Joel Harrison


Joel Harrison is an American jazz guitarist, singer, composer, and arranger.

Career

Harrison was born in Washington, D.C. and graduated from Bard College, New York, in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts in composition and performance. His father was Gilbert Harrison, the editor and owner of the magazine The New Republic, and his mother was Anne Harrison. The couple had four children: James, David, Joel and Eleanor.
Harrison has identified the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Allman Brothers Band and Washington guitarist Danny Gatton as early influences. Having begun his career as a musician in Boston during the early 1980s, Harrison moved to the Bay Area of San Francisco, where he led several musical ensembles and became a session musician. Since 1999, he has been based in New York City. His mentors and teachers have included Joan Tower, Ali Akbar Khan, W. A. Mathieu, and Charlie Banacos.
In 2010, Harrison was appointed a Guggenheim Fellow. That same year, he founded the Alternative Guitar Summit, an annual festival in New York that aims to present and explore the guitar's potential in all musical genres. The AGS advisory board is headed by Pat Metheny, while the 2017 Summit included initiatives hosted by guitarists Marc Ribot, Larry Campbell, Chris Eldridge, Steve Cardenas, Cindy Cashdollar and Miles Okazaki.
Several of Harrison's albums have received critical acclaim, including Free Country, Harrison on Harrison and Urban Myths. His work has included film scores, big-band projects, and a collaboration with Indian sarod player Anupam Shobhakar titled Leave the Door Open. The AllMusic website describes Harrison's style as an "electrifying blend of creative jazz, modern classical, and ethnic fusion", while Down Beat magazine has rated him "a guitarist, composer and arranger of amazing skill and breadth". His collaborators have included Dave Liebman, Mark Feldman, Marty Ehrlich, David Binney, Dewey Redman, Norah Jones, Uri Caine and Christian Howes.

Discography

As leader