Barry Harris
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- For the dance music performer and DJ, see Barry Harris (DJ).
Barry Harris (born December 15, 1929) is an American bebop jazz pianist and educator.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, on December 15, 1929, Barry Harris was influenced by Art Tatum, Coleman Hawkins, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. Harris left Detroit for New York City in 1960.
Harris has played with Cannonball Adderley, Illinois Jacquet, Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, and Max Roach. As a lead artist, he has recorded over 14 albums.
Harris appears in the 1989 documentary film, "Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser" (produced by Clint Eastwood) performing duets with Tommy Flanagan. During the 1970s Harris lived with Monk and his family at the 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.
In the Eighties, Harris maintained a unique institution, the Jazz Cultural Theater, in a former restaurant storefront on Eighth Ave near 23rd Street in Manhattan. There he taught group music and piano lessons, as well as hosted his own performances and those of other like-minded artists. His album "For the Moment" was recorded there.
His approach to the teaching of jazz used methods and techniques that pre-date the Berklee school and the Lydian Chromatic approach of George Russell. He relied upon the 6th chord and the 8-note, rather than seven-note, jazz scale as a basis for melody and harmony. This is the material used by Bud Powell, Joseph Schillinger, George Gershwin, Glenn Miller, and even Frédéric Chopin. He emphasized the concept of building a repertoire of one's own "musical movements" over common licks and phrases.
The Jazz Cultural Theater lasted as long as the students and audiences kept the doors open. Mr Harris had an illness, which required all his attention, and the theater closed at that time.
In 2000, he was profiled in the film "Barry Harris - Spirit of Bebop".
[edit] Selected discography
- Breakin' It Up (Argo 1958)
- Barry Harris at the Jazz Workshop (Riverside 1960)
- Listen to Barris Harris . . . Solo Piano (Riverside 1960)
- Preminado (Riverside 1961)
- Newer Than New (Riverside 1961)
- Chasin' The Bird (Riverside 1962)
- Luminescence (Prestige 1967)
- Bull's Eye (Prestige 1968)
- Barry Harris Trio: Magnificent (Prestige 1969)
- Barry Harris plays Tadd Dameron (Xanadu 1975)
- Tokyo (1976)
- Barry Harris Plays Barry Harris (Xanadu 1978)
- Stay Right With It (Xanadu 1978)
- For the Moment (Uptown 1984)
- The Bird of Red and Gold (Xanadu 1989)
- Live at Maybeck Recital Hall - Volume Twelve (Concord 1991)
- First Time Ever (Ecidence 1997)
- Live in New York (Reservoir 2002)
