Wendell Harrison

Detroit's Wendell Harrison has earned recognition as a prize-winning saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, and bandleader. He and Phil Ranelin established the Tribe together in 1971. Their well-received recordings encompassed the 1972 release Message from the Tribe along with Harrison's own 1973 landmark An Evening with the Devil. He launched both the Wen-Ha and Rebirth imprints. Dreams of a Love Supreme came out in 1980. Something for Pops from 1993 featured Harold McKinney in the studio. Carl Craig oversaw production on Tribe: Rebirth in 2009. Harrison's previously unreleased 1975 project Farewell to the Welfare finally reached the public in 2021. The following year brought his latest album Get Up Off Your Knees. He collaborated once more with Ranelin, Adrian Younge, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad to complete Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison JID016.

Wendell Harrison entered the world in Detroit during 1942. Clarinet lessons began for him at age seven. Northwestern High School counted him among its students, where fellow classmates encompassed trumpeter Lonnie Hillyer, drummer Roy Brooks, and saxophonist Charles McPherson. Formal jazz training started for Harrison in the mid- to late 1950s under pianist and composer Barry Harris at the Detroit Conservatory of Music, later renamed the Center for Creative Studies. Toward the end of that decade he participated in initial Motown sessions and provided support for Marvin Gaye as well as Aretha Franklin on Columbia.

Harrison departed Detroit in 1960 to establish himself in jazz within New York City. Early opportunities arose there with Grant Green, Eddie Jefferson, Jack McDuff, Elvin Jones, and Sun Ra, who had likewise arrived recently. A position opened for him in 1964 within saxophonist Hank Crawford's touring and recording ensembles. Harrison contributed to four Crawford albums on Atlantic from 1964 through 1968, among them Mr. Blues, Dig These Blues, After Hours, and Double Cross. Time spent alongside Crawford also equipped Harrison with skills in composition and arranging.

A brief move to California took Harrison away from New York in 1970. Having developed a drug dependency, he entered Synanon for rehabilitation. There he encountered and performed alongside numerous prominent musicians such as Art Pepper and Esther Phillips. Following completion of treatment and recovery, Harrison returned to Detroit in 1971.

Upon settling back in the Motor City, Harrison accepted session work across numerous settings. Jazz, rock, and R&B artists employed him in local studios and onstage, while he also recorded for radio and television advertisements. In addition he pursued a career as a jazz educator. Harrison instructed at Metro Arts, the creative youth center established by Dr. Amelita Mandingo. During his tenure there he connected with renowned Detroit pianist and composer Harold McKinney, renewed his acquaintance with trumpeter Marcus Belgrave whom he had originally met in New York, and encountered trombonist and composer Phil Ranelin, an Indianapolis native who had arrived in Detroit the previous year.

Harrison and Ranelin envisioned the Tribe as an all-encompassing collective. They created Tribe Records as the label arm and assembled an artist's group that convened for workshops, rehearsals, meetings, and performances. The organization expressed the rising Black political awareness then emerging in Detroit. Additional participants included drummer and composer Doug Hammond, Belgrave, pianist Kenny Cox, and trumpeter Charles Moore. They appeared together in concert and contributed to one another's Tribe Records projects. The collective further produced a magazine, a quarterly publication that later appeared monthly and focused on musical and political revolutionaries together with related issues; Harrison's company The Harrison Association handled its publication.

The Tribe's inaugural album arrived as the 1972 co-billed A Message from the Tribe by Harrison and Ranelin. Blending spiritual jazz, soul, and funk, the record achieved modest sales throughout the 1970s yet later attained classic status through frequent reissues for newer audiences. Harrison followed with An Evening with the Devil in 1973, captured on tape in January 1972. Their innovative compositions and arrangements have prompted multiple reissues of the album and the broader catalog, including Ranelin's The Time Is Now, Harold McKinney's Voices & Rhythms of the Creative Profile, Marcus Belgrave's Gemini II (all from 1974), and Ranelin's Vibes from the Tribe (1976), many of which have supplied samples for hip-hop and electronic producers.

The Tribe effort concluded with its 1976 dissolution. Ranelin took up work with Freddie Hubbard and relocated to Los Angeles. Harrison remained in Detroit to perform, assemble ensembles, and sustain his educational activities. He and McKinney established Rebirth Inc. in 1978 to support emerging musicians. Harrison had also met jazz pianist, composer, and vocalist Pam Wise, who became his spouse and artistic collaborator. He started the Wen-Ha label to document his own work and issued Dreams of a Love Supreme in 1980 with a big band. Wen-Ha next presented Reminiscing by bassist Reggie "ShooBeDo" Fields in 1981, with Harrison credited as producer, engineer, and saxophonist; Fields had participated in several Tribe sessions and performed with the Sun Ra Arkestra. That same year Harrison released Organic Dream, a more electronic contemporary jazz-funk effort featuring Wise on Rhodes piano and vocals alongside Miche Braden.

Rebirth Inc. expanded into a complete arts organization by 1985, mounting jazz concerts, workshops, master classes, and interactive programs. Harrison also positioned Rebirth as a record label. Its debut came with his own sleek, soulful Birth of a Fossil in 1985, followed the next year by Ranelin's Love Dream and Harrison's Reawakening, the latter a large-ensemble effort that incorporated Wise, McKinney, and vocalist Leon Thomas. Harrison delivered "Wait" Broke the Wagon Down in 1987 and The Carnivorous Lady in 1988.

The 1990s opened with Harrison's Forever Duke on the reactivated Wen-Ha imprint in 1991. One of his most esteemed releases, it featured trumpeters Charles Tolliver and Rayse Biggs plus McKinney. Live in Concert: Featuring His 18 Piece Big Band and the Clarinet Ensemble, also known as Mama's Licking Stick Clarinet Ensemble, appeared the following year and enlisted saxophonist and clarinetists James Carter and Vincent York, Belgrave, guitarist Ron English, and bassist Jaribu Shahid. Harrison and McKinney then issued the well-regarded Something for Pops in 1993. Harrison extended his clarinet focus on 1994's Rush & Hustle, again with Carter.

Responding to interest from beatmakers, producers, and collectors, England's Soul Jazz/Universal Sound issued the double-length compilation Message from the Tribe: An Anthology of Tribe Records: 1972-1977 in 1996. It gathered selections from all nine Tribe albums plus a miniature facsimile of the magazine inside a deluxe slipcase. Coverage appeared across major and smaller music outlets, airplay followed on European, Asian, and online stations, and sales proved strong. Japan's P-Vine label responded with Vibes from the Tribe, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 in 1997. Harrison also joined McKinney, Belgrave, Donald Walden, Marion Hayden, and others that year on the all-star Michigan Masters: Urban Griots. He closed the decade with saxophonist Eddie Harris on The Battle of the Tenors for Germany's Enja label in 1998.

Harrison appeared with Amp Fiddler on rapper Proof's Electric Coolaid Acid Testing in 2002. He simultaneously released Eighth House: Riding with Pluto on the local Entropy Stereo Recordings imprint. Unlike prior entries in his catalog, the album contained solely solo clarinet and saxophone works plus several duets with percussionist Jumma Santos. Urban Expressions followed in 2004, presenting groove-oriented originals and covers that included vocalist Jean Carn. Harrison further contributed to Amp Fiddler's Afro Strut and shared the international hit duet "If I Don't" with Corinne Bailey Rae.

Longtime admirer Carl Craig, the Detroit electronic producer, Planet E founder, and DJ, recognized the Tribe's global standing among collectors, jazz listeners, and EDM audiences. He invited Harrison onto his Paris: Live album before also engaging Belgrave. Craig assembled a band of local and regional players who cited the Tribe as a central influence, among them Fiddler, Karriem Riggins, and the Motor City Horns. They recorded Tribe: Rebirth for Craig's new Community Projects label in 2009 and toured, headlining the Detroit Jazz Festival.

Harrison maintained an active schedule. He issued It's About Damn Time on Rebirth in 2011. Captured with a quintet, this modern interpretation of funky post-bop and electric jazz included drummer Gayelynn McKinney and Fiddler. Luv N' Haight reissued Harrison's 1981 album Organic Dream the next year.

Harrison performed as saxophonist and clarinetist with double bassist John Lindberg's BC3 on the 2016 album Born in an Urban Ruin for CleanFeed. England's Strut/Art Yard labels released the Tribe anthology Hometown: Detroit Sessions 1990-2014 in 2019. Harrison simultaneously offered the digital-only collections Post Bop Mix and Wendell's Orbit Mix. He and Ranelin served as session musicians on Roy Ayers' first volume for Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge's Jazz Is Dead imprint in 2020, while Ranelin issued Infinite Expressions under his own name in 2021. That same year Harrison's long-lost 1975 album Farewell to the Welfare resurfaced; Now-Again acquired the rights, forwarded the tapes to Bernie Grundman for mastering and lacquering, and issued the material for the first time in a limited deluxe edition. Harrison released Get Up Off Your Knees, credited to The Wendell Harrison Tribe, in 2022. Later that year he and Ranelin reconvened with Muhammad, Younge, and drummer Greg Paul at Linear Labs Studios in Los Angeles' Highland Park area to record seven original co-written pieces, issued in January 2023 as Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison JID016.