Vince Benedetti Tribute

I first began listening to so-called "modern jazz" in the early 1960s. The Miles Davis quintet with Red Garland was very popular then and a friend at that time introduced me to it. So I was listening to that as well as to Thelonius Monk. I learned my basic piano

voicings from listening to Monk. One day another acquaintance told me: "Red Garland is

OK but Barry Harris is really where it's at!" I respected this guy because he had

discriminating taste in other things. He was into Havana cigars for one. So I went looking

for a record of Barry and I found "Live At The Jazz Workshop" which, by the way remains

one of the most swinging trio records ever. I listened to it and immediately identified with

his type of phrasing. I just felt it, that is all. I learned to play a number of the tunes from that record at that time.

 

But the 1960s was also the decade of other developments. There was modal jazz,

free jazz, jazz rock, fusion etc. Bebop was out of style for many musicians. One Brazilian

pianist I knew in Paris said to me "Why do you still play like that? Nobody plays like that

anymore". So for us who were just starting out, it was necessary to perform in some of

those genres that were trending at the time. So I let myself be influenced by modal

principles and composed some things in that genre.

 

It was mid-1990s that I heard that Barry was giving a workshop in Verona. It was

an opportune moment for me because due to various reasons including raising the

children, I had not been very active. By then the modal approach had reached its

developmental limit, and several artists had veered into electronics or simplistic one or

two chord formulas with binary rhythms.

 

The experience of the workshop gave me a new stimulus to rediscover the roots of

the tradition in which I had come up. Shortly thereafter I helped organize Barry's

workshops in Switzerland and later on I was a regular guest performer at his workshops

in Rome. I have never met anyone who knew as much about harmony and how to apply it

to the piano. Barry remained true to what he considered to be the most valid approach to

jazz and that with the most potential for creativity. I am thankful to have discovered him at a young age and again later. It is as if I had come full circle.

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Vince Benedetti

Winterthur Switzerland,

January 16, 2022