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Harry Percy South (7 September 1929 – 12 March 1990) was an English jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, who moved into work for film and television.
After returning from a 9-month tour of Calcutta, India, with the Ashley Kozak Quartet, he spent four years with the Dick Morrissey Quartet, Harry South at David Taylor's British Bebop website where he both wrote and arranged material for their subsequent four albums.
He formed the Harry South Big Band in 1966 with a star lineup - Dick Morrissey, Phil Seamen, Keith Christie, Ronnie Scott and Ian Carr - specifically to record an album, Presenting the Harry South Big Band, for Mercury Records. Presenting the Harry South Big Band (1966), track list and personnel Harry South discography The eight tracks span "Latin, ballads and straight-forward swingers".Richard Morton Jack. Labyrinth: British Jazz on Record (2024), pp. 100-1
In the mid-1960s, he began working with British rhythm & blues singer and organist Georgie Fame, recording the album Sound Venture. At that time he was also composing and arranging for Humphrey Lyttelton, Buddy Rich, Sarah Vaughan, and Jimmy Witherspoon. He worked as musical director for Annie Ross. Harry South Biography www.allmusic.com Retrieved 27 May 2020.
He branched out into session work, writing themes for television and music libraries, including the themes for The Sweeney, Shut it: The Music of the Sweeney, Sanctuary SANCD092 (2001) The Chinese Detective, the BBC comedy series Give Us a Break starring Robert Lindsay and Paul McGann, and the 1984 TV miniseries Charlie starring David Warner. He wrote the scores for the Pete Walker films The Big Switch (1968), School for Sex (1969), and Four Dimensions of Greta (1972).
He is credited with the arrangements used for Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Works Vol. 1 (1977). In 1981, he again arranged for Annie Ross and Georgie Fame in a collaboration on what was to be Hoagy Carmichael's last recording, In Hoagland.
He died on 12 March 1990 in Lambeth, London, at the age of 60. In 2001, the National Youth Jazz Orchestra released an album in his honour entitled Portraits: The Music of Harry South. In 2017 Rhythm and Blues Records released a four CD set titled Harry South: The Songbook, with over sixty of his compositions played by various groups, some of which he played in. Included are early tracks with Tubby Hayes and nearly 40 sides by The Harry South Big Band, dating from 1960 to 1975. Rhythm & Blues Records: Harry South: The Songbook 4CD A further 4 CD set (taken from tapes of BBC broadcasts in the 1960s) followed two years later. Rhythm & Blues Records: Harry South: Further South 4CD
With Dick Morrissey
With others
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