Gladys Dillard
teacher (classical piano)
Gladys Dillard was a classical piano teacher in Detroit who taught both Barry and Tommy Flanagan; the two pupils once played a recital together, Barry playing Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude.
- mentions
- 1
- recordings
- 1
- Barry speaking
- 1
What Barry says
Barry and Tommy Flanagan studied with the same classical teacher, Mrs. Gladys Dillard, after Barry’s lessons with Neptune Holloway and Mrs. Lipscomb, and the two of them played on a recital together.
Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶160Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶102Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶6
At that recital Barry played Chopin’s Revolutionary Etude. He has forgotten Tommy’s piece, but remembers it as more complicated, and says Tommy played better and was the better pianist.
Interview: Detroit and after4:37Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶102
In his own words
We took from Mrs. Dillard, that’s right, Mrs. Dillard. We did – we did a concert together, you know. I forget what he played, I played the Revolutionary Etude.
Then Tommy and I took from Mrs. Dillard, Gladys Dillard. We were on a recital together one time.
Every mention
1 moments in the recordings, 1 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Interview: Detroit and after
- 4:37
Not named: says they had music teachers, recalling his recital with Tommy Flanagan and his Revolutionary Etude.
In the interviews and notes
Barry says that after Neptune Holloway and Mrs. Lipscomb, he and Tommy Flanagan studied with Gladys Dillard and were once on a recital together.
Barry recalls taking lessons with Tommy Flanagan from Mrs. Dillard and playing a concert together, where he played the Revolutionary Etude; he adds that Tommy played better.
In the DownBeat feature Barry names Gladys Dillard as the teacher he shared with Tommy Flanagan and mentions their joint recital.
Flanagan agrees that he and Barry had the same teacher at one point, though perhaps not for the whole time, and confirms it was Gladys Dillard. He has forgotten the recital but allows that such recitals did take place.
Ted Panken (interviewer); Tommy Flanagan, Tommy Flanagan ¶4Ted Panken (interviewer); Tommy Flanagan, Tommy Flanagan ¶6Ted Panken (interviewer); Tommy Flanagan, Tommy Flanagan ¶10
García-Valdecasas notes that before turning to jazz Barry studied classical music as well as church music, and that he once played Chopin’s Etude op. 10 no. 12, the Revolutionary, at a concert in which Tommy Flanagan also took part.
De Lima lists Mrs. Dillard among the music teachers of Barry’s early years.
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.