Collection: Billy Harper

Billy Harper arrived in New York in 1966 from Houston via North Texas State University, where he had become the first Black member of the school's One O'Clock Lab Band, and within two years he was playing with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. Stints with Gil Evans, Elvin Jones, Max Roach, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band followed, placing Harper at the centre of the post-bop and spiritual jazz world through the late 1960s and 1970s. His compositions "Priestess" and "Thoroughbred", contributed to Gil Evans' "Svengali" album (1973), became two of the most played pieces in that band's live repertoire. As a leader, Harper's debut "Capra Black" (Strata East, 1973) established the terms of his music: a Texas tenor muscularity rooted in R&B and blues, pushed through the modal and free language of Coltrane into something that remained deeply soulful without sacrificing intensity. His institutional significance to the European avant-garde labels is unusual even by jazz standards: his 1975 album "Black Saint" was the first record released on that label, and his "In Europe" (1979) inaugurated the Soul Note catalogue. He remains active, touring internationally with a quintet that includes trumpeter Freddie Hendrix and pianist Francesca Tanksley, and his original albums on Strata East, Black Saint, and Soul Note are among the most sought-after records in those catalogues.