Ludwig van Beethoven
composer (classical)
German composer and pianist of the Classical and early Romantic era; Barry names him with Bach and Chopin as classical masters who improvised and whose line he believed jazz continues.
- mentions
- 10
- recordings
- 9
- Barry speaking
- 9
What Barry says
Barry names Beethoven with Bach, Chopin and Liszt as composers who learned to improvise, so there had to be a system to improvisation. Jazz, in his view, is the continuation of that classical theory, and he thinks he comes closest to knowing the system.
Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle2:21Interview on Italian television6:12The last train to Monk: an interview30:17
In a theory class he says Bach, Beethoven, Liszt and the rest goofed on us by no longer showing how to improvise, a big blunder; a European theorist told him that when improvisation stopped in Europe it started in the United States.
If Beethoven and the others were alive, Barry says, they could not be heard in concert halls, which play dead people’s music; they would be playing their own music in a corner bar, just like jazz musicians.
Student performances and coaching23:3724:15Barry Harris Trio - 2005-07-08, North Sea Jazz Festival, Netherlands42:4043:15
In his own words
I believe if you go to the concert in the concert hall and they play Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, I don’t see why I can’t play Bird
where would Chopin, you think about Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, all those guys, where would they be playing if they were playing today?
Bach and Beethoven and [Liszt] ... and all of them, they goofed on us. They stopped showing us how to improvise, which was a big blunder.
If Beethoven and Chopin and them were alive, what would they be playing? Where do you play original music? They don’t play original music in symphony halls.
Jazz is a continuation of Bach and Beethoven, and so on. If they were alive today, they would be jazz musicians.
Every mention
10 moments in the recordings, 9 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Student performances and coaching
- 23:37
Chopin, Bach and Beethoven would not be in today’s concert halls; they’d play their own music in a corner bar.
Barry Harris Trio - 2005-07-08, North Sea Jazz Festival, Netherlands
Barry Harris Live In Rennes
- 40:22
Symphony halls play Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and Chopin, so a jazz musician should play Bud, Bird and Monk.
Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings
- 0:00
Bach, Beethoven, Liszt and the others goofed on us by no longer showing how to improvise.
Jazz theory, part 2, with score
- 0:11
The same remark in another transcript of the Lincoln Center theory class.
Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle
- 2:21
Jazz continues classical theory; Bach, Chopin and Beethoven had a way of learning to improvise.
Interview on Italian television
- 6:12
Chopin, Bach, Liszt and Beethoven all learned to improvise; jazz musicians are today’s classical theorists.
The last train to Monk: an interview
- 30:17
Bach, Liszt, Chopin and Beethoven learned to improvise, so there had to be a system to it.
Detroit Jazz: Ancient to the Future
- 42:51
Someone else
A Detroit musician recalls jazz being dismissed as never as great as Beethoven, Bach or Brahms.
In the interviews and notes
Insisting that jazz is classical music and must survive, Barry asks what Beethoven and Chopin would play if they were alive: symphony halls, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center play dead people’s music and seldom anything by the living.
Asked if he plays the classical repertoire, Barry says of course: it is all one music, and jazz carries on from Bach and Beethoven, who alive today would be jazz musicians playing in a corner bar. Jazz players, he adds, improvise and cannot go back to correct themselves.
Barry names Beethoven, with Chopin, Bach, Liszt, Scriabin, Schubert and Schumann, among the composers who would be playing at the corner bar if alive today, since concert halls play the music of the dead.
A forum member says Barry never took credit for the sixth diminished scale, only for naming it, and often credited Bach, Beethoven and Chopin with using it.
Another member recalls Barry asking where Bach, Beethoven and Chopin would play if alive, and answering the corner bar, since improvising passed to America when Europe stopped.
Brian de Lima reports that Barry named classical composers, Chopin, Bach and Beethoven among them, as major influences, arguing that jazz musicians are not only jazz musicians.
Recordings that name them
Barry’s performances and records in the archive that credit or name them.
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.