Red Garland
piano
Pianist from Dallas, best known for Miles Davis’s quintet of the mid-1950s; Barry says Miles’s taste for Ahmad Jamal changed how Garland voiced his chords.
- mentions
- 6
- recordings
- 3
- Barry speaking
- 3
What Barry says
Barry says Red Garland used to play a certain way, then all of a sudden started playing chords way up high, because Miles Davis had fallen in love with the little things Ahmad Jamal did; after that, he says, Miles’s band played in a straighter way.
Arguing for small chords blended between the two hands, he says Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Monk, Dave Brubeck and Al Haig did not keep the left hand up high; the only pianists he knows who did were Erroll Garner and Red Garland, and he asks why it became the rule.
Small chords, not big ones1:051:40Brian 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 ¶881
In his own words
Look at Red Garland. Red Garland played a certain way, all of a sudden he started playing chords way up high.
Art Tatum did not play that left hand up that... high all the time... [Bud Powell] didn’t do it. Monk didn’t do it... The only person that I know that did it was [Erroll] Garner [and] Red Garland.
Every mention
6 moments in the recordings, 3 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Believe: a talk to musicians
- 46:50
Garland changed in Miles Davis’s band, suddenly playing chords way up high under Miles’s Jamal influence.
Small chords, not big ones
- 1:40
Only Erroll Garner and Red Garland, he says, kept the left hand high; Tatum, Bud and Monk did not.
Interview: Bud Powell and teaching singers
- 14:33
After hearing Garland sing on his last record, Barry says he needs the song for his vocal class.
- 10:44
Interviewer
Ben Sidran introduces Garland’s last recording, a vocal number, as a curveball for Barry the voice teacher.
- 11:19
Interviewer
Sidran gives the track’s details: Garland on piano and vocal, with Kenny Burrell and Ron Carter.
- 15:24
Interviewer
Sidran back-announces Garland’s track from So Long Blues, recorded 1979 and released 1984.
In the interviews and notes
Brian de Lima’s dissertation transcribes the same class: Barry wants chords blended with the melody between the hands, not one-note right-hand melodies, and names Erroll Garner and Red Garland as the only pianists he knows who kept the left hand up high.
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 ¶880Brian 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 ¶881
Asked whether Barry’s line rules allow chromatic notes going up, a forum member reports finding Red Garland play rising three-note chromatic steps (D-D#-E, C-C#-D, B flat-B-C) over a C7 chord, and recalls a Charlie Parker lick that does the same.
jazzguitar.be members (usernames kept per post), Official Barry Harris Thread (jazzguitar.be forum thread) ¶1222jazzguitar.be members (usernames kept per post), Official Barry Harris Thread (jazzguitar.be forum thread) ¶1223
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.
- 12.2Know the song; learn many songs; find your key5
- 1.5The rhythm section4
- 12.3Phrase like speech; place entries in time; ballads4
- 11.1Two hands together2
- 11.2Keep the left hand low and make it interesting2
- 1.4Triplets and thinking in six1
- 2.2The two whole-tone scales (‘man and woman’)1
- 2.3The three diminished seventh chords (‘the children’)1