Hank Jones
piano
Pianist (1918–2010) who grew up in Pontiac, Michigan, the eldest of the Jones brothers; for Barry he was one of the older Detroit-area pianists his generation learned from, and the two became NEA Jazz Masters in the same year.
- mentions
- 22
- recordings
- 16
- Barry speaking
- 11
What Barry says
Barry hears a family likeness between Tommy Flanagan’s sound and Hank Jones’s sound and traces it to the Detroit pianists they came from, such as Will Davis: those players could really play, so the younger ones learned to play properly. He grants there is a Detroit sound, though he tries to get away from it.
Interview: Detroit and after7:31Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶629
Coleman Hawkins had already worked his way through Detroit pianists, Hank Jones, Roland Hanna and Tommy Flanagan, so when Barry sat in, Hawkins greeted him as yet another Detroit piano player. Barry went on to play with Hawkins until Hawkins died.
On Coleman Hawkins0:34Interview on Italian television0:00Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶96Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶397
Complaining that jazz is taught wrongly all over the world, Barry asks who the colleges consulted: certainly not Hank Jones, John Lewis, Dick Katz or John Bunch, the very players his generation learned from.
Jazz theory, part 1: key families a minor third apart0:35Jazz theory, part 1, with score0:02
Barry counts Hank Jones with Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, John Lewis and himself among the pianists of his time. Asked who was the best in the world, some of them might have said Art Tatum, but most of the younger ones would have named only Bud Powell.
Barry says the oldest pianists still around, himself, Hank Jones, Duke Jordan and John Lewis, never played the now-common way, with the left hand set in one spot under single notes in the right. They learned to play chords with both hands, so whoever invented that way did not get it from them.
Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - Student Interviews After Concert8:289:01
Asking why jazz musicians cannot be on the soundtrack of a big film, one of the great love stories, Barry says it need not even be him: there are Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan and all the rest.
Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York38:00
Asked how he would define the piano, Barry (in a Spanish voice-over) says you have to think in terms of Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan and what Bud Powell left behind, and those who keep up the tradition of Charlie Parker and Monk.
Barry Harris Spanish TV21:50
In his own words
Who do they ask how to teach in these colleges? See, that’s what’s wrong... They didn’t ask Hank Jones. They didn’t ask John Lewis.
Hank Jones is one of the oldest... we had Duke Jordan he’s still alive and we had John Lewis and none of us played like that
There is a similarity between Tommy’s [Flanagan’s] sound and Hank Jones sound... there’s something with us. We come from Will Davis.
I’ll never forgive them, not so much for myself, as for Oscar Peterson and Hank Jones. They been around a long time and they should have been shown more respect than that.
I’m so used to Tommy Flanagan, because I like to watch his hands... Hank Jones. These are beautiful people.
Every mention
22 moments in the recordings, 11 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Interview: Detroit and after
Jazz theory, part 1: key families a minor third apart
- 0:35
Colleges never asked Hank Jones, John Lewis or Dick Katz how to teach; they are who we learned from.
Jazz theory, part 1, with score
- 0:02
Same remark about colleges not asking Hank Jones, in another recording of the lesson.
Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - Student Interviews After Concert
- 9:01
Hank Jones is among the oldest pianists; none of them played single notes over a left hand set in one spot.
Accepting the Bruce Lundvall Visionary Award
- 7:56
Names Hank Jones among his peers, who mostly agreed Bud Powell was the best pianist.
On Coleman Hawkins
- 0:34
Coleman Hawkins had used Detroit pianists Hank Jones, Roland Hanna and Tommy Flanagan before Barry.
Interview on Italian television
- 0:00
Same Hawkins story: he went through the Detroit pianists, Hank Jones among them.
Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York
Barry Harris Spanish TV
On Bill Evans and other pianists
Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - Introduction by Gary Giddins
ManagersPro.com “Barry Harris talks about as a mentor to developing pianists.”
The Spirit of Bebop
- 18:29
Someone else
Documentary voice names the Jones brothers, Hank, Thad and Elvin, among Barry’s Michigan contemporaries.
Barry Harris - 2018-10-14, The Jazz Room, Wayne, NJ
- 1:54
Someone else
Club announcer calls Barry a Detroit gentleman along with Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan.
Barry Harris Workshop Madrid 2018
- 0:00
Someone else
Madrid workshop introduction makes the same comparison with Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan.
In the interviews and notes
Coleman Hawkins worked with Tommy Flanagan, Roland Hanna and Hank Jones, all from Detroit, so when Barry arrived Hawkins could only say here was another Detroit piano player. Barry calls it a Detroit relationship and worked with Hawkins until his death.
Asked which peers he most admires, Barry names Charles Davis, then Tommy Flanagan, whose hands he spent his life watching, and Hank Jones, calling them beautiful people.
Barry received his NEA Jazz Masters award in 1989. When the interviewer reads out that year’s other names, Hank Jones and Sarah Vaughan, Barry is delighted to find himself alongside Hank Jones.
Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶339Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶340Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶341
Barry, Hank Jones and Oscar Peterson played a Grammys event in a run-down theatre, kept off the main show and told to change in the washrooms. Barry says he will never forgive the organisers, less for himself than for Peterson and Jones, who deserved more respect.
Charles McPherson hears in Barry’s comping the musical intelligence of many Detroit pianists, Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan among them: rhythmic, listening, closely tied to the horn player, much like a drummer’s snare.
Ted Panken (interviewer); Tommy Flanagan, Tommy Flanagan ¶218
By the time Barry had settled into steady house gigs in Detroit, Hank Jones was already living in New York; the pianists around Barry then were Tommy Flanagan, Hugh Lawson, Roland Hanna and Kirk Lightsey.
unknown (JazzTimes; the byline is missing on the current site), Barry Harris: Teacher Man ¶7
Velez counts Hank Jones and his brothers Thad and Elvin, with Kenny Burrell and Tommy Flanagan, among the lifelong friends and leading players who came out of the Detroit schools that Barry credits with nurturing him.
Asked about contact with the Jones brothers, Barry says that came later, and mentions the trio he and Elvin had once Elvin was out of the Army.
Victor L. Schermer (interviewer); Barry Harris, Barry Harris: Iconic Jazz Pianist and Keeper of the Flame ¶18Victor L. Schermer (interviewer); Barry Harris, Barry Harris: Iconic Jazz Pianist and Keeper of the Flame ¶19
De Lima notes that Barry, like his fellow pianists Tommy Flanagan and Hank Jones, was exposed to Detroit teachers such as Will Davis and Harold McKinney, behind a ‘Detroit’ sound he roots in the Black church, and cites Hank Jones on the church’s part in shaping blues and jazz.
Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1345Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1346
Recordings that name them
Barry’s performances and records in the archive that credit or name them.
- Barry Harris - 2018-10-14, The Jazz Room, Wayne, NJ2024, 84 min YouTube
- Barry Harris Spanish TVMadrid, 1988, 47 min YouTube
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.
- 15.4The lineage7
- 14.3Learn from the masters by ear; study the small things3
- 11.5Touch2
- 12.2Know the song; learn many songs; find your key2
- 2.1The chromatic scale is the source of every scale2
- 2.4Minor thirds and key families (brothers and sisters)2
- 6.9Triplets in lines (eighth- and sixteenth-note)2
- 11.2Keep the left hand low and make it interesting1