Joel Harrison

Guitarist/composer/singer/arranger Joel Harrison occupies a musical space between many worlds. His medium is primarily jazz, but his music has various influences that cover the musical spectrum. He has recorded 7 CD’s as a leader since 1996 most of which feature his own compositions, and has toured around the world at major clubs and festivals since 1999. Of his eclectic approach the Village Voice wrote, “Harrison is a brilliant, take-it-anywhere-guitarist,” and the Irish Times said "This is the music of the future." His ACT CD, Free Country (creative Jazz renditions of old Country and Appalachian tunes), received worldwide acclaim and was chosen as one of the top 50 CD’s of 2003 by Jazz Times magazine. Harrison’s collaborators on this and other CD’s have been David Binney, Uri Caine, Norah Jones, Jen Chapin, DavidLiebman, and others.

Harrison is a 2-time winner of the Jazz Composer’s Alliance Julius Hemphill Composition Competition, and has written numerous film scores for HBO, A&E, etc. He is a recipient of grants from Meet the Composer, Arts International, NYSCA, American Music Center, and is a MacDowell Colony and VCCA Fellow. In 2006 he received two composition grants from Chamber Music America. Joel Harrison’s latest CD is Harrison on Harrison (Highnote Records), Jazz explorations of George Harrison’s music. His upcoming project will be released in February 2007 on Highnote and is collaboration with Nguyen Le (guitarist), Jamey Haddad (percussion), David Binney (sax), Gildas Bocle (bass). This project was funded by Chamber Music America’s French/ American Jazz Exchange program and will features new compositons by Harrison.



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