Sid Gribetz presents Harold Land for a five hour retrospective radio program this Sunday, June 23, 2024, from 2-7 PM on WKCR. Land was best known as the tenor saxophonist in the original Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet. But his prolific and accomplished career lasted more than four decades thereafter, although never gaining the more widespread fame that he deserved. Land possessed a firm sound and ingenious creativity on his saxophone and also was an inventive composer.
Harold Land was born in Houston, Texas in 1928, and his family moved eventually to San Diego, where he was raised. As a young man, Land settled in Los Angeles, and he remained a Californian for the rest of his life.When Max Roach was forming what would be his famous group with Clifford Brown, they auditioned several for the saxophone chair, before becoming enamored hearing Harold Land in a jam session at Eric Dolphy’s home. Land was a key member of the group during its first two years, 1954 and 1955. With the demanding national touring, missing his home and his family, and needing to care for an ailing relative, Land left the group and returned to LA. (He was replaced by Sonny Rollins, which unfairly overshadowed the critical acclaim and recognition that Land’s historic contributions to the group should have commanded).Once he got settled again, Land became an important figure in the Los Angeles music scene. In the late 1950'’s he recorded his own albums for Contemporary and other labels, guested with Wes Montgomery and Monk, had a working group with Curtis Counce and also Hampton Hawes and Elmo Hope as associates.Ongoing in his career he worked frequently in Gerald Wilson’s bands and recordings and other West Coast activities. In the late 1960's Land had a provocative working collaboration with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. Later he co-led a group with Blue Mitchell, and also played with the “Timeless All Stars” including Hutcherson and other confreres like Curtis Fuller, Cedar Walton, Buster Williams and Billy Higgins. Land taught in the fine jazz program at UCLA. He died of a stroke in 2001 at the age of 72.
