1. The Sage and Soul of Detroit and The Conscience of Jazz
My obituary for maestro Barry Harris has posted at npr.org/2021/12/08/106…. What follows is an annotated playlist of recordings & videos. As always, the music survives. It's all here: Truth and Beauty.
My obituary for maestro Barry Harris has posted at npr.org/2021/12/08/106…. What follows is an annotated playlist of recordings & videos. As always, the music survives. It's all here: Truth and Beauty.
2 “Hopper Topper,” 1950. Barry’s debut record. “Cherokee” changes with no theme. Striking confidence for a 20-year-old. The even attack, precise beat & jabbing left hand remind me of Horace Silver. The young Frank Foster comes directly out of Sonny Stitt.
3 “All The Things You Are" (1958). Will Austin/Frank Gant. Barry’s first LP as a leader opens w/ a ballad at a walking tempo. Improvised curtains of lovely double-time melody. All-Detroit trio, produced for Argo in Chicago by another Detroiter, Dave Usher.
4 "Lolita" (1960) from "At the Jazz Workshop," an iconic record among pianists. Sam Jones/Louis Hayes. Cannonball's rhythm section. Barry’s maturity is now in full flower. The whole LP kills. Dig the solo break, the fluidity, swing and expressive phrasing.
5 “Del Sasser” (1960) w/Cannonball at Newport. Holy shit! Cannonball sounds great, especially in the tag, but Barry wipes everybody out with insanely long-breathed lines, drive and flow. Even at this blazing tempo he never gets bottled up. Nat/Jones/Hayes.
6 “Ascension” (1961). Solo piano. Bebop purity at its most swinging & sublime. Perfect time & enunciation. Barry’s tune descends from “Parisian Thoroughfare” w/ an altered bridge descending mostly by whole steps. The rubato verse winks at “Tea for Two.”
7 “Stay Right With It" (1962). Bob Cranshaw/Clifford Jarvis. The blues. Nobody swings at this tempo like Barry. He’s really TALKING, slapping the syncopated beat back and forth for 12 choruses w/ Jarvis' ride cymbal and snare. The essence of the art form.
8 “The Sidewinder" (1963). Barry is too much the bebop purist to be the ideal pianist for Lee Morgan's proto-boogaloo hit, but Bob Cranshaw remembers Barry in the studio saying he was gonna play as funky as he could. The piano vamp sells the song.
9 “Luminescence!” (1967). Pepper/Slide/Cook/Cranshaw/ McBrowne. Title track from Barry's best LP with horns. His take on “How High the Moon" changes. High spirits from everyone — Slide! — with Barry batting clean-up & hitting it out of the park.
10 Tremendous ballad playing, real storytelling, and an intro that's a song all on its own. Barry & Monk were close, living together at Nica’s house in Weehawken for a decade. Barry plays Monk w/ utmost respect but still delivers his own personality. 1976
11 "Symphonic Blues Suite: Third Movement” (1970). Wild stuff. At 2:42, Barry improvises Messiaen-like fragments (!) in the balcony of the piano, the closest this lifelong bebopper came to the avant-garde. He brings it back home with a soulful slow blues.
12 “Ray’s Idea" (1972) from Sonny Stitt's masterpiece "Constellation." Sam Jones/Roy Brooks. Supreme distillation of the bebop language. Barry's comping gooses the action & his 32 bars ring w/truth. Who needs a zillion choruses when you can say it in one?
13 “Renaissance” (1972). Duvivier/Leroy Williams. One of Barry’s best LPs, "Vicissitudes" is loaded w/ his intriguing originals, including this beguiling exercise in minor-key bebop. The interlude has a Barry-on-Bach feeling. Then, surprise! Double-time.
14 No Place to Hide Now” (1975). From a sweetheart LP, David Allyn's "Don't Look Back." Piano-vocal duets with an oft-forgotten, plummy baritone. Barry's masterful accompaniment — gorgeous harmony & voice leading — is a work of art.
15 “Like Someone in Love"(1976). Sam Jones/Leroy Williams. Bud's arrangement. Super relaxed, super expressive. Barry's varied articulation & placement of the beat—laying back, pushing ahead, riding right on it—excites the emotions. Triplets rule the world!
16 “Oblivion” (1985). Hal Dodson/Leroy Williams. Look out! Bud's flag-waver taken WAY upstairs. It’s not just the speed, but the melodic, rhythmic & harmonic integrity of Barry’s lines. God is in the details. Barry looks as relaxed as if playing a ballad.
17 “All God’s Children Got Rhythm” (1990.) Another upstairs tempo but with a twist: Barry opens at a moderate speed with a nutty arrangement — dig the descending quasi-boogie figure in the left-hand — that he copped from a tape he had of Monk practicing.
18 “Nascimento" (1996). Mraz/Williams. Barry’s set closer, one of his most alluring originals. His regulars always lead the audience participation — rhythmic handclaps during the interludes & wordless singing of the splendorous melody. Magic.
19 "The Bird of Red & Gold" (1979). Dial BH for beauty. From my fave of Barry's four solo piano records, a celestial original ballad as radiant as a Shelley ode. Barry sings — literally — his own poetic lyric. Brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it.
20. A personal closing: I loved Barry and one of the greatest joys of my professional life was the opportunity to not just tell his story as part of "Jazz from Detroit" but to contextualize his enormous contributions to my city and jazz history. He was an American hero.
21 I haven't spoken about this publicly until now, but I'm working w/two experienced New York filmmakers on a documentary based on "Jazz from Detroit." We've been at it a year & come a long way both in terms of filming and fundraising. We got Barry on camera in 2020 -- thank God. 
22. (Please forgive a brief interruption, but if anyone out there has interest and the means to financially contribute to the documentary, by all means contact me. DMs are open as they say.)
With that, I'll bow out with a photo from 2014. Thanks for everything, maestro.
With that, I'll bow out with a photo from 2014. Thanks for everything, maestro.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
