Jazz music is a huge part of my life. Growing up, my dad had all these jazz recordings and so I started out imitating simpler forms on piano, like Boogie Woogie.
John Harmon | Winneconne, WI
What I didn’t know at that tender age was that I was absorbing the 12-bar blues form, because every Boogie Woogie has a 12-bar blues form. My ear was able to pick up the chords, so while I had a very limited vocabulary musically speaking, it was a great puzzle for me to play the piano by ear. ‘Oh, that sounds good,’ and I’d be experimenting all the time. So at a little tender age, I was into the blues.
Audio snippet of John discussing his musical childhood
I took for granted how easy it was for me. I just said, ‘Well, I’d rather play baseball, to tell you the truth.’ I liked the music stuff, but I wanted to be a ball player. In Wisconsin in that timeframe, that was our sport in Wisconsin, everybody played baseball. So anyway, piano was just something that was a lot of fun. But a very good friend of my parents had a doctoral degree in music, which was rare in those days, in our area at least. And he heard me play. By then I was just doing everything by ear, ‘By guess and by God,’ as they say. And he said, ‘You got to get this kid to a music school.’ I could barely read a note of music.
My mom played piano too, and she knew I was on my way when she couldn’t figure out the middle part to Sweet George Brown, but I could. I fooled around and played some chords and said, ‘Mom, is this it?’ She said, ‘That is it.’ From that moment on, she said, ‘I knew you had something a little special going.’ So we used to do four hand stuff all the time with popular tunes like that.
When I was 17 this family friend took me to an audition at Lawrence University in Appleton. I auditioned before I was going to enter college. He put a piece of music in front of me, said, ‘Can you sightread this?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Can you play this?’ I said, ‘No.’ And he said, ‘Well, can you hear this interval?’ And he played something like a C with his ear or something. I said, ‘Well, I think that’s a middle C. But I think the next note up is the one between the two black notes.’ I just kind of figured it out, but I got every interval correct. I just didn’t know what they were called.
And then he asked me to play something. And I remember I played ‘My Heart Stood Still,’ which I had learned from a recording. I had some flashy little flourishes because I was learning how to imitate some of these pros. And he was quite impressed. But he told my mother, who took me to the audition, he said, ‘He plays his jazz very well. But to tell you the truth he has two strikes against him. He can’t read music, and he would need tutoring all summer. We could let him in on probation if he agrees to study the summer, and get some rudimentary music reading skills.’ The faculty votes on all their honor students, and after the audition, they voted me in, so what can I tell you? That’s what I did.
I went along with the program at Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, but I did not feel it. It was alien to me. Even the way I was spoken to, it was like from another galaxy. I did not understand and did not feel comfortable. And I was having second thoughts about it. The friend of the family that brought me to the audition was a wonderful pianist and he helped me all summer long, and I dutifully stayed the course.
I was able to think through the keyboard, even though I wasn’t necessarily versed in the theory of music. I just did what sounded good to me. And I started figuring out, ‘Oh, there are 12 different keys, and they all have their own do, ray, me, fa, so, la, ti do.’ Well, once I got that figured out, theory was a breeze because my ear was so good. I’d say better than most. That’s how I learned music. Once I got the hang of it, ‘Oh, this is called a perfect fifth,’ or ‘that’s diminished by a seventh.’” It was so easy. Both my parents supported me, big time. Most people where we came from would discourage their child wanting to be a musician. My father used to love to say about me: ‘He entered music school on probation and exited cum laude.’
I had to enter Lawrence College (as it was called back then) as a piano major. Well, what a joke. I had no repertoire. Nothing! You had to have two instruments at Lawrence, and I didn’t know any other instruments. So for two years, I studied voice and piano. By then I was really getting hooked on writing my own stuff. I decided to become a composition major, and that was probably the smartest move I ever made because I was never going to be a concert pianist, I didn’t have the repertoire. Everything I came across was brilliant to me. I just loved everything.
The whole classical realm was absolutely new to me. I loved hearing Chopin. I loved Bach. Classical was like a magical world that I didn’t even know existed. I was like a totally uninformed child in a candy land. I remember an epiphany moment when I was listening in one of the music literature classes. We listened to music all the time and analyzed it, and I suddenly discovered how they do it. The strings do this, the brass does this, the woodwinds do this. I got it all sorted out, ‘Wow, I can do this.’ And of course, I wanted to. Once I learned the names of chords, harmonic dictation, or melodic dictation, it all came together. Being able to hear music, identify by ear what has been played, and then transcribe the melody…that changed everything for me.
When I got out of Lawrence, I had the luxury of being one of the first students in the group in a session that was called the School of Jazz. It was run by iconic jazz musicians, and one of them was Oscar Peterson. Oscar Peterson is a Canadian, brilliant man who was just this big fellow, welcoming, and helpful. I studied with him that summer. He’s one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had. He sized me up in 30 seconds, and said, ‘Well, this is what you were going to do. You’re a little weak here. Can we do this?’ And by the end of the summer, I was ‘killing it’ in his eyes. I wasn’t using enough of the keyboard and I wasn’t using the pedal properly. I wasn’t using those base tones, and I wasn’t using the spread of a 10th to give you a richer Harmon like bass’
The key to jazz is the imitation process because you can’t teach the feel or concept of jazz music, how it feels rhythmically. That’s something you absorb from those who do it, and then you imitate it. And when you get good enough at that imitative process, you find your own voice and apply it, and that’s what I did.
My guess is I’m best known for my eight years with a band called Matrix, but I’ve done a lot of things. I am a composer and a jazz pianist. I’ve done a bunch of teaching, and a bunch of traveling. And I’m still very active, especially in composition. I’ve written seven symphonies, two are recorded, but the others haven’t even been performed. And without question composing music is the biggest thrust in my life right now. I’m very happy with what I do.
I was drafted into the Army in 1958. That was probably a bigger musical education than anything because I was in the Army band in the Fifth Army area, which includes a lot of the Midwestern states, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit, which are, of course, hubs for jazz music.
I probably would’ve been a foot soldier or who knows, but when you’re going through basic training, they came around and offered anyone who’s interested in being in the band.
So I auditioned and their eyes lit up when I said, ‘Yeah, I went to the School of Jazz. I studied with Oscar Peterson.’ Well, after that, I was in. What a blessing, because the Army isn’t exactly fun, but it is an obligation, and everybody did it in those days. I made lifelong friends. I was playing with a lot of very good jazz players and learning a lot as a result.
When I got out of the Army, I went to New York. I hung out there for a number of years. I remember hearing my very first live concert in Carnegie Hall. And here’s people coming into a classical venue playing jazz music, and people are applauding solos. I thought, ‘I want to do that.’
I became the leader of a little trio, piano, bass, and drums. And we accompanied a show. It was a dancer, magician, and then the leader of the show was Jerry Music, and his wife played guitar. He played a six-string banjo and was very funny. Later he became the voice of Garfield on the television show.
In the 70s, I returned to Wisconsin and became the director of jazz studies at Lawrence University, right back where I started. I’m a dreamer. I’m definitely a romantic. And you know the cliche of always ‘follow your dreams?’ Well, I’m a case in point. I did follow it against pretty serious odds that I would make any headway at all. I got nine unknown people, Midwesterners, no names amongst them, including me. We had six horns, three trumpets, two trombones, a tenor trombone, a bass trombone. And then one saxophone flute played all the saxes, especially alto and tenor. Some people call it classical fusion jazz, but I don’t know. I just thought it was quality music. It had a beat that was very recognizable. A lot of it, what we call straight eight, which is more rock jazz or jazz rock as it was called. So we had that kind of beat, and we had a magnificent drummer. And so, the Matrix was born, in the summer of ’73. The band played its first gig in ’74. And we basically broke up somewhere after ’80.
Musicians in particular loved us. Critics loved us. My composition degree did a lot for me because there was so much of what we were doing that was very new. We used voices, not like a choir, but for background color. Or sometimes doubling a different part with a solo part, and have it double with a voice wrapped around it. The color was fascinating, and the more I experimented with it, the more fun. But no one has done anything like what we were doing before or since. That’s why I still get people wanting to know, ‘Can I get a copy of Brown Boy? Would you guys come to play our festival?’ We haven’t played in 30 years, but it made quite a splash in its time.
What put us on the map was a guy who had heard us, an agent who heard a morning program that featured our demonstration record. And he’s on his way to a tryst with a young lady. He was driving, heard our music and he pulled right off. He called her and said, ‘My dear change in plans.’ He says, ‘I will pick you up at 19:00. We’re going to hear a band called Matrix.’ And he turned right around, went back to the office, his boss in New York, and said, ‘You’ve got to come here with this band. You’ve got to.’ He was so enthralled, he got us booked on a tour, our first tour really. He was knowledgeable and his clients trusted him. Jimmy Lyons, producer of the Monterey Jazz Festival, (one of the biggest in the world) booked us. We couldn’t believe it. After our performance, they’re shoving microphones into our faces and asking, where are you from? How come you haven’t recorded? We became literally famous overnight.
If you have a vision or a dream, and you’re willing to see it through, you’ll probably find some realization of that dream. When we toured we’d do a clinic at a school and work with the kids. And then do a concert that night, that kind of thing. We did hundreds of those, and people would ask us, ‘How do you get into this? How do you do this?’ The first thing is you’ve gotta want it so badly, and you have to commit entirely, fully, but don’t do it for the money. If you’re doing it for the money, you’re in the wrong business, then you might as well be a rock and roll kid, if that’s why you’re doing it. This was purely an aesthetic artistic endeavor, and these guys stuck with it.
A 1978 recording of Matrix’s most popular song.
I take great joy in teaching, I take it rather seriously and put a lot of energy into it. When I see a student making progress, it's very rewarding, very uplifting. I got invited to be a part of this Jazz Fantasy Camp in Door County at Bjorklunden that I’ve been a part of since the beginning.
Audio snippet of John discussing the church choir he directed in Winneconne for the last 42 years.
This camp is not for kids. The clientele are professional people in different fields, surgeons, journalists, we even had a Pulitzer Prize winner once. Maybe they were good musicians in college, but just never took it up as a profession. And now they have this opportunity to hang out, play with the professionals, and take all these classes in jazz theory and improvisation, small ensembles, combos, and there’s a big band. During the week we, the ‘staff’ performed, but at the end of the week, they performed. Just like the baseball fantasy camps, they play a couple of games with the pros.
This was put together by three guys. One of them was Fred Sturm, who was also a member of the Matrix with me. So when he and these other two fellows from out East suggested this concept, I said yes.
Together, you get a strong feeling of camaraderie with the campers, because you eat with them and you’re practicing with them. You’re teaching them every day, so you’re with them all the time. And in the evening, we have a cabaret where they perform, especially the vocalists, but other guys, campers come in and accompany too. So we play into the night. It really is a very uplifting, joyful moment, and I’ve been blessed with a lot of those. The memories and the recordings that we have left are a great legacy that I’m inordinately proud of.
I’ve also been the choir director for 42 years in the village of Winneconne. It’s so small it’s called a village. And it sits right on the Wolf River, it’s a beautiful little hamlet. There were only less than 2000 people when I moved there.
At the time, my wife and I didn’t go to any church, didn’t belong to anything. We went to a couple of the churches in the village and settled on the Presbyterian Church
Some people knew that I was a professional musician. And my wife, Traf, is an excellent accompanist. She is a wonderful musician, and they hired her as the organist because they didn’t have one. And then it was only a short time after that that they approached me to ask if I would direct their choir. I had never stood in front of a choir ever. But I knew enough about music, and I was a composer. And so I said, ‘Okay, on one condition. I’m not going to wear a robe. And the second condition is I don’t want a penny for this. Everything you pay me, I’m giving back to the church.’
Our little choir was quite large when I started, and the church was much larger to begin with, but since Covid, we lost our pastor, it’s shrunk to tiny. But all these years we’ve maintained a choir, and they’re so loyal and faithful and they love what we do. And I’ve probably written, I can’t even tell you how many, dozens and dozens of choral pieces for the choir. For 42 years, the music, my wife and the civic engagement have kept me going.
Every year, Winneconne hosts an event. In 1967, the village of Winneconne was left off the state map by some clerical oversight, and so in good humor, they seceded from the Union and declared themselves a sovereign state. The people in good humor dreamt up Sovereign State Days, this actually made CBS and NBC news. It’s the third weekend in July, starting Friday evening. We have street dances and a huge parade. We have tractor pulls, a softball tournament. And in the park, there’s a big flea market. In the daytime, in tents, they have jugglers or magicians and musical performers. And every year I play on a float. I play piano in the parade.
It’s a lot of fun for me because I get to use my composing skills and to be a part of a spiritual life. And it has been such a blessing. There are a few things that have kept me going for 42 years and one is the music itself. The other is my wife. My wife and I are a pretty good team. We know what each other’s strengths are, and she knows my weaknesses, which are many. I think the bond that we have made with the members of the choir, who are… They’re just so… I mean, I’ve known some of these people all 40 years, and they’re still hanging in there with me. And I don’t know, it’s a human bonding thing, and it’s giving back to the community.
John’s story was produced by Rebecca Lemar. You can learn more about Matrix and other Wisconsin Jazz Musicians in the Wisconsin Historical Society Press’s book ‘Wisconsin Riffs: Jazz Profiles from the Heartland.
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John Harmon’s Ted Talk. “In music, as in life, when improvisation is desired or required, we don’t always have all the notes we might wish for, yet the creative process can still produce a beautiful, functional, positive outcome. This talk demonstrates that flexibility through the power of instant, impromptu composition at the piano.”
