Parkeology 003: Plucked From the Atmosphere

Bird was the most receptive being. He got into his music all the sounds around him. –Gene Ramey

The following excerpts demonstrate Bird’s ability to respond instantly to the sounds in his environment, both musical and ambient. They are presented in order of plausibility, from the serious to the spurious. You be the judge!

We begin in Washington DC, on February 22nd, 1953, where Bird played a one-nighter fronting a local big band known as THE Orchestra. This gig is legendary because Bird went in cold, having declined the opportunity to rehearse, and played entirely by intuition (on his plastic Grafton alto).

The tune is Willis, a contrafact on Pennies From Heaven written by Bill Potts. Bird borrows the phrase the full band has just stated, using it for his opening.

We move to mid-March 1946, at the Finale Club, a short-lived DIY Black nightclub in LA. The Billy Berg gig had run its course. Dizzy’s quintet returned to NYC, but Bird stayed on, determined to start his own band. He led a quintet for a number of weeks until the LAPD shut the club down, leaving Bird unemployed and discouraged.

Pianist Joe Albany plays a descending major scale in the fill that precedes Bird’s Ornithology solo, and Bird incorporates it into his opening line.

On January 28th, 1946, while the Billy Berg run was still in progress, Bird played his first gig with Jazz at the Philharmonic, not yet a parody of itself. Bird sounds on edge, possibly due to inferior grade LA heroin, but plays his heart out.

He pauses as he’s wrapping up his solo on I Can’t Get Started, and in the silence pianist Arnold Ross plays an ascending five-note figure, almost by accident. Bird picks up on it and brings it to completion with his final descending phrase.

The 1948-49 live broadcasts from the Royal Roost present Bird at his peak, although not entirely sober. His quintet, with the subtly magnificent Al Haig on piano, was onstage when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, and they welcomed in 1949 with the usual hits. But an unguarded East Of The Sun appears out of the blue, a year-and-a-half before the studio version with strings.

Haig is comping in his usual sublime fashion when Bird pauses to listen. He then echoes Haig’s voice-leading in his next phrase. 

Now for the spurious. The last two excerpts involve Bird’s reaction to sounds from the audience. I myself am convinced, but skeptics are on solid ground here.

Sticking with the Royal Roost, but traveling back a few months, we arrive at Bird’s first broadcast, on September 8th, 1948. He opened the set with 52nd Street Theme, and he’s already into his first chorus by the time Symphony Sid concludes his ramblings.

Early in Bird’s third chorus, someone in his proximity makes a vocal sound as indescribable as it is unpleasant, which he immediately mimics.

Dean Benedetti recorded Bird for the last time on July 11th, 1948, at the Onyx Club. 52nd Street had hit skids by then, and audiences were no longer there to listen. In response, it seems, Bird drifts into a state of surreal detachment. Disjointed phrases lapse into stretches of silence.

On All The Things You Are, the crowd natters away, ignoring Bird. After a particularly long pause, he resumes softly in the lower register. As he’s ascending to the upper register, a woman in the crowd lets out a shriek. Bird’s tone instantly turns piercing and he emits a shriek-like glissando in reply.

All this raises an interesting question: if Bird operated at this level of spontaneity, to what extent were his solos predetermined? In other words, did these moments just add decoration to a preexisting structure, or did they generate a spontaneous structure of their own?  You be the judge!

Next time: Turnabout Is Fair Play