Note: Reading the Owens Chronicles in order is recommended, since each post builds on the last. All examples are in alto saxophone key. Recordings have been slowed down for clarity. We now rejoin Crackpot Theory #1, already in progress. Efferge Ware’s four-to-the-bar accompaniment on “Cherokee” (full track below) throws Bird’s playing into stark relief. Paradoxically, it offers Bird a rhythmic freedom that’s lacking on other dates with transitional rhythm sections, and the momentum he generates matches or exceeds that of later solos. More to the point, you can hear how much modernist harmony is implicit in Bird’s lines. A prime … Continue reading Owens Chronicles 3

Note: Reading the Owens Chronicles in order is recommended, since each post builds on the last. All examples are in alto saxophone key. Recordings have been slowed down for clarity. It’s easy to forget that II-V progressions, as we know them today, didn’t exist in the 20s, 30s, and early 40s. For Louis, Lester, and young Bird, there were only V chords. The II-Vs that became commonplace in bebop were a result of Bird’s conception, with huge contributions from many others. So, as I proceed with Crackpot Theory #1, bear in mind that, at the time, the Em11 chord Bird … Continue reading Owens Chronicles 2

Every jazz musician who falls under the spell of Bird’s music attempts, on some level, to divine its inner workings. Most express their understanding through their playing. I express mine through my ravings about Bird’s thought processes. Thomas Owens expressed his through his heroic 1974 dissertation, wherein he identified over 100 motives that form the basis of Bird’s vocabulary. Charlie Parker: Techniques of Improvisation is a triumph of scholarship, but it was never Owens’ goal to provide a practical guide for jazz players. That’s why I’ve decided to write this series of Parkeology posts, recasting his motives into more accessible … Continue reading Owens Chronicles 1

At Monroe’s, I’d listen to trumpet men like “Lips” Page, Roy, Dizzy, and Charlie Shavers outblowing each other all night long. And Don Byas was there, playing everything there was to be played. –Charlie Parker By some accounts, there was no love lost between Bird and Don Byas. If Ross Russell is to be believed–and lies were his bread and butter–bad blood existed between the two men, dating back to 52nd Street days. He tells a tale of an encounter in Paris, in 1950. Bird and Byas are drinking together at a nightclub and an argument breaks out. Bird invites … Continue reading Parkeology 024: Byas a Link

Parkeology 023: Confirmation Byas It was this superb harmonic ear that equipped Byas to participate, a few years later, in some of the early manifestations of bop. Rhythmically, however, Byas remained firmly rooted in the classic patterns of swing. – Dan Morgenstern, liner notes to Midnight at Minton’s The Don Byas of 1941 is not the Don Byas of 1944. His ability to swiftly integrate the new vocabulary into his personal style is a measure of his greatness, but in 1941, when Midnight at Minton’s was recorded, he still had both feet planted in the swing era. Nevertheless, his harmonic … Continue reading Parkeology 023: Confirmation Byas

Parkeology 022: Third Degree [Note: For the purposes of this discussion, I define “chromaticism” as consecutive half steps in a melodic line, and “scale runs” as consecutive scale degrees in a melodic line. All audio excerpts are slowed down for clarity.] Parker’s 1940–43 recordings are particularly vital because they present him at his most spontaneous; he had not yet codified his musical vocabulary, and he took an impromptu approach to the spinning forth of melody, much like his prime influence, Lester Young. – Carl Woideck Was Ben Webster a bigger influence on Bird than Lester Young? No one in their … Continue reading Parkeology 022: Third Degree

Parkeology 021: Bing and Ben I used to live at the Cecil Hotel, which was next door to Minton’s. We used to jam just about every night when we were off. Lester, Don Byas, and myself—we would meet there all the time and exchange ideas. It wasn’t a battle or anything. We were all friends. – Ben Webster, Les Tomkins interview, January 1965. Ignorance isn’t necessarily bliss. In my original posting, I estimated the time frame here as 1941, but I recently discovered that Webster was on the road with Ellington non-stop all year, and the same is true of … Continue reading Parkeology 021: Bing and Ben

Parkeology 020: One Guesses I got word that time that I could be in a jam session with Bird and Diz, and I walked two miles carrying my bass without gloves in ten below zero weather to the Ritz Hotel. It was a fine session. I remember a fellow named Red Cross taped the session. – Oscar Pettiford Pettiford is referring to the jam session on February 15, 1943, where Bird plays tenor instead of alto. Bird switched to tenor when he joined the Earl Hines Orchestra in December 1942, and I’m trying to make the case that he was … Continue reading Parkeology 020: One Guesses

Parkeology 019: Native Son John Fitch: Whom do you feel were the really important persons, besides yourself, who started to experiment? Charlie Parker: Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Clarke. It was Charlie Christian… There was Bud Powell, Don Byas, Ben Webster, yours truly. – 1953 radio interview WHDH I think it’s significant that Bird includes Ben Webster in this list, because Webster isn’t remembered as a modern jazz innovator, despite his involvement at Minton’s. Note that Bird lists their names together, at the bottom. In my opinion, he’s acknowledging Webster’s influence on his own conception more than on the movement … Continue reading Parkeology 019: Native Son

Parkeology 018: Brute Force Still, one is brought up short by the realization that a “typical” Parker phase turns out to be much the same phrase one had heard years before from, say, Ben Webster. The secret is, of course, that Parker inflects, accents, and pronounces that phrase so differently that one simply may not recognize it. – Martin Williams Williams seems to have picked Ben Webster’s name out of a hat, but there may be a deeper connection than he realized. Webster’s chromatic motifs might have added a missing component to Bird’s conception in the early 1940s. When I … Continue reading Parkeology 018: Brute Force