Benny Harris

A figure in the bop era who had potential but, unfortunately, retired from music in 1952, Benny Harris used Tiny Bradshaw (1939) and twice with Earl Hines’ Orchestra (1941 and 1943). He was a fixture on 52nd Road in the first ’40s, getting involved in many early bop periods and using Benny Carter, John Kirby, Coleman Hawkins, Don Byas, and Thelonious Monk. Harris also was element of Boyd Raeburn’s music group for an interval during 1944-1945; and documented with Clyde Hart in Dec 1944, and with Byas in 1945. The author of “Ornithology,” “Crazelogy,” “Reets and I” (frequently performed by Bud Powell), and “Wahoo” (predicated on “Perdido”), Benny Harris didn’t play everything that very much in the middle- to past due ’40s. He was with Dizzy Gillespie’s big music group briefly in 1949, and documented with Charlie Parker in 1952, but permanently fell out of music.