Charlie Parker

I have listened to the music of Charlie Parker from my early days as a fan, and there's no doubt that he is extremely special.  Apart from Louis Armstrong, no other Jazz personality has been, in the estimation of most, a true genius.  Apart from Satchmo also, no other individual has been as revered or as influential for whole generations of Jazz musicians.  Charlie Parker was also the most tragic of Jazz heroes, his life and contributions cut short – he lived only thirty-four years and six months – by (you guessed it) terrible addiction to heroin and alcohol.

It is a daunting task to try to extract and condense the material for this entry.  The material on his biography and discography is voluminous.  I'll, as they say, give it my best shot. And of course I will stick in discussing his music to that which I know well.

The lore tells us that Charles Christopher Parker Jr. used to love chicken – fried, stewed, baked, barbequed – hence his famous sobriquet “Bird” or “Yardbird.”  And at the mention of BIRD the Jazz world bows and says “Respect,” every time.  Bird was born on August 29th, 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas.  He died in New York City on March 12th, 1955.  Along with Dizzy Gillespie he played a leading role in the development of be-bop, the Jazz genre which is characterized by “fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and improvisation based on harmonic structure,” as the Wikepedia entry on Bird tells us.  And in his short life, Bird became a very famous, iconic figure, influencing everything and everybody associated even remotely with American classical music, as Jazz is sometimes called.

Bird played the baritone saxophone for a short while before switching to the alto sax, the instrument that he would play for all his seventeen plus years of shaking up the entire Jazz world and turning tradition on its head.  By age fourteen he dropped out of school and concentrated all his efforts on mastering his instrument.  It wasn't easy for him at first.  When he was seventeen he played in a group with drummer Jo Jones, who threw a cymbal at his feet to signify his disdain for

Bird's labored playing.  This humiliation did Bird good, because after that he practised up to fifteen hours a day, dramatically improving his technique and beginning to develop his musical ideas that, once full blown, were the envy of every musician.

After learning a great deal in the bands of Buster Smith and Tommy Douglas, he joined the line-up of Jay McShann, which toured nightclubs and other venues in the southwestern United States, as well as Chicago and New York City.  When he sat in with McShann at the Savoy Ballroom in NYC, he met Dizzy, and as Ira Gitler and Leonard Feather relate, the styles of Bird and Dizzy began to develop very rapidly along the same lines.   Unfortunately in 1942 and 1943 there was an American Federation of Musicians strike going on, during which no recordings were being made, and so an important period in their careers went undocumented.

But already Parker was in the midst of a group of young musicians who frequented the after- hours clubs Clark Monroe's Uptown House and Minton's Playhouse. Besides Dizzy and Bird, there  were Thelonious Monk, Charlie Christian and Kenny Clarke. By 1944 when Bird played in Billy Eckstine's band, the early be-bop style was being featured in solos and arrangements.  And by 1945 Bird and Dizzy were blazing the trail for the be-bop generation, creating this new, hot style, mainly for small combos, that to this day is one of the main sub-genres of the music.  The be-boppers' mantra was wanting to play a music “they” couldn't play.  Interestingly the “they” was all the white bandleaders and musicians who had taken over and cashed in on the swing music pioneered by Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington and other black composers and bandleaders.

At this juncture we have to pause to report that as a teenager, Bird developed a morphine addiction while in hospital after an automobile accident.  He subsequently became addicted to heroin, which, along with alcohol, would eventually do him in before his thirty-fifth birthday.

At age twenty-five he was already at the top of his game, his group dominating the music scene on NYC's  52nd  Street.  It must be noted too that not everyone loved what the “cats” were doing.  Although widely respected among their peers, the first be-boppers experienced antagonism from many mainstream critics and musicians who found it difficult to digest this cutting-edge music.

In 1946 Bird went to California for some sessions with Dizzy and others, but this is when his drug addiction and heavy drinking caused a complete breakdown.  Before one recording session he drank  a whole quart of whiskey, and needless to say the result was disastrous.  Soon afterwards, he accidentally set fire to his mattress one evening and ran into the hotel lobby stark naked.  He was then committed to the Camarillo Mental Hospital for six months.  After his release, he recorded some of his most brilliant work in Los Angeles, before going back to NYC and to drug addiction once more.

Bird continued to add to his recorded accomplishments with the very best young lions.  Miles Davis, Red Rodney, Al Haig, Duke Jordan, and Max Roach were only some.  And from 1947 to 1951 he was on top of the Jazz world, with national and international touring, concerts, night club gigs and radio appearances.  He even recorded with a string orchestra backing him and also with the Afro-Cuban band of Machito.  And his admirers and imitators were legion.  In NYC the nightclub Birdland was named after him.

But Bird was in trouble.  His health was deteriorating.  He lost his cabaret license that enabled him to play in NYC, and his behavior and playing became erratic.  After two suicide attempts and an unsuccessful try at rehabilitation, Bird died in the Manhattan apartment of his friend, Jazz patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter.  His body had been so badly abused that the physician who examined him estimated the person's age to be sixty!  But so famous was Bird that within hours of his passing graffiti appeared in the NYC subway proclaiming “Bird Lives!”

Bird has been called the Mozart of the Jazz world, the person who gathered together all his influences and who transformed them as only a natural genius could.  Once you hear Charlie Parker nothing else can compare, and the sound is immediately identifiable – raw talent, lightening quick technique, improvisation taken to its heights, great composing skills, and the ability to walk in off the street and to play fast, furious and flawless.  Where other players were more tied to the beat, Bird's alto sax could soar above the rhythm and yet never stray from the conception he wanted to deliver.  For all these reasons Bird continues to live in the annals of Jazz and in the music that Jazz musicians play and that you and I hear today.

The first record that I feature was released on the Savoy Label.  It is entitled “The Genius of Charlie Parker,” and comes from recordings done between 1945 and 1948.  The 1945 selection “Warming Up A Riff” finds Bird in full flight, with Dizzy backing him up not on trumpet but on piano.  The improvisation here is joyous, as Bird brings in his speed and ability to introduce new approaches to composition.  (Almost all selections discussed are Bird compositions.)  Also from 1945 is the famous “KoKo,” Bird's variations on the Jazz standard “Cherokee.”  Certainly, nothing like this had ever been done in Jazz before.  His lightening quick playing seems to challenge the young Miles Davis, whose trumpet solo tries hard to keep up. 

From this same album I have to mention “Barbados,” which has for a very long time been a favorite.  I'm not sure how Bird came to call this catchy number “Barbados,” but after he states the melody, his swooping improvisations come right in again.  “Barbados” is quite special too, because the reggae Jazz group Jazz Jamaica do a fine ska-sounding version of it that I've played for years on Jazz Expressions on KREM Radio and Jazz Time on LOVE FM.  Bird lives in this kind of remake of his compositions.  The original “Barbados” features Miles Davis on trumpet, John Lewis (who would go on to lead the Modern Jazz Quartet) on piano, Curly Russell on bass, and Max Roach on drums.  Another selection from the same date and with the same bandmates is “Constellation,” which again showcases Bird's  abilities as composer and improvisor.   This is essential listening.

A few years ago my brother Philip gave me a CD he had picked up while travelling.  It is “Charlie Parker Plays It Cool,” a complilation from Bird's legendary 1946 and 1947 recordings for the Dial Record Label.”  Almost every piece on this twenty-three selection release is a hit, from  “Moose The Mooche,” “Ornithology,” (which means the study of birds) and, “Yardbird Suite” to “A Night In Tunisia” (composed by Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Paparelli),  “Cool Blues,” “Bongo Bop” and “Scrapple From The Apple.”

But the selection I pick as outstanding is “Relaxing At Camarillo.”  This piece was recorded after Bird's rehabilitation at the Mental Hospital in Camarillo, and he's blowing here in all his glory in February 1947.  I also enjoy “Drifting On A Reed” and “Quasimodo,” from December 1947.  Parker's ruminations here are supported by Miles,  J.J. Johnson on trombone, Duke Jordan on piano, Tommy Potter on bass and Max Roach on drums.  These songs sound so fresh and modern that they could have been recorded yesterday.

I do also have to mention the “Jazz At Massey Hall” concert from May 1953.  Bird had to be called Charlie Chan for this date, so as not to break his contract obligations with another recording company.  With Dizzy, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach the music soars.  Bird had pawned his saxophone and had to borrow a plastic sax, but you would never know!

From 1952 and 1953 on the Verve Label comes the album “Now's The Time.” His rendition of the Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein composition “The Song Is You” is first class.  But the two essential recordings are his own compositions “Confirmation” and “Now's The Time.”  Done on August 4th, 1953 with Al Haig on piano, Percy Heath (of Modern Jazz Quartet fame) on bass and Max Roach on drums, I think Bird reaches the peak of his powers here.  Many saxophone players transposed these selections note for note so that they could imitate what so naturally flowed from Bird's horn.  “Confirmation” is excellent, but I think my personal favorite would have to be “Now's The Time.” Its introduction of three two-note couplets has become one of the most recognizable melodies in all of Jazz, and the pure genius of the whole song makes it probably one of Bird's best known compositions.  His crisp and piercing sound is simply inimitable.

About three weeks ago as I was walking over the Swing Bridge in Belize City, I heard Naphty, busking as usual on his alto sax right beside the walkway.  The piece he was playing was “Now's The Time.”  I stopped to give him a donation, and he excitedly told me of the tribute to Bob Marley that he and his friends were planning.  But it was this Charlie Parker composition he was playing – talk about Bird lives!

I need to mention too a fairly new CD that I acquired in the discount section of a Miami record store.  It is called “Bird Up – The Charlie Parker Remix Project.”  The liner notes tell it all:  “Charlie 'Bird' Parker revolutionized music in the 1940's.  His searing solos were sermons to the faithful who hungered for a hipper alternative to Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller – and Parker delivered like a Jazz messiah.  Now Parker's classics have been dressed in new threads for a new generation.”  Various artists reconceptualize Parker's classics in rap and hiphop modes: Meshell Ndegeocello, Dr. John, Ravi Coltrane, Red Hawk and others give a new twist to Bird's mesmerizing saxophone, and it's really good fun.  The young people would like this one.

I couldn't possibly end this essay without mentioning the famous Joe Zawinul tribute to Bird and the Jazz club named after him (now known as the Jazz corner of the world) , which I've enjoyed going to several times.  “Birdland” was originally done by Zawinul's fusion group Weather Report on their 1977 “Heavy Weather” album.  But in the 1980's along came a vocalese version.  As mentioned in an earlier entry, “vocalese”  is the writing of lyrics to recorded Jazz solos.  Jon Hendricks, Jazz singer extraordinaire, did the writing honors.  And the lucky group to have done the vocalese “Birdland” is the quartet Manhattan Transfer.  As a matter fact “Birdland” became their unofficial anthem.  Indispensible! 

You don't have to take my word for it.  Google Charlie Parker.  Get a hold of some of his music.  You will hear what I mean.  Better yet, when you pass Big Bridge in downtown Belize City, ask Naphty to play a few licks and riffs from “Now's The Time.”  Don't forget to donate a dollar or two for his busking efforts.  BIRD LIVES !!!