 Urban Myths: 2010
“Binney plays several fabulous solos…contrapuntal elements create a beautiful moiré…avant bop lines, succulent violin…”
— Downbeat: Michael Jackson (4 star review)
“Joel Harrison is a composer and player who seems to operate in swaths of color. His music is harmonically dense, rhythmically challenging and yet is never “hard” to listen to. Evocative is the only word I can think of to describe his writing and playing. As prone to dissonance as he is consonance, Joel plays with a full spectrum of sound and energies with his music.
— Bass Magazine: Damien Eskine
Guitarist, composer Joel Harrison convincingly dispels any perceived limitations concerning multi-genre elements fused into the jazz vernacular. Harrison translucently intertwines jazz-fusion, country-blues and other stylizations into a largely vibrant program. He’s a top-notch composer and arranger…
— E-jazz: Glen Astarita
“This largely original tribute to electric music of the mid-to-late ‘70s is as modern as they come, while still unmistakably referencing the music that Harrison grew up with back in the day. Urban Myths has grooves aplenty, but they’re couched in the kind of episodic writing that’s been an increasing Harrison trademark… Skewed as only Harrison can, Urban Myths is an homage with a difference, and continues to assert his growing reputation as a writer and performer of great significance…”
— All About Jazz: Donald Elfman
 Passing
Train and The Wheel: 2008
“The Wheel is a staggering work that is indescribably beautiful
and profoundly stirring.”
— Bill Milowski, Absolute
Sound
“Definitions blur, and suddenly it no longer matters whether
Harrison improvises or composes. Whether his playground is jazz,
pop, folk, country, or classical it all comes down to this: imagination
without limits.”
— Jazzthing, Germany
“Mr. Harrison is a jazz-trained guitarist and composer,
but on his new album, Passing Train he steps into the position
of a roots-haunted singer-songwriter with a knowing, yearning tone.”
— Nate Chinen, NY Times
 “Joel
Harrison consistently proves to be one of the most restless, protean
composers and improvisers on the local scene, plumbing the depths
of country- and folk-music traditions for inspiration and raw material.”
— Time Out New York
“We list Joel Harrison in the jazz section primarily because
that's where he started out, but few artists seem less content to
stay put. With Wishing Well, just out on Intuition, Harrison
reveals yet another facet of his artistic totality: the sandy-voiced,
soulful singer of Americana-drenched songs. Rest assured, however,
that the instrumental component remains at a high level, and we
can't decide whether it's the sly arrangements or Ben Wittman's
production that makes the whole thing so seductive.”
— Steve Smith, Time Out New
York
“One of the finer composer/guitarists in modern jazz.”
— Minneapolis Star Tribune
 Harbor
Read the review of Harbor from All About Jazz.
“That the playing on Harbor is uniformly outstanding is a given. What makes it an early contender for one of 2007's best is Harrison's emergence as a writer who entirely dispenses with boundaries and, instead, creates his own pan-cultural and multi-stylistic mélange that's as timeless as it is thoroughly modern.”
— All About Jazz
“This is no rattling of cultural loose change…a striking balance between improvisation, composition, texture, and color. The feel is contemporary, the moods varied, the results impressive.”
— Irish Times: 5 star review
“A potent brew…easily Harrison's most satisfying release.”
— Jazzwise
“The new album imagines a fascinating modern fusion of Western and Eastern tonalities.”
— NY Times
“Plays out like a suite, or at least a series of tunes related by daring and depth. Call it a signpost that our respected jazz guitarist is also an impressive composer.”
— Village Voice
 Harrison on Harrison
The arrangements are great, and the band gets a lot out of the tunes, or their implications, that people wouldn't normally imagine. Nice work…”
— Allan Kozinn: NY Times
“Experimental and swinging with all the right touches, Joel Harrison paints George's eclectic songs deep into the jazz pocket. One of the finest guitar-based Beatles tribute to date.”
— 20th Century Guitar
“For Harrison on Harrison the guitarist/vocalist pays tribute to the late Beatle George Harrison, proving that nothing is immutable, and that even songs from the collective subconscious are completely malleable and capable of inspiring all manner of reshaping.”
— John Kelman: All About Jazz
“Harrison makes the most out of the quiet Beatle's songs…the musicians impart more wisdom with their instruments than George's lyrics ever did.”
— Jazztimes
“Beatles completists should take this as an object lesson in how radical their heroes could really have been.”
— Mark Gilbert: Jazzwise
 Free Country One and Two:
“Harrison suggests the music of the future.”
— Irish Times
“The most singular vision you are likely to encounter all year.”
— London Times
 Guitarist-singer Harrison describes his music as a trip "along the seams of jazz, country, blues and spirituals, using country classics, hymns and folk tunes as a gateway to creative music-making." That's an ambitious task, but he brings it off, with considerable help from saxophonist David Binney, in a collection filled with surprising, but utterly convincing, shifts of musical emphasis. Harrison is on to something both innovative and compelling, and he deserves a much wider hearing.”
— Don Heckman, LA Times, Best of 2004
“Harrison has melded the disparate genres of country and jazz, and he's arranged them beautifully with reharmonized chords and unfolding organic grooves that give pianist Uri Caine and saxophonist Dave Binney cause to soar. Using a repertoire of country-pop and age-old traditional songs Harrison has purposefully elevated the mundane into the pithy and profound. He has accomplished something here that is easily understood by the masses and gives jazzheads enough meat for repeated listening. It's all very affecting, often very sorrowful, and very good.”
— James Rozzi, Jazziz
“Norah Jones adds her soft drawl to a somber, soulful reading of Johnny Cash's I Walk the Line and an equally adventurous Tennessee Waltz. But by the time this transcendent record is over, you nearly forget Jones was even on it. Harrison has created a grand tribute to divergent musical genres, which he shows have more in common than anyone would have guessed.”
— Marcus Croder: Sacramento Bee
“From the first note Harrison shows that American traditional and country music can swing in a Jazz context... his guitar solos are straight from the heart- pure sweat...”
— Biloxi Sun Herald
“This is the creative step beyond Bill Frisell's omnistyle Appalachian melt... a wild, willful, and often beautiful jazz journey.”
— Jeff Simon: Buffalo News
“Harrison, a terrific guitarist, finds jazzy and spacious new depths in this mesmerizing release.”
— Village Voice
“…drags American roots out of the campfire singalong into the solar system.”
— Village Voice
-“It is pointless to try to snare Harrison in one genre as he artfully flies by such nets.”
— Cormac Larkin: Sunday Tribune (Ireland)
“Already the record of the year.”
— Horst Thomas/ Jazzthetik
 Transience and Range of Motion
“Harrison's music manages to be simultaneously complex, fascinating, AND entertaining…
Master composer and guitarist.”
— Phil Elwood, San Francisco Chronicle
“World music in the context of large jazz ensembles seldom sounds as engrossing, emotional, and jubilant.”
— Jazz Times
“One of the ten best releases of the year.”
— Dan Oullette: Downbeat
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