Dizzy Gillespie
trumpet
Trumpeter and a founder of bebop, whom Barry ranks with Bird as the music’s innovators; Barry played with him at times but turned down an offer to join him at Birdland.
- mentions
- 20
- recordings
- 17
- Barry speaking
- 10
What Barry says
Barry still believes in Bird and Diz as the innovators, the brilliant ones. He calls Parker, Bud Powell and Dizzy his people, and names Parker and Gillespie as the greatest musicians of his life, ahead of anything that came after.
Accepting the Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award6:44Interview on Italian television0:35Ep.1 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris0:06The last train to Monk: an interview9:32
The time of Bird and Diz was short, about ten years, a little more for Diz, yet musicians everywhere felt the same love for them. Barry calls the period of Bird, Bud, Dizzy and Fats Navarro the renaissance, the most musical time in the music.
Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle9:04Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶379
Young Barry heard Dizzy’s band the way he heard Basie and Ellington: at a dance hall. Jazz was music people danced to, which is how he learned it.
Feeling the ‘and’1:12
On some early records Diz sounds older in style than Bird and Bud, who were heading separately for the same summit. Barry thinks Diz then caught up with them.
Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶116Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶117Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶118
Great as they were, Bird, Bud and Dizzy did not play it all, and Barry now feels less bound to them. Students should learn the rules well enough to bend and extend them and find what is left to play.
Music is like math3:00Mark Stryker (Detroit Free Press), Professor of Bebop at 70: Native Detroiter Barry Harris Shares the Secrets of the Jazz Tradition with Students in New York ¶19
Dizzy once asked Barry to join him at Birdland, but the pay was so low that Barry preferred to stay home in Detroit. People who thought they had seen Barry in Dizzy’s big band had really seen a Philadelphia pianist who looked like him.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶261Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶201Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶205
Barry once heard a band whose arrangements were built from Parker licks and a Dizzy solo, yet whose players could not solo. The point of a written-out Bird or Diz solo is to learn how to solo from it.
To hear the real thing, Barry tells listeners to go to Parker, Gillespie and Bud Powell. He and Clifford Brown loved to play Diz’s song “I Waited for You”.
Believe: a talk to musicians49:06Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶458
In his own words
I believe in bird and [Diz]... They were the innovators, they were the brilliant ones.
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, they were the greatest musicians. I don’t care what’s going on, or what came out after.
Dizzy called me one time to come join him at Birdland. But it was paying such little money, man, that I couldn’t even take care of my money.
Then there’s a Diz that sort of caught up with them. I think that’s what happened, that Diz caught up with them. Special people, that’s all. We loved them.
Every mention
20 moments in the recordings, 10 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Accepting the Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award
- 6:44
Still believes in Bird and Diz, the innovators and the brilliant ones.
Interview on Italian television
Ep.1 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris
- 0:06
Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were the greatest musicians, whatever came after.
Interview: Detroit, Bud Powell and the shuffle
The last train to Monk: an interview
- 9:32
Names Dizzy among the greatest, with Prez, Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster.
Feeling the ‘and’
- 1:12
They went to a dance hall to hear Dizzy, as for Basie and Ellington.
Music is like math
- 3:00
Now less tied to Bird, Bud and Dizzy; none of them played it all.
Interview: Detroit and after
- 6:22
Called keeper of the bebop flame, he names Parker, Gillespie, Bud, Hawkins and Prez as beboppers.
Believe: a talk to musicians
- 49:06
To hear the real thing, listen to Parker, Gillespie and Bud Powell.
The Spirit of Bebop
Master Level Phrasing Ep 126 TILF Barry Harris
- 0:00
A teacher
Chris Parks plays a 1979 Benny Carter live recording with Barry on piano and Dizzy in the band.
My Chat With Chris Parks From Things I Learned From Barry Harris
- 45:35
A teacher
Chris Parks: everyone must learn how Bird and Dizzy soloed; Barry explained it most simply.
TILF Barry Harris EP 52 A Very Important Arpeggio
- 11:21
A teacher
Chris Parks: Barry’s class lines are his own, not Bud’s, Parker’s or Dizzy’s.
These 3 Words From Barry Harris Changed How I Played Music!
- 1:39
A student
A former class member says Barry passed on ideas that came from Dizzy and those before him.
Ep. 20 | Charles McPherson: Meeting Charlie Parker, Studying with Barry Harris, and the Art of Bebop
- 14:38
Someone else
Charles McPherson once asked Dizzy whether Bird had perfect pitch.
2019 JEN LeJENds of Jazz Education Award - Barry Harris
- 0:00
Someone else
An award citation calls Barry an exponent of the style of Parker and Dizzy.
Interview: tap dance and bebop
- 15:36
Someone else
A podcast host names Parker and Dizzy as the first figures of the turn to bebop.
In the interviews and notes
Barry never meant to leave Detroit. When Dizzy invited him to join him at Birdland the money was so poor that he decided he was better off broke at home.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶259Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶261
Some people claimed Barry had played in Dizzy’s big band. The pianist they saw was James Foreman from Philadelphia, known as Hen Gates, who looked a lot like him.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶201Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶205
Barry counts himself lucky to have played with Dizzy and Coleman Hawkins, among the best.
He calls the era of Bird, Bud, Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro the renaissance, the most musical period, with those four as the masters.
Bird and Bud came up separately and then met, with Dizzy; on some records Diz sounds older in style, and Barry thinks he caught up with the other two.
“I Waited for You”, Diz’s song, was one of the tunes Barry and Clifford Brown loved to play together.
Learning a Parker or Dizzy solo is meant to teach you how to solo, not how to repeat that solo; a band that only copied their lines still could not improvise.
Barry lists Fats Navarro, Bird and Diz among the bebop players his young Detroit circle was devoted to while learning to solo.
Andrew Velez, Barry Harris: A Thousand Percent Music Man ¶10
The more Barry learns, the more he sees where Bird, Bud and Diz did not do it all; the rules are there to be bent and extended.
Stryker describes Barry’s system as the result of studying the improvisations of Parker, Gillespie, Powell and others closely and drawing rules from them.
Recordings that name them
Barry’s performances and records in the archive that credit or name them.
- Barry Harris Quintet Live at Jazzclub Ostertor, Bremen, Germany - 1976 (audio only)2026, 39 min YouTube
- Episode 10- Why Lee Morgan’s Take Twelve Was His Comeback Record (1962)2026, 25 min YouTube
- to Dizzy with Love2023, 12 min YouTube
- Ep.1 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harrisn.d., 8 min YouTube
- Barry Harris & Detroit Jazz Orchestra - I’ll Keep Loving YouDetroit, 1981–2008, 6 min YouTube
- Barry Harris Trio - Live at Dizzy’s, New York, June 2017 Part 1New York City, 2017, 28 min YouTube
- Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - PerformanceNew York City, 2004, 39 min YouTube
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.