Volume V · Practice and philosophyStage 15 of 15
15
History and philosophy
Where the music came from and what Barry believed jazz is.
- 15.1 Jazz as the continuation of classical improvisation Barry held that jazz continues classical theory: Bach, Chopin, Beethoven and Liszt all improvised, Europe stopped teaching it, and jazz carried it on. In his view the harmony he taught is their knowledge, and classical players should know the changes of what they play.
- 15.2 Bebop, tradition, and what is wrong with jazz education Barry stood for bebop as the real tradition and said so bluntly. He dismissed the modes as something the schools picked so they had something to teach and sell, and blamed jazz education for skipping the basics, from small two-handed chords to the diminished.
- 15.3 Music is like math; finding your own voice; the teacher’s job Barry held that music, like math, has no end: nobody, not even Bird, has played it all. Learning to improvise is like learning to talk and ends in your own voice; the teacher shows, plays, and keeps the music and its audience alive.
- 15.4 The lineage Detroit, Bird, Bud, Monk, Hawkins, the Jazz Cultural Theater Barry’s teaching came out of a lineage: Detroit’s church, schools and dance halls, then Bird, Bud Powell, Coleman Hawkins and Monk. He taught from his teens in his Detroit home, then in New York workshops, at the Jazz Cultural Theater and around the world.