Wendell Harrison is an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

ist and tenor saxophonist.

Career

Harrison began playing clarinet at age seven, and switched to tenor saxophone in high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

. He studied under Barry Harris

Barry Harris

Barry Doyle Harris is an American bebop jazz pianist and educator.-Biography:Harris left Detroit for New York City in 1960...

 before moving to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1960. There he played with Jack McDuff

Jack McDuff

"Brother" Jack McDuff was an American jazz organist and organ trio bandleader who was most prominent during the hard bop and soul jazz era of the 1960s, often performing with an organ trio.-Career:...

, Elvin Jones

Elvin Jones

Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family's home in Pontiac, Michigan....

, Sonny Stitt

Sonny Stitt

Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...

, Grant Green

Grant Green

Grant Green was a jazz guitarist and composer....

, Hank Crawford

Hank Crawford

Bennie Ross "Hank" Crawford, Jr. was an American R&B, hard bop, jazz-funk, soul jazz alto saxophonist, arranger and songwriter...

, and Sun Ra

Sun Ra

Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...

 in the 1960s. In 1970 he moved back to Detroit and has remained a mainstay of the music scene there for over forty years.

In addition to albums as a leader, Harrison has worked as a session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

, and has a long list of famous artists with whom he has recorded. Early collaborations included recordings and concerts with premier jazz, R&B, soul

Soul music

Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

, and Motown musicians, including Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

 Sun Ra

Sun Ra

Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...

, and Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

.

Harrison co-founded the Tribe

Tribe Records

Tribe Records was an American jazz record label active during the 1970s whose artists included Doug Hammond, Marcus Belgrave, Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison.-History:...

 record label and collective with Phil Ranelin

Phil Ranelin

Phil Ranelin is an American jazz and experimental music trombonist.Ranelin was born in Indianapolis, and lived in New York before moving to Detroit in the 1960s...

 in the 1970s. In the 1980s, he initiated the construction of a non profit "jazz performance and education organization"; Rebirth Inc. Two related record labels; Rebirth Records, and Wen-Ha Records are the product of Rebirth, Inc. He has worked as an educator, and played with Leon Thomas

Leon Thomas

Amos Leon Thomas Jr was an American avant garde jazz singer from East St. Louis, Illinois.Thomas studied music at Tennessee State University. In the 1960s he was a vocalist for Count Basie and others....

, Marcus Belgrave

Marcus Belgrave

Marcus Belgrave is a jazz trumpet player from Detroit, born in Chester, Pennsylvania. He has recorded with a variety of famous musicians, bandleaders, and record labels since the 1950s. Notable among them are: Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, Gunther Schuller, Motown Records, Tribe Records, Blue Note...

, Dennis Rowland

Dennis Rowland

Dennis Rowland is a jazz vocalist born and raised in Detroit, MI. Having grown up in a household of jazz enthusiasts, Rowland developed an appreciation for Jazz music at an early age. At the age of five or six Rowland heard the vocals of Joe Williams of the Count Basie Orchestra, which has...

, Kirk Lightsey

Kirk Lightsey

Kirkland "Kirk" Lightsey is an American jazz pianist.Lightsey had piano instruction from age five and studied piano and clarinet through high school. After service in the Army, Lightsey worked in Detroit and California in the 1960s as an accompanist to singers...

, Roy Brooks

Roy Brooks

Roy Brooks was an American hard bop jazz drummer.-Biography:Brooks was born in Detroit and drummed since childhood. He was an outstanding varsity basketball player as a teenager and was offered a scholarship to the Detroit Institute of Technology; he attended the school for three semesters and...

, Charles Tolliver

Charles Tolliver

Charles Tolliver is an American jazz trumpeter and composer. Tolliver was born in Jacksonville, Florida, where, as a child, he received his first trumpet as a gift from his grandmother. He attended Howard University in the early 1960s as a pharmacy student, when he decided to pursue music as a...

, and James Carter

James Carter (musician)

James Carter is an American jazz musician.Carter was born in Detroit, Michigan and learned to play there before moving to New York City. He has been prominent as a performer and recording artist on the jazz scene since the mid-1990s, playing saxophones, flute, and bass clarinet...

, among many other famous jazz musicians. Also, Harrison has collaborated with performers outside the jazz realm, such as techno artist Carl Craig

Carl Craig

Carl Craig is a Detroit-based producer of techno music, and is considered to be one of the most important names in the Detroit second generation of techno producers and DJs...

, rapper Proof

Proof (rapper)

DeShaun Dupree Holton better known as Proof his stage name, was an American rapper from Detroit, Michigan. During his career, he was a member of the groups Goon Squad, 5 Elementz, Promatic, and most notably D12...

, R&B artist Amp Fiddler

Amp Fiddler

Joseph "Amp" Fiddler is an American keyboardist, singer, songwriter and record producer from Detroit, Michigan, U.S.. His musical styles include funk, soul, dance and electronica music. He is probably best known for his contributions to the band Enchantment, and as part of George Clinton’s...

, and world music performer Sean Blackman.

Discography

Albums
as Leader:

• An Evening with the Devil (Tribe Records
  Tribe Records
  Tribe Records was an American jazz record label active during the 1970s whose artists included Doug Hammond, Marcus Belgrave, Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison.-History:...
  
  , 1972)
• A Message From the Tribe with Phil Ranelin
  Phil Ranelin
  Phil Ranelin is an American jazz and experimental music trombonist.Ranelin was born in Indianapolis, and lived in New York before moving to Detroit in the 1960s...
  
   (Tribe, 1973)
• Dreams of a Love Supreme (Rebirth Records, 1979)
• Organic Dream (Rebirth, 1981)
• Birth of a Fossil (Rebirth, 1985)
• Reawakening (Rebirth, 1985)
• Wait Broke the Wagon Down (Rebirth, 1987)
• The Carnivorous Lady (Rebirth, 1988)
• Fly by Night (WenHa, 1990)
• Forever Duke (Wen-Ha, 1991)
• Live in Concert (WenHa, 1992)
• Something For Pops with Harold McKinney (Wenha, 1993)
• Rush & Hustle (WenHa/Enja, 1994)
• The Battle of the Tenors (WenHa/Enja, 1998)
• Eighth House: Riding with Pluto (Entropy Records, 2002)
• Urban Expressions (WenHa, 2004)
• It's About Damn Time (Rebirth, 2011)

Appears on:

• Hank Crawford
  Hank Crawford
  Bennie Ross "Hank" Crawford, Jr. was an American R&B, hard bop, jazz-funk, soul jazz alto saxophonist, arranger and songwriter...
  
   - Dig These Blues, 1965
• Hank Crawford - After Hours, 1966
• Hank Crawford - Mr. Blues, 1967
• Hank Crawford - Double Cross, 1967
• Greg Dykes - The Prince Of Peace, 1968
• Phil Ranelin - The Time is Now!, 1973
• Harold McKinney - Voices and Rhythms of the Creative Profile, 1974
• Marcus Belgrave
  Marcus Belgrave
  Marcus Belgrave is a jazz trumpet player from Detroit, born in Chester, Pennsylvania. He has recorded with a variety of famous musicians, bandleaders, and record labels since the 1950s. Notable among them are: Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, Gunther Schuller, Motown Records, Tribe Records, Blue Note...
  
   - Gemini II, 1974
• Phil Ranelin - Vibes From the Tribe, 1976
• William Odell Huges - Crusing, 1982
• Michigan Jazz Masters - Urban Griots, 1998
• Telefon Tel Aviv
  Telefon Tel Aviv
  Telefon Tel Aviv is a Chicago, Illinois-based American electronic music act. Formerly comprising Charles Cooper and Joshua Eustis, Telefon Tel Aviv continues with Eustis as the sole official member since Cooper's death in 2009.-History:...
  
   - Map of What Is Effortless, 2004
• Phil Ranelin - Inspiration, 2004
• Slicker - We All Have a Plan, 2004
• Proof
  Proof (rapper)
  DeShaun Dupree Holton better known as Proof his stage name, was an American rapper from Detroit, Michigan. During his career, he was a member of the groups Goon Squad, 5 Elementz, Promatic, and most notably D12...
  
   - Grown Man Shit
  Grown Man Shit
  Grown Man Shit is a mixtape released in 2005 by Detroit rapper Proof and D12s then DJ, Salam Wreck. It features production from the likes of fellow D12 members Eminem and Mr. Porter as well as other more local, detroit based producers such as Essman, Sicknotes and Salam Wreck.- Track listing :...
  
  , 2005
• Proof - Searching for Jerry Garcia
  Searching for Jerry Garcia
  -Samples:*"Clap wit Me" contains a sample from "Total Satisfaction" by Brief Encounter* "Forgive Me" contains a sample from "Ghetto Qu'ran " by 50 Cent*"High Rollers" contains a sample from LTD*"No. T...
  
  , 2005
• John Arnold - Style and Pattern, 2005
• Amp Fiddler
  Amp Fiddler
  Joseph "Amp" Fiddler is an American keyboardist, singer, songwriter and record producer from Detroit, Michigan, U.S.. His musical styles include funk, soul, dance and electronica music. He is probably best known for his contributions to the band Enchantment, and as part of George Clinton’s...
  
   - Afro Strut, 2007
• Carl Craig
  Carl Craig
  Carl Craig is a Detroit-based producer of techno music, and is considered to be one of the most important names in the Detroit second generation of techno producers and DJs...
  
   - Paris Live, 2007
• Tribe - Rebirth, 2009
• Sean Blackman - In Transit, 2009
• Will Sessions - Kindred, 2010

External links

• Scott Yanow
  Scott Yanow
  Scott Yanow is an American jazz commentator, known for many contributions to the Allmusic website, for writing ten books on jazz and for reviewing jazz recordings for over 30 years.-Biography:...
  
  , [ Wendell Harrison] at Allmusic
• Wendell Harrison website
• Margit Productions, LLC Information on Wendell Harrison's latest album, It's About Damn Time