Coleman Hawkins
tenor saxophone
Pioneering tenor saxophonist with whom Barry worked in New York in the 1960s until Hawkins’s death in 1969, living with and caring for him at the end.
- mentions
- 32
- recordings
- 19
- Barry speaking
- 25
What Barry says
The first time Barry sat in with Hawkins, at the Five Spot, Hawkins called a tune Barry knew only by its melody and afterwards groaned that here was another Detroit piano player, having already used Hank Jones, Roland Hanna and Tommy Flanagan. Barry then worked with him until he died.
On Coleman Hawkins0:341:12Interview on Italian television0:35Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶397Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶96
Hearing Hawkins play “All the Things You Are”, a tune Barry had always linked with Bird, brought Bird down from the pedestal. It taught him there is far more to play than bebop and that no musician is the end of the music.
Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York10:08Music is like math1:12Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶23Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶13Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶124
On the bandstand Barry stopped comping and tried to catch Hawkins’s phrases, and Hawkins laughed because he knew it. Older than the boppers yet playing so well, Hawkins had his own way of putting things together, and Barry says he learned a lot and it added much to his playing.
Interview on Italian television1:08Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶23Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶399Victor L. Schermer (interviewer); Barry Harris, Barry Harris: Iconic Jazz Pianist and Keeper of the Flame ¶25
Hawkins told him he did not play chords, he played movements, and this became one of Barry’s core lessons: music is about getting from one place to the next, such as to the relative minor or from IV back to I. Students must become movement players.
Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings1:07Be movement players1:09Stella by Starlight14:34Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶401Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶403Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶100
Barry dates the golden age of jazz from Hawkins’s return from Europe and his recording of “Body and Soul”, which he calls the greatest recording ever made. He agrees that the tune belongs to Hawkins, and counts himself lucky that Hawkins once came in as a guest with his trio, along with Roy Eldridge.
Interview: Detroit and after6:54Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland23:10
Hawkins, Ben Webster, Prez and Bird each had a sound of his own, partly through vibrato, while young players now sound alike. Hawkins kept the tenor’s beauty in its low register, where today’s players push it up and play it like an alto.
Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York11:1412:24Believe: a talk to musicians10:52Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - Student Interviews After Concert11:48
Hawkins loved classical music, which Barry links to his talk of movement. He was a chameleon who could fit with anyone, and Barry always wished to hear him with players such as Max Roach or Bud Powell.
When Hawkins was failing, Barry moved in with him on 97th Street. Hawkins had always recovered after overdoing things, but this time he did not, and Barry had to take him to hospital against his wishes; Hawkins used to say you go into hospital by the front door and out the back.
On Coleman Hawkins1:462:22Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶126Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶408Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶22
In his own words
It was beautiful to play with him because he had a different idea about how to put things together. And it was really enjoyable. I learned a lot from him.
I was really impressed with [Hawkins]... [He] sort of helped... put me on the right track. As far as... understanding how broad the music is
For one thing he would always say he never played chords; he played movements. And I’m a firm believer in that; it isn’t chords, it’s movements, and how you go from one place to another.
He would play a phrase, laugh his butt off because he knew I was trying to get the phrase. I wasn’t chording. I was trying to steal his phrases!
He always had told me in the front door, out the back door. That’s what he said about hospitals
Every mention
32 moments in the recordings, 25 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York
- 9:32
Hawkins put him on the right track about how broad the music is.
- 10:08
Hearing Hawkins play “All the Things You Are” showed there was much more to play.
- 8:57
Played with Hawkins extensively in the 1960s, part of a golden era.
- 11:14
Hawkins, Ben Webster, Prez and Bird each sounded different; young players sound alike.
- 12:24
The distinct sounds of Bird, Webster and Hawkins came partly from their vibrato.
Music is like math
- 1:12
After hearing Hawkins on “All the Things You Are”, Bird came down a little for him.
On Coleman Hawkins
- 0:00
Hawkins and Prez would go after any new tenor player in town; New York as finishing school.
- 0:34
Hawkins called him another Detroit piano player, after Hank Jones, Roland Hanna and Tommy Flanagan.
- 1:12
Played with Hawkins until he died, and moved in with him.
- 1:46
Hawkins always recovered from overdoing it; the last time Barry took him to hospital.
- 2:22
Hawkins said of hospitals: in by the front door, out by the back.
Interview on Italian television
Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings
- 1:07
When they worked together Hawkins told him: I don’t play chords, I play movements.
Jazz theory, part 2, with score
- 0:46
Another copy of the same lesson: learn standards, and Hawkins’s words on movement.
Be movement players
- 1:09
Hawkins played movements, not chords, so students must be movement players.
Stella by Starlight
- 14:34
On “Stella by Starlight”: Hawkins said he played movements; know all the movements.
Interview: Detroit and after
Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland
Believe: a talk to musicians
- 10:52
Hawkins kept the tenor’s beauty low; players now play tenor like an alto.
Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - Student Interviews After Concert
- 11:48
Asks why Prez, Hawkins, Ben Webster and Lockjaw Davis all sounded different.
The last train to Monk: an interview
Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - Introduction by Gary Giddins
- 4:09
Someone else
Gary Giddins: Barry worked four or five years with Hawkins, a founding figure; Giddins saw them as a teenager.
Stealing from Bud Powell EP 144 TILF Barry Harris
- 9:18
A teacher
Chris Parks: Barry said working with Hawkins showed him Parker was not everything.
Interview: tap dance and bebop
- 26:08
Someone else
A podcast host’s biography lists Coleman Hawkins among the players Barry worked with.
In the interviews and notes
Barry’s first sit-in with Hawkins was at the Five Spot. Hawkins called a tune Barry knew only by its melody, and his only comment was that here was another Detroit pianist; he had already worked with several.
Working with Hawkins gave Barry a different outlook: it showed there was more to play than bebop, so nobody can be thought of as the end, and one had to work to reach another level.
Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶399Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶23
Hawkins’s saying that he played movements, not chords, is something Barry firmly believes. A chord may come in, but what matters is knowing how to move, and young players and horn players who write tunes by stringing chords together do not know it.
Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶401Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶403Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶405
Hawkins loved classical music in general, and Barry thinks that is why he kept talking about movement.
Barry calls being with Hawkins one of the highlights of his life, because he learned about movement from him. He lived with him at the end and had to put him in hospital when he became too heavy to move.
Barry could walk in and sit in when Roy Eldridge and Hawkins were playing, because they played standards everyone knew. Original tunes have made that kind of jam session rare.
Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶454Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶29
Bird changed the rhythm and drumming, but Hawkins showed Barry that great playing was not limited to Bird; Hawkins and Prez could play too.
Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶13
In a 2019 class on “Dance of the Infidels”, Barry passed on Hawkins’s advice that chords belong low on the piano, not up high: little chords.
In his workshops Barry repeats the lesson he learned from Hawkins decades earlier: a scale gives you movement, so play movement rather than chords.
Howard Rees opens a lesson on Barry’s moving voicings with Hawkins’s remark about movements, suggesting it may have inspired Barry’s way of moving chords along scales.
Howard Rees, Evolutionary Voicings, Part I: Barry Harris Keeps Things Movin’ ¶5
Recordings that name them
Barry’s performances and records in the archive that credit or name them.
- バリー・ヘリス= ビーン・アンド・ザー・ボイズ2025, 7 min YouTube
- The Man I Love Coleman Hawkins 19662025, 5 min YouTube
- Barry Harris, Red Rodney, Charles McPherson, Ray Drummond, Ben Riley - 1992-08-29, Riverside ParkNew York City, 1992, 35 min YouTube
- 12-15-18 “Mr. Barry Harris aka The Man Who Walks on Notes” - Star Eyes2018, 15 min YouTube
- Barry Harris Spanish TVMadrid, 1988, 47 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Exactly Like You - New York, December 20, 19662014, 7 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Sugar (That Sugar Baby O’Mine)2014, 5 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - The Man I Love - New York, December 20, 19662014, 5 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Sweet And Lovely - New York, December 20, 19662014, 4 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Street Of Dreams - New York, December 20, 19662014, 4 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Time On My Hands You In My Arms2014, 4 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Just A Gigolo - New York, December 20, 19662014, 3 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Lover Come Back To Me (part 2) - September 25, 19662014, 11 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - In Walked Bud (part 2) - September 25, 19662014, 11 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Body And Soul - Live, “Left Bank Jazz Society”, Baltimore, MD., September 25, 19662014, 10 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Quintessence - Live, “Left Bank Jazz Society”, Baltimore, MD., September 25, 19662014, 9 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Lover Come Back To Me (part 1) - September 25, 19662014, 6 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - In Walked Bud ( part 1) - September 25, 19662014, 6 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins Ow! - Live, “Left Bank Jazz Society”, Baltimore, MD., September 25, 19662014, 2 min YouTube
- Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - PerformanceNew York City, 2004, 39 min YouTube
- Coleman Hawkins - Time on my Hands2011, 4 min YouTube
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.