Thad Jones
trumpet, cornet, composer
Trumpeter, cornetist, composer and bandleader from the Detroit area, brother of Hank and Elvin Jones; one of the older Detroit players Barry came up around, and the leader of a 1956 Blue Note session Barry played on.
- mentions
- 8
- recordings
- 8
- Barry speaking
- 2
What Barry says
Barry says Detroit had many older musicians who could really play, and that this is how his generation learned. He names Thad Jones as one of the players who were around the scene then.
Still living in Detroit, Barry was called to New York to make records, among them a Blue Note date with Thad Jones in July 1956, around when he joined Max Roach’s band. Asked about record dates with players he admired, he calls them an honour, recalling recording with Thad and others before he lived there.
Ep.3 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris1:40Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶253Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶291Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶388
Telling how the Detroit musicians came to New York twenty to twenty-five strong and every one of them made it there, Barry names the Jones brothers among the many good players from home.
Interview: Detroit and after1:45
In his own words
We had older musicians who were good musicians. We had Cokie, we had Warren Hickey, we had Billy Mitchell, we had a whole lot of cats who could play. Thad Jones was around there.
Well, before that I’d recorded with Thad Jones on Blue Note.
I came to New York before I even lived here to record. I recorded with Thad, I was with Benny Golson, I recorded with a lot of people... So it was an honor.
Every mention
8 moments in the recordings, 2 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Ep.3 | Everything no one has ever told you about jazz | Barry Harris
- 1:40
While still in Detroit he made New York record dates, including one with Thad Jones (captioned ‘Dad Jones’).
Interview: Detroit and after
- 1:45
Names the Jones brothers among the many Detroit musicians who came to New York.
Ep. 20 | Charles McPherson: Meeting Charlie Parker, Studying with Barry Harris, and the Art of Bebop
- 8:28
Someone else
Charles McPherson names Thad Jones with Barry and Pepper Adams as local players at the Bluebird.
The Spirit of Bebop
- 18:29
Someone else
A commentator lists the Jones brothers, Hank, Thad and Elvin, among Michigan players of Barry’s time.
Ali Jackson’s ’Bout It, episode 7
- 0:31
Someone else
The host, whose father and uncle grew up with Barry, lists Thad among stars Barry worked with in the 1950s.
Artists House Master Class Barry Harris - Introduction by Gary Giddins
- 1:58
Someone else
Gary Giddins names the Jones brothers, Thad, Elvin and Hank, in Barry’s postwar Detroit generation.
JAZZ NOTES 026 | Jazz Biography | Jazz From Detroit Pt 2 | Jazz Radio
- 6:08
Someone else
A radio host names Thad Jones among the great bandleaders and composers from Detroit.
In the interviews and notes
Flanagan recalls that when the Bluebird began offering music, leaders such as Philip Hill, Thad Jones, Billy Mitchell and Frank Foster had bands there and brought in visiting saxophonists. He starts to say the club made its name with Thad, then adds that Hill had a group there even earlier.
Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶12Ted Panken (interviewer); Tommy Flanagan, Tommy Flanagan ¶44
Panken writes that Barry spent the rest of the 1950s in Detroit, leaving only for some months of touring with Max Roach in 1956, the year he also made sideman records with Thad Jones for Blue Note and with Hank Mobley.
Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶14Ted Panken (interviewer); Tommy Flanagan, Tommy Flanagan ¶143
The profile says that Charles McPherson, aged 14 and too young to go in, used to wait outside the Bluebird to hear Barry playing with Pepper Adams, Thad Jones, Elvin Jones and others.
unknown (JazzTimes; the byline is missing on the current site), Barry Harris: Teacher Man ¶8
De Lima counts Thad Jones, with Warren Hickey, Billy Mitchell and Frank Foster, among the ‘good musicians’ he lists as Barry’s teachers, drawing on Barry’s account of the older Detroit players, in which Barry himself says only that Thad was around.
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 ¶652Brian 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 ¶655
Panken counts the trumpeters Thad Jones and Donald Byrd among Barry’s Detroit contemporaries, a circle that produced many of the leading improvisers of the 1950s and 1960s.
Detroit’s school system, which Barry credits with nurturing him, produced many of his lifelong friends, Hank, Thad and Elvin Jones among them.
Thad Jones is among the masters Barry supported as a sideman, a list that also takes in Dexter Gordon, Coleman Hawkins, Cannonball Adderley and Yusef Lateef.
unknown (JazzTimes; the byline is missing on the current site), Barry Harris: Teacher Man ¶4
Recordings that name them
Barry’s performances and records in the archive that credit or name them.
- The Magnificent Thad Jones 完全オリジナル盤再生！2019, 22 min YouTube
- The Magnificent Thad Jones2017, 22 min YouTube
- Thad Jones - Thedia2016, 11 min YouTube
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.