Barry Harris featuring Pepper Mashay

Barry Harris was an award-winning, influential pianist, composer, and instructor, an NEA Jazz Master, and a member of the American Jazz Hall of Fame. His fleet-fingered style and rich, complex chording architecture and harmonic system were captured on dozens of recordings as a leader and sideman. Harris was an important part of Detroit's jazz scene during the '50s, and in 1960 he moved to New York, where he released albums as a leader and teamed with Yusef Lateef. Also in the '60s, Harris recorded and shared bandstands with Dexter Gordon, Illinois Jacquet, Lee Morgan, 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. He branched out into education even more as time went on, devoting as much energy to teaching as he did to playing. Up until the time he passed in 2021, Harris continued to play live and teach courses in jazz theory, piano, and voice at several schools and institutions in the New York area while delivering master classes and lectures throughout the world.