‘Round Midnight

Monk showed Barry parts of ‘Round Midnight himself, which is why Barry got angry when people played its changes wrong. Monk voiced it far more simply than players who try to take it out, sometimes with just three notes.

Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶377Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶19

Monk’s name for the chord at the start of ‘Round Midnight was simply a minor with the sixth in the bass. Barry learned that chord as minor 7♭5 and others call it half-diminished, but Monk’s name was all you needed: any C minor notes over an A in the bass give an A half-diminished.

Believe: a talk to musicians22:2823:17Brian 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 ¶915

Knowing the name is not enough; you have to know how to get to the chord. Barry works his way to the A half-diminished by movement: E♭ major has the relative minor C minor, so go to C minor, then put the sixth in the bass. He complained that bass players rarely know these movements.

Believe: a talk to musicians23:5524:38Brian 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 ¶915

Talking about Bud Powell, he told Ted Panken to get the Cootie Williams band record with Bud on piano, which has ‘Round Midnight on it, its first recording. When Barry was starting out Monk’s music seemed hard and complicated to him, but beautiful melodies like this one made him want to know Monk’s songs.

Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶115Barry Harris on WKCR-FM ¶329Ted Panken, For Barry Harris’ 82nd Birthday ¶19

For Barry, Monk’s real gift was his songs. He called ‘Round Midnight, Ruby, My Dear and Pannonica works of art, and said his generation took to them, while he would not advise anyone to learn jazz by studying Monk’s own playing, which was too individual.

Interview: Bird, Hawkins, Monk and New York25:45The last train to Monk: an interview20:28Believe: a talk to musicians49:37The 2016 workshop, part 3: Monk’s tunes, not his style0:001:29

Keys came into it too. In a short Hague clip on the tune he tells the class they do this in every key, and in a Spain clinic he admitted that being asked for ‘Round Midnight in B♭ minor would be hard for him, because jazz players do not play enough in other keys.

’Round Midnight in every key2:30Around Giant Steps, part 23:414:51

In a master class in Spain he showed two things on it: switching the chords between the hands, so that someone watching closely could not tell what he was doing, and a spot where he would not play a plain B♭7, saying the chord is really E.

’Round Midnight, part 1: switching hands0:00’Round Midnight, part 2: substitutions0:00