Barry Harris (1929-2021)

December 10, 2021

Barry Harris (1929-2021)

Barry Harris, a jazz pianist and beloved educator whose leadership and sideman recordings celebrated bebop—the 1940s modernist movement that established a roadmap for improvised jazz—died on December 8. He was 91.

Though Harris was too young to have participated in bop's birth or initial popularity in the years immediately after World War II, the Detroit-based pianist caught the tail end of the first wave. In particular, he was influenced by and adored Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, bebop's founding-father pianists, and you can hear both musicians' influences in his playing. Harris's first bop recordings—two sides of a 78—took place in 1950. By the early 1960s, when he moved to New York, he was much in demand as a sideman. Eventually, in the early 1980s, he opened the Jazz Cultural Theatre in the city, a teaching and dance studio by day and an informal and relaxed club by night. To comply with city ordinances, the studio was official, Barry once told me, the club or "theater" was a tag-along. Anyone who attended those gigs at Barry's place is grateful for that arrangement.

Harris knew all of the jazz greats, and many of them played at his club, from Bill Hardman and Junior Cook to Vernel Fournier, Michael Weiss and Jaki Byard's big band. Food was served, including breakfast in the wee hours, and alcohol was available under the table when politely requested. Or you could bring your own. One sensed that the club was set up so Harris could play with his accomplished contemporaries. The audience was just a bonus.

Though Harris, on the surface, was cooly introverted, that side of him changed quickly when engaged by an artist, student or a fan who truly loved the music. At his studio-club, he seemed to take great pleasure in artists lingering to talk with audience members between sets, largely because conversation meant friendship and friendship was good for the music, for return visits and for the future of the art form. Bebop wasn't just a style for Harris, it was a language, a way of life. [Photo above of The Jazz Cultural Theatre by al-alma]

I tried to interview Harris several times but he never was home when we had agreed to talk. Eventually, I moved on. But as Harris said often, anything you wanted to know about him was in the music he played on his records or at gigs. So, here are 10 of my favorite tracks that will give you a fine sense of what make Harris special:

Here's Barry Harris's first recording, Hopper Topper, in 1950, with Frank Foster on tenor saxophone...