Talk of Harriott's music and of its apparent neglect in the face of white society swiftly obscured the truth. It also revises the whole notion of the exoticism of West Indian jazz players in this country in the 1950s and 1960s and reveals that far from being sidelined or shut out their contributions were central to the diaspora that was the British modern Jazz scene in the post war years.

MORE THAN CALYPSO
- the impact of Caribbean jazz

The experience of the Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin upon his arrival in London in the early 1960s is emblematic of the whole myth: when he established a residency at Ronnie Scott's club in Soho he found that some of the patrons - even some of the less well rounded musicians - expected him be able to play only pieces like the calypso Yellow Bird. A similar tale of naivety comes from John Dankworth, who remembered the legendary bebop guru Dennis Rose extolling the virtues of his new Jamaican trumpet protégé Wizard Simmons thus: "Look, John, he's coloured, he comes from Jamaica, he plays trumpet and his name's Wizard. So how can he possibly go wrong!?"

Once the ignorant stereotypes had been laid to rest, it became apparent that the talents of the wave of Caribbean jazz musicians who began to arrive in Britain from the late 1940s were as broad as jazz itself; far from being narrow-minded hipsters, they embraced challenges and conventions both within and without the idiom. Trombonist Eric Allandale led a traditional jazz band, a genuine British outfit in the narrow-minded idiom of Ken Colyer, before moving on to the soul band The Foundations; trumpeter Eddie Thornton worked with Georgie Fame and The Blue Flames; saxophonist Harold McNair toured as part of folk-pop icon Donovan's group; bassist Coleridge Goode (who had arrived in Britain in the 1930s) was featured with the jivey combo led by drummer and vocalist Ray Ellington; trumpeters Shake Keane and Harry Beckett eschewed the local jazz scene altogether and became night club players at a time when clubs could still demand "no coloureds" as a tenable policy; and baritone saxophonist George Tyndale, a man-mountain of a player, anchored the sax section in John Dankworth's big band, a position doubtless envied by many other local reedmen.

All these examples speak of a genuine acceptance and not of ostracism. Harriott himself, for all his fire and spirit, could just as effectively back pedal to fit seamlessly within the less aggressive sensibilities of the music around him: a 1956 Decca session led by trombonist George Chisholm finds him playing palais band lead alto as if to the manner born. Indeed it is worth recalling that for all the acclaim he received as a jazz improviser, Harriott was still deeply offended at playing second alto in Ronnie Scott's short-lived big band, and felt that he could have led the sax section better than Dougie Robinson.

Sammy Walker was on old friend of Dizzy Reece and a musician making a living in both the United Kingdom and on the continent. His playing with Dizzy Reece reveals an approach that occasionally seems at odds with the nervy energy of the local rhythm section and walks an awkward line between general relaxation and a looseness that can accurately be called sloppy. This kind of mood over technical accurateness would later be found in the work of the Skatalites, a band blending Jamaica's native Ska rhythm with the jazz repertoire.

DIZZY REECE
- "Intensity" and then some

If tales of West Indian jazzmen being sidelined are mythical, then tales of their inspirational and passionate performing are the stuff of legend. No-one player perhaps better embodies this spirit than does trumpeter Alphonso Son "Dizzy" Reece. Reece was actually something of a rarity in the West Indian jazz community as he had actually been amongst those who had arrived in England aboard the famed M.V. Windrush in 1948, the first ship from the West Indies which contained what the press of the day dubbed "500 Pairs of Willing Hands". If the local jazz community did not welcome Reece initially, it had less to do with his colour or the notion of British jazz being a closed shop than the trumpeter's erratic playing. A stay on the continent ironed out a lot of Reece's problems where he was able to work with players like saxophonist Don Byas and drummer Kenny Clarke, neither of whom welcomed anyone onto the bandstand.

The recordings Reece made in the mid-1950s under the aegis of Tony Hall (Dizzy's most ardent promulgator) for the Tempo label reveal that his style took both leaps forward and back, a situation not helped by Reece's reluctance to play unless he wanted to, unless the conditions were just right, or unless he could do as he wished! This single-minded attitude would have made him stand out virtually anywhere in the jazz world of the 1950s, let alone in the sometimes compromising circumstances of London's West End scene.

If his outlook was singular, his playing was even more so. At a time when most other British jazz trumpeters were hung up on either Clifford Brown or Miles Davis, Reece sounded like neither. In his notes for Dizzy's first album, A New Star, Tony Hall compared him to Art Farmer, a compliment that is accurate only in the resolute identity of the two men's beautiful tone. Reece played with a melancholy style full of unusual leaps and turns, and a subtlety alleviated by a very un-British like intensity. As a composer, too, he was resolutely himself.

Of the local players, Reece formed happy and useful alliances with drummer Phil Seamen, vibraphonist Victor Feldman, and with the tenor saxophonist Tubby Hayes - with whom Reece recorded the soundtrack to the British thriller Nowhere to Go (on the CD Progress Report). But in a scene where most of the locals were still grappling with the mechanics of bebop, few knew how to handle a player such as Reece who was already genuinely beyond its confine, especially as defined by American role models. On paper, at least, Joe Harriott and Dizzy Reece were made for each other, and it might have been a perfect musical partnership were it not for both men's intractable belief that their own direction was the only one. They had apparently attempted their own brand of free form in the mid-1950s, but an attempt to get them together on record was, in Tony Hall's recollection, a total disaster: the session ended in a raging argument between the two front line men, and Harriott's last minute replacement was the less temperamental Sammy Walker, another West Indian saxophonist.

Nevertheless Hall never lost faith in Reece's ability, a view shared by several American jazz men who heard the trumpeter play, such as Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, and in 1958 Hall engineered Reece's signing to the home of many of hard bop's finest talents, the prestigious Blue Note label, an endorsement that even Victor Feldman - Britain's most successful jazz export of the time - had not received. Reece's first Blue Note date, Blues In Trinity, was recorded in an atmosphere of subterfuge due to the still fragile relationship between the Musicians' Union and the American Federation of Musicians. (For years it was stated that the album was cut in Paris but in reality it was made at Decca's West Hampstead studio in London.) It is a record of sky-rocketing hard bop energy, pitting Reece and Tubby Hayes against the trumpeter Donald Byrd and drummer Art Taylor, two of the leading lights in 1950s' American jazz. Reece outshines everyone (save perhaps Hayes, who is in mercurial form) and the whole set vindicates Tony Hall's decision to support the trumpeter.

In 1959 Reece moved to New York, but his move did not herald the success and recognition that everyone hoped for and actually began the abstraction of his career. Two more Blue Note dates followed - neither was as impressive as Blues In Trinity - but Reece's profile on a jazz scene which could then boast trumpeters like Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan at their peak was not prominent. In the 1960s Reece would return to Europe and worked with Dizzy Gillespie, Hank Mobley and others and recorded only sporadically in the 1970s. By the 1990s little was heard from him and Reece remains an example of a great early promise that, however fine the quality of his later playing, manifested itself ultimately in anti climax. It is also perhaps a lesson to all those who think that Joe Harriott would have benefited from a move to the United States.

JOE HARRIOTT
- playing aces

In some respects it was considerably easier for men like Reece and Harriott to make their mark in Britain. The ties of Empire made access easier here than to America, but within the relative confines of the post-war London jazz scene anyone who could appear vaguely exotic would stand out, an observation which does not lessen their contributions to jazz. Joe Harriott's style was seeringly hot and when set beside other leading British alto saxophonists - such as Derek Humble or Johnny Dankworth, both of whom had been touched by the cool school deliberation of Lee Konitz - seemed nothing short of an emotional volcanic eruption. Few could match this stinging alacrity. This can be attributed partly to the problems in Europeanising Bebop, in particular Charlie Parker's contribution. The "couth, kempt and shevelled" Humble and Dankworth, products of quintessential inter-war English suburbia, could not be expected to muster the angst and emotion that Parker possessed, and the same could be said of continental altoists like Hubert Fol and Arne Domerus; Joe Harriott could. He understood the rejection that Parker had often felt, the difficulties of racial bigotry, and his rootless existence forced him to grow up too young. Further he had emerged from the colourful melting pot that was Jamaica, a country for which music had the same social role as Parker's Kansas City, and a world away from the blandly opaque Britain of the 1940s.

Bebop spoke of rebellion regardless of whether it was heard through American, French or British ears, and stressed a single-minded pursuit of a set of musical ideals. It was tailor made for Harriott, and for many - this writer included - it is his straight-ahead work which remains the most impressive and not the brave incursions into abstract improvisation or the musical cul-de-sacs that were Poetry and Jazz and the Indo-Jazz Fusions. Whilst these were worthwhile ventures, they pale against Harriott blowing as if to prove, in his own words, that "Parker, there's them over here can blow a few aces too".

HAROLD McNAIR and WILTON GAYNAIR
- bebop from the islands

Another of those blowing aces was Harriott's friend the saxophonist Harold McNair, whose Parkeresque alto, Rollins-influenced tenor and truly unique flute playing astounded the London jazz scene in the early 1960s. The Jamaican had arrived in 1960 with a talent so formidable that he instantly succeeded in prising open the often impervious circle associated with Ronnie Scott's club, where he became a resident artist offering his unique blend of Caribbean lyricism and bebop. Like Harriott, he could moderate his approach, as was the case with his on-record debut in late 1961 with drummer Tony Crombie's quintet on what must be one of the most innocuous and pappy of all British jazz recordings, the album Whole Lotta Tony.

McNair's best recorded work came in the mid-1960s, the time when he was working with the chart topping singer-songwriter Donovan. Affectionate Fink, made for Chris Blackwell's Island label, pitted McNair and pianist Alan Branscombe against the incredible swing generated by Ornette Coleman's then rhythm section, bassist David Izenson and drummer Charles Moffett. The level of interplay on this session - which is long overdue for reissue - is sometimes staggering. McNair on tenor saxophone conveys an irrepressible urgency and drive which seems unstoppable, whilst his flute work, whether indulging in Roland Kirk-like antics or simply singing a lyrical ballad, is amongst the finest upon that instrument anywhere in jazz.

His next album, the eponymously titled Harold McNair recorded for RCA in 1968, found McNair and the pianist Bill Le Sage on a bold take-charge approach to a set of standards and originals. As a nod to his then employer, he included Donovan's gorgeous Lord Of The Reedy River, an effective flute feature, but the high spot was the opening track, Harold's own theme Mento, an infectious line which moves from sentimental harmonies and a West Indian groove to the kind of headlong swing one associates with players like Dexter Gordon.

Sadly McNair had little time left in which to further his career; he was diagnosed with cancer in 1971 and despite surgery he was unable to beat the disease. His death at the tragically young age of thirty-nine shocked the London jazz cognoscenti, none more so than Joe Harriott. In retrospect McNair's end is an eerie precursor to Harriott's own death just under two years later.

Another saxophonist associated with Harriott's and McNair's days in Jamaica, was the tenorman Wilton "Bogey" Gaynair, who passed all too briefly through London at intervals in the 1950s before settling on a life of session musician security in Germany. Gaynair's tenor style was a sidelong look at hard bop, akin more to the relaxed approach of Harold Land than the histrionics of Johnny Griffin. Blue Bogey, the record he made in 1959 for Tony Hall's Tempo label, is a fascinating mix of the up-tight drive of Tubby Hayes' rhythm section - pianist Terry Shannon, bassist Kenny Napper and drummer Bill Eyden - and the generally less frenetic style of the Jamaican. Blues For Tony is perhaps the session's highlight, perfectly summarising Bogey's style, affable and laid back but not without a quirky view of both rhythm and harmony. Rhythm (actually Johnny Griffin's tune Mildew) better illustrates what Gaynair could achieve when the ante was upped.

Gaynair too suffered a tragic blow when a stroke left him unable to play in the 1990s. By the time of his death a few years later he was known chiefly as the artist responsible for recording one of the highest jazz auction-priced British jazz albums, which for many years was thought to be his only date as a leader. Fortunately, Tony Hall is currently negotiating to release a further 1959 session made for Tempo, Africa Calling, partnered by trumpeter Shake Keane: it promises a great deal and will add substantially to the recorded legacy of both front line men.

HARRY BECKETT
- the eloquence of "Flare Up"

After Joe Harriott, the most prominent West Indian jazz musician on the British circuit in the late 1960s was the Barbadian trumpeter Harry Beckett, a man possessing a truly unique talent at a time when most other trumpeters were totally consumed by Miles Davis' influence. True, Beckett could play a ballad with the heart breaking exquisite tenderness of Davis, or more pointedly Art Farmer, but he was also more than capable of functioning in totally free contexts. There are few things more joyous in British jazz from the early 1970s than Beckett's debut album for Phillips, Flare Up, which finds him alongside the Young Turks of British jazz during those years, saxophonists Mike Osborne, Alan Skidmore and John Surman. The album mixes rock grooves, collective improvisation and touching balladry. Beckett's free playing conveys his light-hearted nature and his abstractions never hint at the dark demons so often displayed in European free music of the time. His skittishness is at times reminiscent of Don Cherry but much more so of Kenny Wheeler, another transatlantic migrant, with whom Beckett really shares a similarity.

Both Beckett and Wheeler took interminable time coming to the forefront of the music, both serving lengthy apprenticeships and eschewing any limelight (Wheeler with Dankworth and Beckett in the lower profile world of night club bands). Beckett's work with bassist Graham Collier in the late 1960s turned many listeners on their ear, forcing the question: how on earth does a talent this unique sit mostly unnoticed for over a decade?

Like Wheeler, Beckett was also a man for all sessions, able to embrace big band section work, standards gigs, the knotty world of Stan Tracey, and pure improvisation with the likes of drummer John Stevens, all without ever sounding in danger of surrendering his identity. Indeed, such was his prominence as the finest black jazzman in Britain in the 1970s and early 1980s that he became something of an elder statesman for Courtney Pine's generation. Beckett himself recognised Pine's burgeoning talent and the two men recorded a pair of fine quintet CDs for the West Wind label in the late 1980s. Pine returned the favour by including Beckett in the Jazz Warriors trumpet section, where he displayed his genuine talent in a raw new setting, as inspirational and encouraging as ever to those around him. He remains one of Britain's best jazz improvisers, a status supported by the high regard in which many American brass players hold him.

Harry Beckett's endorsement of Courtney Pine and the Jazz Warriors' generation brings us full circle. Pine's vision of a new wave of jazz players of Caribbean descent has not resulted in a sizeable influx of such players as was once naively hoped, but it has honoured the legacy of men such as Dizzy Reece, Joe Harriott and Harold McNair. Pine, through his own bands, continues to support up-and-coming young black talent, and his former bassist Gary Crosby, via his Tomorrow's Warriors project, has consistently turned up serious and dedicated jazz soloists from the same background. Indeed, today's young black British jazz men, such as the award winning saxophonists Soweto Kinch and Denys Baptiste, perhaps owe a bigger debt to Joe Harriott's generation than even the empty hype can suggest. Certainly without the stubborn and committed brilliance of men like Harriott their path would have been difficult, if not unimaginable.

© SIMON SPILLETTJanuary 2004