Past Events
April 12, 2007 - Barry Harris

On April 12, 2007 NEA Jazz Master Barry Harris engaged in a discussion with National Jazz Museum in Harlem executive director Loren Schoenberg about his illustrious career as a pianist and jazz educator.

Harris told the audience at the Museum of the City of New York that he was born in Detroit, Michigan on December 15, 1929 to Melvin and Bessie Harris. “We lived in a happy, poor neighborhood on the east side of Detroit on Hastings Street.” He and his four siblings would join their neighbors reveling in Joe Louis matches.

He began playing piano at the age of four, and the instrument became his life-long passion, especially since he wasn’t suited to play sports. “I couldn’t even do one pull-up,” he recalled. Bassist Ray McKinney became a mentor, turning him on to the work of James Weldon Johnson. Works such as Johnson’s “God’s Trombones” became an early inspiration as he played in a church junior choir. His mother, the church pianist, asked him: “Which are you going to play, church music or jazz?”

Thank God he chose jazz. He credits his mother with supporting his decision.

That’s not surprising because jazz lights such as Donald Byrd, Doug Watkins, Hugh Lawson, and Paul Chambers would come by to enjoy his mom’s cooking and the Harris family’s hospitality.

He went to school with Motown founder Berry Gordy, and recalled the beauty of Gordy’s sisters. “Oohh, they were fine! They would get together with my sisters and walk down the street causing traffic jams.” In the early days of his career as a professional, dance was still a strong component of the music’s culture. “I used to play R&B shows; one of my first gigs was for Ruth Brown. And I first saw Charlie Parker play for dances. When we took the music to the concert hall, we took it from the dancers.”

Bird, along with Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, is the fulcrum of his musical universe. Their inspiration led him to sneak into the Blue Bird Club to play when he was underage. He celebrated his 21^st birthday at the legendary venue, and later sat in there with Gene Ammons, and was central to the Blue Bird’s house band, which also included Billy Mitchell and Thad Jones.

He also reminisced about his membership in a Detroit jazz society, which had 5,000 members.

He fondly recalled memories of Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins (“He said, ‘I don’t play chords, I play movements’ ”), Roy Eldridge, Teddy Wilson, Art Tatum (“Twenty hands”), Monk (“He was very individual, a prolific composer, he practiced playing, not practiced practicing”), Dizzy Gillespie (“The crammer: he crammed all those notes in and end phrases just right”), and Bud Powell, whose version of “Because of You” he could remember as if it were yesterday.

He explained how Charlie Parker’s main innovation was rhythmic; and he lamented at how too many jazz musician’s following Bird didn’t (and don’t) play triplets anymore. “Charlie Parker made you play better; when I played with him, he lifted me.”

He also discussed his days in New York in the '70s, playing with Charles McPherson, and learning to write for strings out of necessity. Later, he wrote for 10 strings and 20 singers for a date at Cami Hall (then across the street from Carnegie Hall) that also featured Slide Hampton and Tommy Turrentine. More recently, he wrote pieces performed in Toronto, Canada with 80 singers, 200 children and big band. 

He’s proud of the continuation of the jazz education work that began with the Jazz Cultural Theater, which he launched in an attempt “to keep the music alive.”

“Jazz music is the greatest music in the world. It’s in the air; everybody can do something different with it: that’s the beauty of jazz.”