Harris, Beaver (William Godvin)

Harris, Beaver (William Godvin), free-jazz drummer, leader; b. Pittsburgh, Pa., April 20, 1936; d. N.Y., Dec. 22, 1991. He played clarinet and alto sax as teenager. He played professional baseball in the Negro Leagues. He took up drums in the service, encouraged by Max Roach, then moved to N.Y. in 1963. He played with Sonny Rollins, became especially interested in free jazz and worked most regularly with Archie Shepp from 1966 on. He also went to Europe with Albert Ay1er, played drum clinics with Roach and Kenny Clarke, and did gigs with Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon, Clifford Jordan, Clark Terry, Joe Henderson, and Freddie Hubbard. In 1969, he formed a co-op group with Grachan Moncur III, the 360 Degree Experience. The band continued to perform through the mid-1980s when Don Pullen was the band’s co-leader. In 1970 he played with Shepp for LeRoi Jones’s play Slave Ship, and 1973 for Aishah Rahman’s Lady Day: A Musical Tragedy. He continued to work with Shepp in the 1970s, also Thelonious Monk, Chet Baker and, on occasion, Dixieland groups. He toured Japan with a Newport Jazz Festival tour in the mid-1970s, and also recorded in the 1970s with Steve Lacy, Pharoah Sanders, Gato Barbieri, and Ayler. The 1980s were spent mostly playing in the N.Y. area with the 360 Degree Experience.

Discography

From Ragtime to No Time (1974); In: Sanity (1976); Beautiful Africa (1979); Live at Nyon (1979); Negcaumongus (1979); Beaver Is My Name (1983); Well Kept Secret with Don Pullen (1984).

—Lewis Porter