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Phil Seamen
Joe Harriott: Swings High
by Chris May
Like many players who are primarily thought of as “experimental" and/or “free form"—and virtually all of the best of them--the Jamaican-born, later London-based alto saxophonist Joe Harriott was also a master of straight four/four jazz and Great American Songbook balladry. Yet in 2022, Harriott (1928-1973) is almost exclusively remembered either for his adventures in Indo-jazz fusion with the violinist John Mayer and, separately, guitarist Amancio D'Silva, or his own harmolodic-esque, but not Ornette Coleman-beholden, albums such as Free Form (Jazzland, ...
read moreStan Tracey Trio: The 1959 Sessions
by Chris May
Sonny Rollins summed up the outsize talent of British pianist Stan Tracey in a remark he made sometime in the early 1960s. Tracey was then the house pianist at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, where Rollins was playing a season. “Does anyone over here realise how good this guy is?" Rollins asked the audience. At the time, local jazz musicians were automatically regarded as inferior to Americans by many British jazz fans. Not all American tenor saxophonists were ...
read moreSplinters: Inclusivity
by Chris May
Archive label Jazz In Britain comes up with another winner. Inclusivity is a 3 x CD collection of the complete performances of Splinters, an all-star 1972 septet comprising three hard boppers, two radical experimentalists and two in-betweeners. They were tenor saxophonist and flautist Tubby Hayes, alto saxophonist Trevor Watts, trumpeter and flugelhornist Kenny Wheeler, pianist Stan Tracey, bassist Jeff Clyne and drummers Phil Seamen and John Stevens. The band assembled for just two London gigs five months apart. It made ...
read morePhil Seamen: Seamen's Mission
by Bruce Lindsay
British jazz has produced many great players whose fame never came close to matching their talent. One such was the mercurial drummer Phil Seamen. Seamen's Mission a splendid 4-CD box set in the Proper Box series, is a great reminder of Seamen's skills across a range of ensembles from big bands to trios, from swing to bop. Seamen began his professional career in 1944, working in the big bands of Nat Gonella and Joe Loss, among others. ...
read moreThe Late Great Phil Seamen
by Michael Baird
INTRODUCTION Phillip William Seamen was born in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, on August 28th 1926 and died on Friday 13th October 1972--he fell asleep in a chair in his abode on Old Paradise Street in Lambeth, south London, and didn't wake up any more. The police were called in quite quickly and their pathologist began by taking a sample of Phil's blood, which is usual procedure. Back in the lab he could not believe his eyes--the level of barbiturates was ...
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