High Spirits | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 1963 | |||
Recorded | September 7th, 1964 Lansdowne Studios, London, England | |||
Genre | Jazz | |||
Label | Columbia 33SX 1692 | |||
Producer | Denis Preston | |||
Joe Harriott chronology | ||||
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Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Record Mirror | [1] |
High Spirits is an album by Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriott featuring selections from the musical High Spirits written by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray which was recorded in England in 1964 and released on the Columbia (UK) label. [2]
All About Jazz writer, Duncan Heining, stated: "Were it not for [his] earlier achievements, High Spirits might come more highly recommended. It is of a much lighter weight but it does have its share of pleasures. It is doubtful that Harriott could ever have made a bad record and, by most other people's standards, this would be top flight. The shortcoming of High Spirits lies in the sense that these show tunes, from the musical based on Noël Coward's play Blithe Spirit , are really fairly average West End/Broadway fare". [3]
All compositions by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray arranged by Pat Smythe
The 41st Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 24, 1999, at Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1998. Lauryn Hill received the most nominations with 10, setting a record for the most nominations for female artist in one night. Hill received a total of 5 awards, and became the first female rapper to take home Best New Artist. Her album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill became the first hip hop album to win the award for Album of the Year.
Hugh Martin was an American musical theater and film composer, arranger, vocal coach, and playwright. He was best known for his score for the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis, in which Judy Garland sang three Martin songs, "The Boy Next Door," "The Trolley Song," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." The last of these has become a Christmas season standard in the United States and around the English-speaking world. Martin became a close friend of Garland and was her accompanist at many of her concert performances in the 1950s, including her appearances at the Palace Theater.
Eric Alexander is an American jazz saxophonist.
High Spirits is a musical with a book, lyrics, and music by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray, based on the play Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, about a man's problems caused by the spirit of his dead wife.
Joseph Arthurlin Harriott was a Jamaican jazz musician and composer, whose principal instrument was the alto saxophone.
Holly Knight is an American songwriter, musician, and singer. She was a member of the 1980s pop rock groups Spider and Device, and wrote or co-wrote several hit singles for other artists, such as "Rag Doll", "Obsession", "Love Is a Battlefield", "The Best", "Invincible", "Better Be Good to Me", "The Warrior", and "Change".
British jazz is a form of music derived from American jazz. It reached Britain through recordings and performers who visited the country while it was a relatively new genre, soon after the end of World War I. Jazz began to be played by British musicians from the 1930s and on a widespread basis in the 1940s, often within dance bands. From the late 1940s, British "modern jazz", highly influenced by American Dixieland jazz and bebop, began to emerge and was led by figures such as Kenny Ball, Chris Barber, John Keating, John Dankworth, Tony Crombie and Ronnie Scott, while Ken Colyer, George Webb and Humphrey Lyttelton emphasised New Orleans, Trad jazz. From the 1960s British jazz began to develop more individual characteristics and absorb a variety of influences, including British blues, as well as European and World music influences. A number of British musicians have gained international reputations, although this form of music has remained a minority interest within the UK itself.
George Coleridge Emerson Goode was a British Jamaican-born jazz bassist best known for his long collaboration with alto saxophonist Joe Harriott. Goode was a member of Harriott's innovatory jazz quintet throughout its eight-year existence as a regular unit (1958–65). Goode was also involved with the saxophonist's later pioneering blend of jazz and Indian music in Indo-Jazz Fusions, the group Harriott co-led with composer/violinist John Mayer.
Ellsworth McGranahan "Shake" Keane was a Vincentian jazz musician and poet. He is best known today for his role as a jazz trumpeter, principally his work as a member of the ground-breaking Joe Harriott Quintet (1959–65).
Norma Ann Winstone MBE is an English jazz singer and lyricist. In a career spanning more than 50 years she is best known for her wordless improvisations. Musicians with whom she has worked include Michael Garrick, John Surman, Michael Gibbs, Mike Westbrook, as well as pianist John Taylor, who was her former husband.
Patrick Mungo Smythe was a Scottish jazz pianist, who rose to prominence as a member of the Joe Harriott Quintet during the 1960s.
Robert Orr was a Scottish jazz drummer and session musician.
Timothy Gray was an American songwriter, author, singer and director, remembered for his partnership with Hugh Martin which produced High Spirits, a musical based on Noël Coward's play, Blithe Spirit.
Tone Dialing is an album recorded in 1995 by the American jazz composer and saxophonist Ornette Coleman and his Prime Time ensemble. It was released in September 1995 by Coleman's Harmolodic record label, in partnership with Verve/PolyGram. It was the Harmolodic label's first release, and "the first disc fully devoted to Coleman's music in eight years."
Free Form is an album by Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriott recorded in England in 1960 and the second released on the Jazzland label.
Abstract is an album by Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriott, recorded in England in November 1961 and May 1962, and released on the Columbia (UK) label in February 1963. It was released by Capitol Records in the United States.
Movement is an album by Jamaican saxophonist Joe Harriott recorded in England in 1963 and released on the Columbia (UK) label.
Stuart Hamer is a British jazz trumpeter. Following an illness in the late 1980s, he switched to the piano and concentrated on composition.
Broadway is an album by American pop singer Johnny Mathis that was recorded in 1964 but not released by his then record label Mercury Records. The project first became commercially available on August 28, 2012, when Sony Music Entertainment released it as one of two albums on one compact disc, the other album being his 1965 LP Love Is Everything. Broadway was also included in Sony's Mathis box set The Complete Global Albums Collection, which was released on November 17, 2014.
"You'd Better Love Me" is song written by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray for the 1964 musical High Spirits. "You'd Better Love Me" and the B-side "Home Sweet Heaven" were originally performed by Tammy Grimes.