Parkeology 013: Speedball

I have seen him take several Benzedrine wrappers, wad them into a ball, and swallow it. Getting high the first time at fifteen, Bird told me what he felt. He pulled out $1.30, which was all he had, and said, “Do you mean there’s something like this in the world? How much of it will this buy?” – Buddy Jones

I’ve been putting off my argument that the “Donna Lee” session catalyzed Bird’s backslide into heroin use. I spent Parkeology 012 making the case that Bird was drunk in the recording studio that day, May 8, 1947, which compromised his playing. Here’s his “Donna Lee” solo from the master take.

Anyone could easily refute this argument by insisting that “Donna Lee” is Bird at his best, as many jazz writers have done. As with all solos, it’s a matter of opinion. Some might even ask, how much better could it have been? A live recording of “Donna Lee” answers this question. It’s a Metronome All Stars broadcast from November 8, 1947, six months to the day after “Donna Lee” was recorded in the studio. 

In terms of execution, this rendition is light years ahead of the studio version, even at a much faster tempo. Bird uses many of the same motifs, but here they flow like water. It’s hard not to hear it as the solo he wished he had taken in the studio.

Bird is unquestionably sober here, but the odds are good that heroin was involved, along with amphetamines.

Upon his return to New York after Camarillo (April 1947), Bird told Chan, “They can get it out of your blood, but they can’t get it out of your mind.” I take this to mean that he still craved heroin, even though he was no longer physically addicted.

It seems clear that Bird tried to appease these cravings with alcohol, replacing one addiction with another. But the “Donna Lee” date proved conclusively that alcohol was of no use in the recording studio. The results must have felt disturbingly reminiscent of the “Lover Man” session. 

Heroin had been essential to Bird’s functioning as a musician since he first took a serious interest in the saxophone, at the age of sixteen. His technical development may have been rooted in his heroin use on a physiological level, and the same might be said of amphetamines. Odds are he was under the influence of both during his “11 to 15 hours a day” of woodshedding.

Bird may have felt that he had no choice, that he had to find a way to resume using heroin without becoming re-addicted, which was the only version of reform he was capable of. Alcohol, for all its disadvantages, might make this possible. If he could use it to tamp down his cravings day-to-day, while reserving heroin for occasions that really mattered, recording sessions in particular, this could prevent a renewed dependency.

This scenario is pure fantasy, but it fits the facts. According to Phil Schaap’s 1947 timeline in the Benedetti box set, Dizzy concludes Bird has resumed using heroin in “April or early May,” and “passes on placing Bird in his orchestra.” May 8 falls on the far end of this estimate. Not only that, Bird played a gig with Dizzy’s big band on May 31, which casts reasonable doubt on the timing of Dizzy’s decision.

Be that as it may, it’s well established that Bird resumed his heroin use around this time, while continuing to drink. Whether or not the “Donna Lee” session had anything to do with it is pure conjecture, but it’s worth noting that from this point onward, Bird’s studio recordings display a superhuman consistency.

Is there evidence to support the idea that Bird alternated between alcohol and heroin? The fact that he sometimes used them in conjunction muddies the waters, but here’s an anecdote I believe suggests it. 

Saxophonist Jerome Richardson tells this story in Robert Reisner’s book, Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker. It takes place in 1952, at Bop City in San Francisco. Bird shows up drunk and Art Blakey convinces him to sit in, in order to exact revenge for Bird’s financial shenanigans on a previous gig. We join this anecdote already in progress.

“Anything you want to play,” Parker muttered. Blakey said, “52nd Street Theme” and with that he started a rhythm at a murderously fast tempo. Bird was all tied up. False starts, uncoordinated fingering. He stopped. “Give me an hour, I’ll be back.” No one knows how he did it, but in one hour, he returned cold, deadly sober. There was no tune too fast, too slow, too unfamiliar. He played till seven in the morning.

How he did it doesn’t strike me as a mystery. Getting laughed off the bandstand was a little too reminiscent of his youth, and couldn’t go unanswered. I believe he did what he always did when the stakes were high: adjusted his nervous system to optimum efficiency with a blend of narcotics and amphetamines. This was Bird’s version of “cold, deadly sober,” and it was likely his condition on the Metronome All Stars broadcast. Surrounded by some of the greatest instrumentalists of the era, the stakes couldn’t have been higher.

Taken together, the studio “Donna Lee” and the Metronome “Donna Lee” offer a telling contrast: Bird clean but drunk, and Bird sober but high. If you want to hear Bird clean and sober, the Dial recordings from February 19 and February 28, 1947 (“Cool Blues” “Relaxin’ At Camarillo”) may be the only ones that come with any guarantees.

Circumstantial evidence suggests that Bird was high on most, if not all, of the remaining Dial and Savoy dates, which form the bulk of his legacy. But we can never be certain. When Bird sounds magnificent, as he always does unless drunk, there’s no way of knowing whether he’s straight or high.

What does that tell you?