Joel Harrison Concert

On Thursday, July 24, at 4:00pm, join us at the West Tisbury Library for a concert featuring Joel Harrison on guitar, Jeremy Berlin on keyboard, Eric Johnson on bass, and Tauras Biskis on drums. This quartet led by NYC-based guitarist Joel Harrison will play his original music and jazz tunes. Free and open to the public!

Guitarist, composer, arranger, lyricist, writer, educator, and vocalist Joel Harrison has “created a new blueprint for jazz” (New Orleans Times-Picayune). A Guggenheim Fellow (2010) whose compositions have been commissioned by Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, New Music USA, the Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, and the Mary Flagler Cary Trust., he has released 25 CDs as a leader on seven different labels. Harrison’s music may be founded on jazz but veers into classical, rock, country, and all manner of American roots music. Succinctly described by the New York Times as “protean… brilliant,” he has also written multiple works for chamber ensembles and is an active film composer, having worked on the Oscar-nominated Traffic Stop and the Sundance awardee Southern Comfort. 

Harrison is the founder and director of the Alternative Guitar Summit, a yearly festival devoted to new and unusual guitar music. Pat Metheny has called the Summit “one of the most interesting and distinguished forums for guitar on the planet. Harrison is the author of “Guitar Talk: conversations with visionary players” as well as “Modern Jazz Standards for Guitar.”