was recovering in hospital from tuberculosis when he formulated his own version of free jazz (independently of Ornette Coleman). In the mid-1960s, after meeting the Indian violinist John Mayer, the two men devised means of fusing the music of the sub-continent with jazz, formed the double quintet Indo-Jazz Fusions and recorded several albums as co-leaders.