Phil Hill
piano
Detroit pianist at the Bluebird on the city’s West Side; before Barry was old enough to go in, Hill would let him run in and play a tune, and Barry names him among the little-known Detroit players who could really play.
- mentions
- 2
- recordings
- 2
- Barry speaking
- 2
What Barry says
Before he turned 21, the legal age in Detroit, Barry would knock on the Bluebird’s window, where the bandstand was. The pianist, Phil Hill, would see him and step down after the song, so Barry could run in, jump on the piano, play a tune and run back out.
He celebrated his 21st birthday at the Bluebird, making sure they knew he was now of age, even though he had been running in there for years.
Interview: the Bluebird in Detroit0:000:34Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶184
On Detroit TV in 1981 he tells the same story, calling the pianist ‘a fellow named Phil’, a pretty good pianist for the young players to hear, and saying he would play a tune, run out and wait for the next set.
Interview: the Bluebird in Detroit0:00Detroit Jazz: Ancient to the Future30:5131:25
In the oral history he tells it again: he went over to the West Side with Harold and Ray McKinney, and when he knocked, the pianist would get off the piano after the song and go to the bar. The transcript gives the pianist’s name as ‘Phil Woods’.
Asked about mentors, Barry names Kenny Burrell and Tommy Flanagan as the best of the young players, then players nobody has heard of, among them Abraham Woodley, Will Davis and Phil Hill, and says these players could really play.
In his own words
The pianist there was a fellow named Phil Hill. The bandstand was in the window, and I’d knock on the window and Phil Hill would see me
I used to go stand in front of the Bluebird and see the bandstand was in the window. And so the pianist, a fella named Phil Hill, who was, you know, pretty good pianist for us to hear...
But then you start naming the ones no one has ever heard—Abraham Woodley, Will Davis, Phil Hill, Art Mardigan.
Every mention
2 moments in the recordings, 2 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Interview: the Bluebird in Detroit
- 0:00
The Bluebird’s pianist, ‘a fella named Phil’, let the under-age Barry run in and play a tune.
Detroit Jazz: Ancient to the Future
- 30:51
The same Bluebird story in the full 1981 Detroit TV special: ‘a fellow named Phil’.
In the interviews and notes
Working out when he turned 21, Barry recalls knocking on the Bluebird’s window as a minor; the pianist, Phil Hill, would see him and step down after the song so Barry could run in and play a tune.
The same story in the oral history, where the pianist would leave the piano for the bar so Barry could play. The transcript calls him ‘Phil Woods’, evidently the Bluebird pianist other tellings name as Phil Hill.
Asked who his mentors were, Barry names Burrell and Flanagan as the best of the young, then lesser-known Detroit players, Phil Hill among them, who he says could really play.
Flanagan says that even before Thad Jones made the Bluebird well known, the pianist Philip Hill had a group there, he thinks with Billy Mitchell, and that guest saxophonists such as Wardell Gray started coming in.
Ted Panken (interviewer); Tommy Flanagan, Tommy Flanagan ¶44Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶12
De Lima lists Phil Hill among Barry’s Detroit mentors, and among the local idols who influenced him in his early teens.
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 ¶687Brian 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 ¶1301