Cherokee

Map the bridge with plain scales. In a Hague class a student, Erik, played B major, A major and G major in turn; Barry then pointed out that the last two chords are dominants, so the major scales stop and you play C7 and F7. In the 1998 workshop he called the whole bridge as F♯7, B major, E7, A major, D7, G major, C7, F7, run up and down.

Major scales on the bridge of Cherokee0:351:081:41The 1998 workshop, part 31:07:221:08:13

The hard spot is the switch: the C7 has to come in straight after the G major, started on its seventh, with no gap. Barry ran it several times and said every pianist in the room would have to come up and play it.

Major scales on the bridge of Cherokee2:213:063:39

With the bridge in place he added a rule: coming down any scale, dominant or major, when you reach the fourth, jump to the second and climb chromatically to the third. Then he combined rules: run F♯7 up, make that move on the way down, sometimes go on chromatically from the third to the root, which is B major’s fifth, and there play five, four, then the move again.

The 1998 workshop, part 31:10:061:10:431:12:471:13:24

Cherokee was also a place for the 5-4-3-2 family of phrases. In a Hague class he asked for the four and the three, had the class stop there and feel it, and pointed out that five, four and three are the same on a dominant seventh as on a major.

5-4-3 phrases on Cherokee0:000:432:11

In the 1998 workshop he went from a blues to Cherokee, saying it is almost the same as what the class had just done on the four going to the four minor, and had them play its first part in B♭ with the melody.

The 1998 workshop, part 31:03:331:04:08

He once played Cherokee in every key with George Coleman at the Tin Palace in New York. Asked about it, he said it was not prepared key by key: you make yourself do it. What makes it possible is knowing the movements, the small automatic things many young players never learned.

Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle14:4615:20

Cherokee also belonged to his Detroit years of playing for dancers. More than once he told of the shake dancer Baby Scruggs, who asked the band to play it as fast as they could, and used the story to show that jazz and dancing once went together; they played for shake dancers, other dancers, shuffles and rhythm and blues alike.

Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York33:0133:35Interview: Detroit and after12:06Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶63Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶64Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶65