Erroll Garner
piano
Pittsburgh-born pianist and composer of ‘Misty’, whom Barry once heard sit in at a Birdland jam session and remembered as a lesson in swinging on your own.
- mentions
- 3
- recordings
- 3
- Barry speaking
- 2
What Barry says
Barry remembers a jam session at Birdland where Erroll Garner sat in. Hearing him, Barry grasped the secret: a pianist has to swing by himself, feeling the time ahead without needing the bass player or the drummer.
In a class on small and big chords, Barry says Garner and Red Garland are the only pianists he knows who kept the left hand up high all the time. Tatum, Bud, Monk, Brubeck and Al Haig did not, so he asks why it has become the rule.
Small chords, not big ones1:40Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶881
Talking about Art Tatum, Barry says each player sounds like himself, so Garner was Garner, yet Tatum somehow contained them all: Garner, Bud Powell, Monk and Duke Ellington.
In his own words
One time I went to Birdland. And it was a jam session. And, oh, God, [Erroll] Garner sat in... So that’s the secret. You have to swing by yourself.
If all of those people didn’t do it, then we aren’t supposed to do it. The only person that I know that did it was [Erroll Garner,] Red Garland.
individually you might say that Erroll Garner was Erroll Garner, but Art Tatum was also Erroll Garner, Art Tatum was Bud Powell, and Art Tatum was all of them
Every mention
3 moments in the recordings, 2 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle
- 13:39
Garner sat in at a Birdland jam session Barry attended; the lesson was to swing by yourself
Small chords, not big ones
- 1:40
With Red Garland, the only pianists Barry knows who kept the left hand up high
Barry Harris and Kenny Barron
- 0:48
Someone else
Announcer introduces Barry and Kenny Barron’s Carnegie Hall duet on ‘Misty’, the Garner classic
In the interviews and notes
Told that people say everything in jazz was already in Art Tatum, Barry answers that each pianist, Garner included, is himself, and yet Tatum was all of them at once.
De Lima’s transcript of the small-chords class has Barry say that only Erroll Garner and Red Garland played with the left hand up high, while Tatum, Bud, Monk, Brubeck and Al Haig did not.
When Bud Powell came back to New York in 1964, a crowd of musicians lined the door at Birdland to greet him. Erroll Garner stood among them, as did Barry, Bobby Timmons, Walter Davis and Walter Bishop.
jazzguitar.be members (usernames kept per post), Official Barry Harris Thread (jazzguitar.be forum thread) ¶835jazzguitar.be members (usernames kept per post), Official Barry Harris Thread (jazzguitar.be forum thread) ¶836jazzguitar.be members (usernames kept per post), Official Barry Harris Thread (jazzguitar.be forum thread) ¶837
De Lima argues that Barry, Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Garner and Bud Powell all hum or scat along as they play, and stop playing when they stop to breathe, which gives their phrases the rise and fall of speech.
Recordings that name them
Barry’s performances and records in the archive that credit or name them.
- Barry Harris and Kenny Barron2019, 5 min YouTube
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.