Sometimes Today Seems Like Yesterday
Barry’s own tune
Barry’s own song, which he taught to his classes and to concert audiences so that everyone sang it with him. He presented it as a hopeful message: remember childhood, and keep looking for your path.
- moments in class
- 7
- recordings
- 4
- Barry plays it
- 6
What he teaches through it
He wrote it, he says, after waking one morning and asking himself what had happened to beauty. He explains with a fable: Beauty and Ugly went swimming, Ugly got out first and put on Beauty’s clothes, leaving Beauty only Ugly’s, and we have been trying to tell where beauty is ever since. He wondered whether a song could change some of what is wrong in many countries.
Barry Harris Trio - Live at Clasijazz (Full concert)1:33:391:34:121:34:46
In the same introduction he sets it against what he hears around him: a world made so small by computers that everyone dances and sings the same words, and songs of three words and three chords that, he suspects, are made up in the recording studio.
Barry Harris Trio - Live at Clasijazz (Full concert)1:34:461:35:18
He taught it on the spot. At Almería in 2014 he introduced it as something learned in class, gave the audience the words and had them sing it back; he led the audience the same way in Bilbao in 2016, and in Madrid in 2017 he asked those in the room who knew it to sing.
Barry Harris Trio - Live at Clasijazz (Full concert)1:33:391:35:181:35:53Barry Harris in Bilbao - Sometimes Today · Tribute to Jazz Cultural Theatre1:19BARRY HARRIS TRIO / Bogui Jazz, 29 de abril de 2017 / “Sometimes Today Seems Like Yesterday”0:00
He spells out what it is about: looking back on childhood, when you could play all day because you did not have to go to work and your parents paid for everything. Afterwards he tells the audience that everyone is looking for their path, that things will be beautiful once it is found, and calls himself a messenger.
Barry Harris Trio - Live at Clasijazz (Full concert)1:36:251:36:581:38:07
In his own words
I said, can I write a song, can I write something that maybe could change some of our things we got going on in a lot of countries
I came up with this little thing and some of the singers know it, so singers ... I know you don’t have the piece of paper with you, I’m going [to] try to give you the words
we are all looking for that path, you know, and when we find the right path everything’s going to be beautiful because, you know, we are beautiful. I am a messenger
In class
Every moment he works on it, with the ideas of the method it shows.
The class sings
- 0:35
A short class clip in which the class sings the song together; the captions are rough.
Barry Harris Trio - Live at Clasijazz (Full concert)
- 1:33:39
Almería concert, 2014: introduces the song as learned in class and tells why he wrote it.
- 1:35:18
Gives the audience the words and has them sing the song back to him.
- 1:36:58
Explains that the song is about childhood, then leads the hall through it again.
- 1:38:07
After the song: everyone is looking for their path; he calls himself a messenger.
Barry Harris in Bilbao - Sometimes Today · Tribute to Jazz Cultural Theatre
- 1:19
Bilbao concert, 2016, with Joshua Edelman: invites the audience to sing it with him.
BARRY HARRIS TRIO / Bogui Jazz, 29 de abril de 2017 / “Sometimes Today Seems Like Yesterday”
- 0:00
Bogui Jazz, Madrid, 2017: asks those in the room who know the song to sing it.
Barry plays it
- Barry Harris Trio - Live at Clasijazz (Full concert)Almería, 2014, 1.7 h YouTube
- Barry Harris - Sometimes Today Seems Like YesterdayAlmería, 2014, 3 min YouTube
- BARRY HARRIS TRIO / Bogui Jazz, 29 de abril de 2017 / “Sometimes Today Seems Like Yesterday”Madrid, 2017, 2 min YouTube
- Berry Harris - Sometimes today seems like yesterday2016, 7 min YouTube
- Barry Harris in Bilbao - Sometimes Today · Tribute to Jazz Cultural TheatreBilbao, 2016, 4 min YouTube
- Joshua Edelman & Barry Harris “Sometimes Today”Bilbao, 2016, 4 min YouTube
In the method
The ideas of the method these moments show, and how many moments each.