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Barry Harris is an award-winning, influential pianist, composer, and instructor, an NEA Jazz Master, and a member of the American Jazz Hall of Fame. He is critically regarded as one of the major hard bop stylists to emerge from the second half of the 20th century. His fleet-fingered style and rich, complex chording architecture and harmonic system have been captured on dozens of recordings as a leader and sideman. He has taught his playing techniques at many music schools and institutions across the globe, including the Royal Conservatory of Music at The Hague -- his classes were videotaped (with permission) by the late pianist Frans Elsen and distributed by YouTube in 2008.
Harris' bop influences run the stylistic spectrum: he has the ability to sound like
Bud Powell, yet can play convincing impressions of
Thelonious Monk, all while possessing a bright, intrinsically swinging, colorful style within the bop/hard bop idioms. He was an important part of Detroit's jazz scene during the '50s, where he worked with visiting masters such as
Charlie Parker,
Miles Davis,
Hank Mobley,
Dizzy Gillespie, and hometown associates
Donald Byrd, Wild Bill Davidson, and
Thad Jones. He has also been a jazz educator since that time.
Harris' first set as a leader was 1960's At the Jazz Workshop for Riverside with
Louis Hayes and
Sam Jones. He moved to New York the same year and spent a short period playing with the
Cannonball Adderley Quintet and as a sideman on recordings by
Harold Land,
Sonny Stitt,
Louis Hayes, and
Don Wilkerson.
Harris truly arrived as a leader in 1961 and issued three recordings during the year:
Listen to Barry Harris, the trio offering
Preminado with
Elvin Jones and
Joe Benjamin, and the quintet offering Newer Than New with
Charles McPherson, Lonnie Hillyer,
Ernie Farrow, and
Clifford Jarvis. His recording and playing relationship with
Yusef Lateef (who had also relocated to N.Y.C. from Detroit) began formally in 1961 on the latter's
Into Something and
Eastern Sounds. Also during the '60s,
Harris recorded and shared bandstands with
Dexter Gordon,
Illinois Jacquet,
Mobley,
Lee Morgan (that's his piano on
The Sidewinder) and
Coleman Hawkins. During the '70s,
Harris was on two of
Stitt's finest records (Tune Up and Constellation), roomed with
Monk at jazz patron Pannonica de Koenigswarter's house, and cut several recordings under his own name in a variety of settings for Xanadu -- though 1975's
Vicissitudes was cut for MPS.
Harris has mostly worked solo and with various trios since the mid-'70s, recording as a leader for a variety of labels including Uptown, Red Records, Concord, Koch Jazz, and more. In 1982 he founded Manhattan’s Jazz Cultural Theatre, a performance venue featuring famed jazz musicians, jam sessions, and music classes for several generations of musicians until it closed in 1987. In the 21st century,
Harris continues to play live and teach courses in jazz theory, piano, and voice at several schools and institutions in the New York area while delivering master classes and lectures throughout the world.
Harris was born ten days before Christmas in Detroit in 1929. His piano studies began at age four with his mother (a church pianist), who gave him the choice of classical music or jazz. He is part of an exceptional crew of Detroit-bred jazz musicians including
Tommy Flanagan,
Alice Coltrane,
Pepper Adams, and
Donald Byrd, who rose through the Motor City's extraordinary public school arts education programs during the '30s and '40s. The pianist devoted himself to bebop in the '40s after seeing
Charlie Parker play a concert in Detroit. While learning his chops,
Harris initiated his own career, playing high school dances and various other functions around Detroit. During parts of 1953 and 1954, he worked as the house pianist at the Bluebird Lounge and Baker's Keyboard Lounge, Motor City jazz meccas on the city's west side. There
Harris also backed visiting musicians such as
Davis,
Stitt, and
Thad Jones. He subbed for
Junior Mance in
Gene Ammons' group during a multi-week stand in Detroit, and briefly toured with
Max Roach after the group's resident pianist
Richie Powell (younger brother of
Bud) was killed in an auto accident.
In 1960,
Harris migrated to New York following
Flanagan and
Byrd, where he got work playing with
Adderley,
Hawkins, and other musicians including
Wes Montgomery (on Go!),
Morgan,
Mobley,
Lateef,
Carmell Jones, and his former student
McPherson. He met de Koenigswarter -- the British scion of the Rothschild dynasty and patroness of the New York jazz scene -- who befriended him and introduced him to
Monk, whom he roomed with at her house in Weehawken, New Jersey. During 1974, he sat in for
Monk at the New York Jazz Repertory Company. Meanwhile,
Harris' trio toured the globe; they played elite clubs in New York and performed at concert halls in Europe and Japan. In 1970,
Harris and trio (bassist
Ron Carter and drummer
Leroy Williams) released Magnificent!, his final album of new material for Prestige. But the pianist was an in-demand sessionman and spent the first half of the decade working on albums (and to a lesser degree, stages) with
Red Rodney,
Sonny Criss,
Johnny Griffin, and
Illinois Jacquet. In 1975 alone, he played on a dozen recordings including his own
Vicissitudes and his debut for the Xanadu label,
Barry Harris Plays Tadd Dameron. He also played on three other recordings for the label that year including
Jimmy Heath's
Picture of Heath,
Al Cohn's
Play It Now, and
Sam Noto's Entrance! In 1976, he released the trio date Live in Tokyo, compiled from two evenings of performances and also did session work. In 1977, he was part of one of the all-star jam session recordings Xanadu is famous for: True Blue included
Cohn,
Dexter Gordon,
Louis Hayes,
Sam Jones,
Billy Mitchell, and
Noto.
Harris also played on saxophonist
Billy Mitchell's Colossus of Detroit and
Gordon's Biting the Apple (Steeplechase). 1978 proved another milestone year for the pianist. He released Barry Harris Plays Barry Harris for Xanadu, and was part of the Detroit Four for Cadillac and Mack with drummer
Roy Brooks, bassist Vishnu Wood, and trombonist Charles Greenlee, and played on seven other recordings. In 1979, he did the Montreux review-style tours for Xanadu (that resulted in three recorded volumes), issued his own Tokyo: 1976 with his quintet, and spent the next couple of years playing at home in New York as a sideman. During the '70s,
Harris began teaching in formal settings with Jazz Interactions, a non-profit organization run by Joe and Rigmore Newman. It proved a doorway to a second vocation that he continues to enjoy.
Harris' last date for Xanadu was 1982's The Bird of Red and Gold. He also founded Manhattan's Jazz Cultural Theatre that year and was its chief instructor. While he did intermittent session work (and contributed to the soundtrack for the
Clint Eastwood film
Bird), the JCT took up most of his time; the only leader date he issued in the rest of the decade was For the Moment with
Williams and bassist
Rufus Reid for Uptown Records. JCT closed in 1987 and
Harris went back on the road as well doing session work. He also appeared in the 1989,
Eastwood produced documentary film, Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser.
In 1990, he played on saxophonist
Buck Hill's Muse debut Capital Hill, and the following year on
Steve Grossman's Do It. His Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Vol. 12 appeared from Concord. The following year
Harris released the live
In Spain for Nuba Records; he was also one of the pianists
Frank Morgan recruited for the duets collection
You Must Believe in Spring. He toured with
Diana Ross in 1992 as well, and was a major part of her recording Stolen Moments: The Lady Sings...Jazz and Blues, an audio and visual package. In 1995, he issued
Live at DUG, documenting a club date in Japan, and played on
Lee Konitz's Lullabye of Birdland and Backyard by
Roni Ben-Hur with
the Barry Harris Trio for TCB. With
Williams and bassist
George Mraz, the pianist issued First Time Ever for Evidence in 1997.
All the while teaching and conducting workshops in cities across the United States was a passion project.
Harris charged inexpensive rates while sharing his knowledge and passion for the jazz idiom with amateurs and seasoned professionals of all ages. In 2000, Venus Records released his trio offering, The Last Time I Saw Paris, with
Williams and
Mraz. While
Harris spent most of his time teaching, he did find time to issue the video Spirit of Bebop in 2005 that blended interview excerpts with performances and historic film and video footage. The same year his Post Master Class Concert was released by the Netherlands' Blue Jack Jazz Records. After the Royal Conservatory of Music at The Hague workshops and videos,
Harris was a mainstay in Europe. In 2010, Live in Rennes, from the previous year's Jazz à l’Ouest Festival, appeared from Plus Loin Music.
Harris didn't simply teach but was a student himself: he studied classical piano with Sofia Rossof until her death in 2017, and he continues to teach his own master classes and administer workshops across the globe. ~ Thom Jurek