Jamie Harris

British percussionist Jamie Harris, who likes to bang on fairly portable items including congas, djembe, and darbouka, is best known for playing in a duo setting with the fine saxophonist Trevor Watts. Coming out of a background of free improvisation in which his early partners were radical distributors of noise such as fellow saxophonist Evan Parker and guitarist Derek Bailey, Watts surprised many listeners by changing the frame-up of his improvising settings so that his accompaniment would be produced largely by percussionists, particularly those with Afro-jazz leanings.Watts and Harris began their partnership -- known simply as the Duo -- during 1999. Audiences far and wide have heard this combination, considered by many enthusiastic listeners to be the ultimate distillation of Watts' interest in rhythmically charged sax and percussion improvisation. Harris has traveled with his older mentor to gigs in the Dominican Republic, Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Peru, New Zealand, and Australia, not to mention the United States, Canada, and Europe. This is not the same Jamie Harris who plays saxophone in Florida bands Mr. Gone and Afro Elements. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, All Music Guide