I Got Rhythm
For Barry, I Got Rhythm mostly meant ‘rhythm’, the chord form that Monk and others wrote new tunes on. He told how, as a young Detroit pianist, he was put right about its form; in class he wanted players to phrase through it from any note, and he even heard it in classical music.
- moments in class
- 7
- recordings
- 7
- Barry plays it
- 2
What he teaches through it
Get the form right. As a young player in Detroit Barry thought he was playing I Got Rhythm, but he was playing two choruses of the blues, the Rhythm bridge, then another blues chorus. A tenor player told him that is not the tune and showed him how it goes; Barry says he always tried to be right with songs.
Interview: Detroit and after2:56Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶32Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶149
Bars three and four of rhythm in B♭ come in several versions. Vera Marijt’s write-up of his workshops explains his ‘important minor’ (C♯ minor 7 is the important minor of F♯7 in B♭) next to examples of those bars that slide down by half steps: D minor 7, C♯ minor 7, C minor 7.
Vera Marijt (research coach Jarmo Hoogendijk), Barry Harris: Exploring the Diminished (MA research paper) ¶277Vera Marijt (research coach Jarmo Hoogendijk), Barry Harris: Exploring the Diminished (MA research paper) ¶278Vera Marijt (research coach Jarmo Hoogendijk), Barry Harris: Exploring the Diminished (MA research paper) ¶279
A player should be able to start a phrase on any note and play rhythm in B♭ from there, without thinking chord by chord.
Monk wrote tunes on standards, rhythm among them, so a band could learn his melodies and then blow on I Got Rhythm. Because he wrote vehicles on nearly everything, Barry could play nothing but Monk tunes all night at his first gig after Monk died.
The last train to Monk: an interview21:08The Spirit of Bebop30:59Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York26:1826:52Believe: a talk to musicians49:3750:12
In his own words
I had a tenor player tell me one day, “Barry, you’d better learn how to play ‘I Got Rhythm.’” I said, “I thought I was playing it.”
So he showed me how to play I Got Rhythm. So people showed me, too, you know.
we learned his melodies. And we put his melodies in, and then we just had a rhythm, and he said, play rhythm. So we play I Got Rhythm
see what he did, he wrote things on tunes. So you play I Got Rhythm. And see this, one, three, one, three. Cats don’t do that no more.
In class
Every moment he works on it, with the ideas of the method it shows.
Interview: Detroit and after
- 2:56
Detroit story: two blues choruses around a Rhythm bridge is not I Got Rhythm.
The last train to Monk: an interview
- 21:08
Monk wrote tunes on standards; they learned his melodies, then played I Got Rhythm.
The Spirit of Bebop
- 30:59
Monk wrote a rhythm tune and a blues; Barry played only Monk all night after he died.
Believe: a talk to musicians
- 50:12
Almería: Monk wrote on tunes, so you play I Got Rhythm; pat one and three, not two and four.
Jazz theory, part 4: borrowing diminished notes
- 1:08
A classical record heard over the phone turns out to be I Got Rhythm to him.
Barry plays it
- I Got Rhythm - Rhythm A Ning2018, 6 min YouTube
- Sonny Stitt - I got rhythm2018, 10 min YouTube
In the method
The ideas of the method these moments show, and how many moments each.