Franz Liszt
composer (classical), piano
Hungarian Romantic composer and pianist; Barry names him with Bach, Beethoven and Chopin among the classical masters who could improvise, and tells a story of Chopin inviting him to jam at a salon.
- mentions
- 7
- recordings
- 7
- Barry speaking
- 7
What Barry says
Barry counts Liszt with Bach, Beethoven and Chopin among the classical composers who learned to improvise. Jazz musicians, he says, are the continuation of that classical music, trying to improvise the way those composers did.
The last train to Monk: an interview30:17Interview on Italian television6:12Ep.1 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris0:54Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings0:00
In his account Liszt and the others let later musicians down by no longer showing how to improvise. A theorist in Holland told Barry that when improvisation stopped in Europe, it started in the USA.
Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings0:000:34Interview on Italian television6:46Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶290
To show that the old masters jammed just as jazz musicians do, Barry tells of Chopin inviting Liszt to go to the salon and jam. They had music with chord symbols, he says, just as players do today.
If Liszt, Chopin, Bach and the rest were alive today, Barry is sure they would be playing their own music in a corner bar, like him, because concert halls only play dead composers’ music.
Student performances and coaching23:3724:15Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶290
In his own words
One time Chopin told Lis[zt], he said, Lis[zt], let’s go to the salon and jam... And so they went to the salon and jammed a while... They had music with chord symbols, just like we have today.
Bach and Beethoven and Liszt and all of them, they goofed on us. They stopped showing us how to improvise, which was a big blunder.
Chopin and them, Bach, Beethoven, Lizst [Liszt], Skryabin, all of them... They’d be playing at the corner bar, just like me, I’m convinced of that.
I’m not ashamed of being a jazz musician, but I know we’re the continuation of classical music. Because they learn how to improvise. Bach, Bliss [Liszt], Chopin, Beethoven, they learn how to improvise.
we are trying to find out how to [improvise] like Chopin did, like Bach did, like Brahms did, like Liszt did, all of them, they learnt how to improvise.
Every mention
7 moments in the recordings, 7 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Student performances and coaching
- 23:00
Story of Chopin asking Liszt (caption ‘Lis’) to jam at the salon, from music with chord symbols.
Jazz theory, part 2: drop voicings
- 0:00
Bach, Beethoven, Liszt (‘Liss’) and the rest let us down by no longer showing how to improvise.
The last train to Monk: an interview
- 30:17
Bach, Liszt (‘Bliss’), Chopin and Beethoven learned to improvise; jazz continues classical music.
Interview on Italian television
- 6:12
Chopin, Bach, Liszt (‘Liz’) and Beethoven all learned to improvise; jazz players are today’s classical theorists.
Ep.1 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris
- 0:54
Jazz musicians are trying to improvise the way Chopin, Bach, Brahms and Liszt did.
Jazz theory, part 2, with score
- 0:11
Re-upload of the same Lincoln Center lesson; Liszt’s name seems to be captioned ‘this’.
Barry Harris Trio - 2005-07-08, North Sea Jazz Festival, Netherlands
- 43:15
Salon story retold at North Sea 2005; Chopin’s partner is captioned ‘to this’, perhaps Liszt.
In the interviews and notes
Barry lists Liszt with Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, Scriabin, Schubert and Schumann as composers who, alive today, would be playing in a corner bar like him, since concert halls play dead people’s music and would hardly think of commissioning a jazz musician.
García-Valdecasas argues that Barry’s theory fits Romantic harmony, citing recurring chromatic features in Chopin, Brahms and Liszt, such as appoggiaturas that Barry’s theory links to diminished chords.
A forum member notes that Neo-Riemannian theorists, who studied Romantic composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Wagner, arrived independently at many of the ideas Barry had been using for nearly sixty years.
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.