Barry Harris (1929-2021)

[Tenor Freak]

Just read a tweet from Jason Moran that the pianist and educator Barry Harris has died.

https://twitter.com/morethan88/status/1468636969936826379

RIP.

[Tenor Freak]

Confirmed on NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062389633/barry-harris-beloved-jazz-pianist-devoted-to-bebop-dies-at-91

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Confirmed on NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/10623...bop-dies-at-91

Michael Weiss (piano), Organissimo site, US,

Statement from Michael Weiss:

Today, with sadness we mourn the loss of a great man. With joy we celebrate the life of a great man.

Background:
I met Barry Harris in 1979, receiving a piano lesson while Barry was in Indianapolis for a concert. After moving to New York in 1982 we established a close musical and personal relationship. Over the years he would call me or I would call him with a musical challenge, an investigation, or a conundrum – he at his piano and me at mine. In the 1980s I performed several times at Barry's Jazz Cultural Theater as a member of the Junior Cook/Bill Hardman Quintet. We collaborated on numerous projects, including concerts in tribute to Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, and an extensive co-interview recorded and transcribed for the liner notes to the Complete Bud Powell on Verve. In 2012 Barry commissioned me to transcribe his complete compositional output. Despite a thirty year difference in age, there was a bond, a kinship, a sharing of the same musical aesthetic and values. Barry was my musical soulmate...."

[Joseph K]

[Jazzrook]

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=qXWudWZvDJE

JR

[Ian Thumwood]

I always associate Barry Harris with Lee Morgn's "Sidewinder" album where his feel for rhythm was the icing on the cake against the front line. Another good album wth him on is the live Kenny Dorham / Jackie McLean session.

I have been very interested in Barry Harris's piano lessons which achieved an almost cultish reputation. by all accounts, he was one of the most original and inspiring of teachers regardless of what level of musician he was addressing. The accounts I have read strongly suggest that he escewed the kind of approach taken by colleges and universities and offered an approach that was more authentic and in line with how his generation were taught. This is a suject that has always fascinated me because colleges did not really start teaching jazz until the late 1940s. I believe that the North Texas university was one of the first although in the UK I understand that Bill Mayerl had instigated a school by subscription service which flirted with the periphery of jazz. I have always been keen to understand just what an older generation of musician tuaght his students and how the process actually worked. In the past I have read about Fats Waller teaching COunt Basie and even Earl Hines teaching Andrew Hill. I would be very interested to learn exactly what and how they passed their knowledge on.

[Jazzrook]

Barry Harris with Slide Hampton, Junior Cook, Pepper Adams, Bob Cranshaw & Lennie McBrowne on the hard-to-find 1967 album 'Luminescence!':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=pWxTdzBMfAE

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

I always associate Barry Harris with Lee Morgn's "Sidewinder" album where his feel for rhythm was the icing on the cake against the front line. Another good album wth him on is the live Kenny Dorham / Jackie McLean session.

I have been very interested in Barry Harris's piano lessons which achieved an almost cultish reputation. by all accounts, he was one of the most original and inspiring of teachers regardless of what level of musician he was addressing. The accounts I have read strongly suggest that he escewed the kind of approach taken by colleges and universities and offered an approach that was more authentic and in line with how his generation were taught. This is a suject that has always fascinated me because colleges did not really start teaching jazz until the late 1940s. I believe that the North Texas university was one of the first although in the UK I understand that Bill Mayerl had instigated a school by subscription service which flirted with the periphery of jazz. I have always been keen to understand just what an older generation of musician tuaght his students and how the process actually worked. In the past I have read about Fats Waller teaching COunt Basie and even Earl Hines teaching Andrew Hill. I would be very interested to learn exactly what and how they passed their knowledge on.

I would hazard a guess that those teachers with good insight into their pupils are more likely to give in-depth accounts of imparting the art, because by the time their erstwhile disciples attain reputations likely to get them interviews they will have found their own voice and will find it difficult saying what teachers and other sources of influence gave them beyond making generalisations.

[Tenor Freak]

I always associate Barry Harris with Lee Morgn's "Sidewinder" album where his feel for rhythm was the icing on the cake against the front line. Another good album wth him on is the live Kenny Dorham / Jackie McLean session.

I have been very interested in Barry Harris's piano lessons which achieved an almost cultish reputation. by all accounts, he was one of the most original and inspiring of teachers regardless of what level of musician he was addressing. The accounts I have read strongly suggest that he escewed the kind of approach taken by colleges and universities and offered an approach that was more authentic and in line with how his generation were taught. This is a suject that has always fascinated me because colleges did not really start teaching jazz until the late 1940s. I believe that the North Texas university was one of the first although in the UK I understand that Bill Mayerl had instigated a school by subscription service which flirted with the periphery of jazz. I have always been keen to understand just what an older generation of musician tuaght his students and how the process actually worked. In the past I have read about Fats Waller teaching COunt Basie and even Earl Hines teaching Andrew Hill. I would be very interested to learn exactly what and how they passed their knowledge on.

One of the most important lessons I have learned about jazz is that, like other African art forms, it's mainly an oral tradition. This is something that we in the West tend to forget. Barry Harris was one of the last of that tradition of teaching this music as part of an oral tradition - look up some of his teaching videos on the 'Tube to see what I mean. He's not heavy on the theory, but on the feel and the sound, and being able to play what you hear instantly. Most of us do this nowadays by learning solos from records. At the moment I am working through a page of "essential vocabulary" (ie, licks - even cliches) that you hear on old recorded solos, and playing them in all keys. It's a bit like having to learn about the cases in German

The old masters used a variety of resources to learn. Church music, classical exercises, the blues, learning solos from records, buying and studying sheet music all played a part. The key point is that they were a community of like-minded people who could absorb ideas from eachother. One thing that seems to be a common factor is the use of classical music repertoire and exercises. For example, there's a recording of an interview with Bird where he is warming up on an old exercise from a book of classical saxophone exercises. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJq_eWuI5_A . I saw an interview with Milt Jackson where he said the same thing - which may explain the MJQ's repertoire. But the key point is that they used that material as a stepping-stone to move on to where they wanted to go.

[Joseph K]

One of the most important lessons I have learned about jazz is that, like other African art forms, it's mainly an oral tradition. This is something that we in the West tend to forget.

But it is Western. African-American, surely?!