Barry Harris

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Barry Harris
Barry Harris.jpg
Harris in 2007
Background information
Birth name Barry Doyle Harris
Born December 15, 1929 (age 89)
Origin Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Genres Bebop, hard bop, mainstream jazz
Occupation(s) Musician, bandleader, composer, teacher
Instruments Piano
Labels Prestige, Riverside, Xanadu
Associated acts Cannonball Adderley, Dexter Gordon, Coleman Hawkins, Illinois
Jacquet, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Yusef Lateef, Ryo
Fukui
Website barryharris.com
Barry Doyle Harris (born December 15, 1929) is an American jazz pianist,
bandleader, composer, arranger and educator. He is an exponent of the bebop style.
[1]

Contents
1 Early life and career
2 Later life and career
2.1 1950s
2.2 1960s
2.3 1970s
2.4 1980s
2.5 1990s
2.6 2000–present
3 Jazz Cultural Theater
4 Theoretical concepts
5 Awards
6 Compositions
7 Discography
7.1 As leader
7.2 As sideman
8 References
9 External links
Early life and career
Harris began learning the piano at the age of four. His mother was a church pianist
and had asked if Harris was interested in playing church or jazz music. Having
picked jazz, he was influenced by Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell. Harris had a
strong admiration for the style of Powell, claiming it to be the "epitome" of jazz.
He went to public areas to play dances for clubs and ballrooms. Harris learned the
bebop styles largely by ear, imitating the solos played by Bud Powell in his
teenage years.[2]

Later life and career

1950s
Harris was based in Detroit through the 1950s and worked with musicians such as
Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt and Thad Jones. He also performed in place of Junior
Mance, who was Gene Ammons's regular pianist for his group frequently. In addition,
Harris toured with Max Roach briefly in 1956 as a pianist after the group's
resident pianist Richie Powell (younger brother of Bud Powell) died in a car crash.
[3]

1960s
Harris performed with Cannonball Adderley's quintet and even had a chance to do a
television stint with them.[3]

Harris relocated to New York City in 1960, where he became a performer as well as a
jazz educator. During his time in New York, Harris collaborated with Dexter Gordon,
Illinois Jacquet, Yusef Lateef and Hank Mobley through performances and recordings.
[3]

Between 1965 and 1969, Harris performed extensively with Coleman Hawkins at the
Village Vanguard.[4]

1970s
During the 1970s, Harris lived with Monk at the Weehawken, New Jersey home of the
jazz patroness Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, and so was in an excellent
position to comment on the last years of his fellow pianist.[5]

Harris also sat in for Monk for rehearsals at the New York Jazz Repertory Company
in 1974.[6]

By the mid-1970s, Harris and his band members gave concerts in European cities and
Japan. In Japan, he performed at the Yubin Chokin concert hall in Tokyo over two
days and his performance were recorded and compiled into an album released by
Xanadu Records.[7]

1980s

Harris in 1981
Between 1982 and 1987, Harris took charge of the Jazz Cultural Workshop on the 8th
Avenue in New York.[8]

Harris appears in the 1989 documentary film Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser
(produced by Clint Eastwood), performing duets with Tommy Flanagan.

1990s
Since the 1990s, Harris has collaborated with Toronto-based pianist and teacher
Howard Rees in creating a series of videos and workbooks documenting his unique
harmonic and improvisational systems and teaching process.[9][10]

2000–present
In 2000, he was profiled in the film Barry Harris - Spirit of Bebop.[2]

Harris continues to perform and teach worldwide. When he is not traveling, he holds
weekly music workshop sessions in New York City for vocalists, students of piano
and other instruments.[11]

Harris has recorded 19 albums as a lead artist.

Jazz Cultural Theater

Barry Harris at Barry Harris' Jazz Cultural Theatre, New York NY 7/21/84

This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or
sources. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living
people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately.
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2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Larry Ridley, Barry Harris, Jim Harrison, and Frank Fuentes were partners in
creating the Jazz Cultural Theater beginning 1982.[12] Located at 368 Eighth Avenue
in New York City in a storefront between 28th and 29th Streets in Manhattan, it was
primarily a performance venue featuring prominent jazz artists and also hosted jam
sessions. Additionally, it was known for Barry's music classes for vocalists and
instrumentalists, each taught in separate sessions. Several artists recorded albums
at the club, including Barry on his For the Moment. Some of the many musicians and
notable jazz figures who appeared at the Jazz Cultural Theater were bassist Larry
Ridley, guitarist Ted Dunbar, pianist Jack Wilson, trumpeter Bill Hardman, tenor
saxophonist Junior Cook, trumpeter Tommy Turrentine, alto saxophonist Charles
McPherson, pianist Mickey Tucker, guitarist Peter Leitch, tenor saxophonist
Clifford Jordan, guitarist Mark Elf, alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, drummer Leroy
Williams, drummer Vernel Fournier, bassist Hal Dotson, bassist Jamil Nasser,
pianist Chris Anderson, pianist Walter Davis, Jr., pianist Michael Weiss, tap
dancers Lon Chaney and Jimmy Slyde, Francis Paudras (biographer of pianist Bud
Powell), and the renowned jazz patroness Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who
would park her silver Bentley sedan in front of the club.

The Jazz Cultural Theater (JCT) enjoyed a vibrant five-year run until August 14,
1987, when its lease ran out and the rent was increased. Barry simply moved his
jazz instrumental and vocal instructional classes to other venues in New York City,
Japan, and Europe, supported by a devoted and ever growing international base of
students. Many of them are now professionals, including Dave Glasser (alto sax),
Armenian bebop pianist Vahagn Hayrapetyan, and Italian-born brothers Luigi (alto
sax) and Pasquale Grasso (guitar).

Theoretical concepts
Harris can be heard and seen teaching his theoretical approach in this YouTube
video of a 2008 clinic he conducted in Spain.

Frans Elsen took videos during several years of Barry Harris workshops at the Royal
Conservatory of Music at the Hague. He edited them into 54 videos which he felt
represent the techniques Harris taught in the Hague.

Awards
2000, American Jazz Hall of Fame for Lifetime Achievements & Contributions to the
World of Jazz
1998, Lifetime Achievements Award for Contributions to the Music World from the
National Association of Negro Musicians
1998, Congratulatory Letter as a Jazz Musician and Educator by the U.S. White House
1997, Dizzy Gillespie Achievement Award
1997, Recognition of Excellence in Jazz Music and Education
1995, Doctor of Arts - Honorary Degree by Northwestern University
1995, Special Presidential Award Recognition of Dedication and Commitment to the
Pursuance of Artistic Excellence in Jazz Performance and Education
1995, Honorary Jazz Award by the House of Representatives[13][14]
1989, NEA Jazz Master
Compositions
"Seein' Red"[15]
"Lolita"[16]
"Morning Coffee"
"Luminescence"
"Like this!"
"Even Steven"
"Nicaragua"
"You Sweet and Fancy Lady"
"Rouge"
"Just Open Your Heart"
"Sun Dance"
"Fukai Aijo"
"Looking Glass"
"For the Moment"
"That Secret Place"
"Nascimento"
"Tommy's Ballad"
"Nobody's"
"Cats in My Belfry"
"The Bird of Red and Gold"
"Mutattra"
"Ascension"
"Anachronism"
"Teenie"
"Sphere"
"Around the Corner"
"Stay right with it"
"Bish, Bash, Bosh"
"Bull's Eye"
"Clockwise"
"Off Monk"
"Barengo"
"Oh so Basal"
"Vicissitudes"
"Now and then"
"Sweet Sewanee Blues"
"Renaissance"
"And so I Love You"
"With a Grain of Salt"
"A Soft Spot"