Harris has mostly worked solo and with various trios since the mid-'70s, recording as a leader for a variety of labels including Uptown, Red Records, Concord, Koch Jazz, and more. During the '70s, Harris was on two of Stitt's finest records (Tune Up and Constellation), roomed with Monk at jazz patron Pannonica de Koenigswarter's house, and cut several recordings under his own name in a variety of settings for Xanadu - though 1975's Vicissitudes was cut for MPS. Also during the '60s, Harris recorded and shared bandstands with Dexter Gordon, Illinois Jacquet, Mobley, Lee Morgan (that's his piano on The Sidewinder) and Coleman Hawkins. from Detroit) began formally in 1961 on the latter's Into Something and Eastern Sounds. His recording and playing relationship with Yusef Lateef (who had also relocated to N.Y.C. Harris truly arrived as a leader in 1961 and issued three recordings during the year: Listen to Barry Harris, the trio offering Preminado with Elvin Jones and Joe Benjamin, and the quintet offering Newer Than New with Charles McPherson, Lonnie Hillyer, Ernie Farrow, and Clifford Jarvis. He moved to New York the same year and spent a short period playing with the Cannonball Adderley Quintet and as a sideman on recordings by Harold Land, Sonny Stitt, Louis Hayes, and Don Wilkerson. Harris' first set as a leader was 1960's At the Jazz Workshop for Riverside with Louis Hayes and Sam Jones. He has also been a jazz educator since that time. He was an important part of Detroit's jazz scene during the '50s, where he worked with visiting masters such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Hank Mobley, Dizzy Gillespie, and hometown associates Donald Byrd, Wild Bill Davidson, and Thad Jones. Harris' bop influences run the stylistic spectrum: he has the ability to sound like Bud Powell, yet can play convincing impressions of Thelonious Monk, all while possessing a bright, intrinsically swinging, colorful style within the bop/hard bop idioms. He has taught his playing techniques at many music schools and institutions across the globe, including the Royal Conservatory of Music at The Hague - his classes were videotaped (with permission) by the late pianist Frans Elsen and distributed by YouTube in 2008. His fleet-fingered style and rich, complex chording architecture and harmonic system have been captured on dozens of recordings as a leader and sideman. He is critically regarded as one of the major hard bop stylists to emerge from the second half of the 20th century. Barry Harris is an award-winning, influential pianist, composer, and instructor, an NEA Jazz Master, and a member of the American Jazz Hall of Fame.
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