All posts tagged: BarryHarris

88 Keys + 88 Years = Barry Harris

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Dr. Barry Doyle Harris will be 88-years old next week. Born on December 15, 1929, he has lived one year for each one of the 88 keys on the piano, his musical vehicle—a vehicle that he uses to transport his listeners to jazz paradise. I will let others expound on his theoretical genius, or explain mathematically why his scales and harmonies are so exquisite. I will instead share a glimmer of what has happened in my world since Barry came into my life. I will start this story in the summer of 2008, when I was still studying jazz vocals with Ulysses Slaughter. A friend from the Jazz Foundation of America’s Monday night jam sessions, pianist Richard Clements, invited me to attend the memorial of a dancer being held at “University of the Streets” in the East Village. At the memorial, Richard was playing a beautiful white grand piano, and at a certain point in the program Barry came on the stage area and sang a song that he wrote to commemorate the lives of …

The Gela Jazz Festival

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Last month I was fortunate to be able to travel to Italy for a couple of weeks. So many wonderful things happened there! Yes, too many cool things, so I will break up my account of the trip into several posts here at “Moments, Memories, & Jazz”.  GELA 2015 The first leg of this trip was a week in Gela, Sicily, to attend the Barry Harris / Stjepko Gut jazz workshops, held September 14-18, 2015,  and to participate in the 4th Annual Gela Jazz Festival held each evening at the Teatro Eschilo. These two interconnecting events were organized by Loredana Melodia, a singer, “super-jazz-woman”, and someone I am lucky enough to now know as a wonderful friend. Professional and amateur jazz musicians from all over the world traveled to be students in Gela. Each weekday we gathered at a school near the center of town to take jazz theory, rhythm, vocals, and improvisation classes. The first class in the morning was with Stjepko Gut, trumpet player, conductor and internationally recognized teacher of workshops and masterclasses. He got us all in …

YouTube, Barry Harris Workshops, and a Favorite Song

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To initiate my blog here at WordPress I will start this first “MUSIC” post by sharing one of my favorite songs, Where is Love? by Lionel Bart, from the 1960 musical, Oliver!  The original Broadway cast album of Oliver! was one of my favorite records growing up, played it over and over, sang these songs all the time.  I include the full song lyrics below, as well as a link to my recording on YouTube. In 2009, I setup a YouTube Channel to share original songs, but it seemed like anything that I posted there was not safe. The honest truth is that I have had things stolen by pirating websites who then asked listeners for money to download. I never received a penny. Therefore, I am wary of posting anything else until after I publish a CD of my work. So…for the time being, on my channel there are a couple of songs to listen to and you will see a lot of playlists I have put together as I have been using the channel to create reference lists for myself and other students that study with …