Charlie Parker’s chronology from late 1938 to early 1940 is rather sketchy. It is known that his mentor, Buster Smith, left Kansas City for New York in 1938, and that Parker eventually followed suit. By early 1940, Parker was definitely back in Kansas City working with McShann. –Carl Woideck We know this because Bird’s estranged father died, stabbed to death by the woman he was living with, and nineteen-year-old Bird was called home to Kansas City for the funeral, moving back in with his mother. Always eager to go out on a limb, I will argue that Bird spent this … Continue reading Parkeology 031: Every Honeybee

Unfortunately, the surviving editor, Nat Hentoff, cannot reconstruct how the second version came to be written in such a way. Hentoff believed that Nat Shapiro edited the Parker section in question, but he felt it was unlikely that Shapiro would have simply altered the Down Beat text to make it read better. Hentoff could not recall if perhaps Shapiro worked from notes supplied by Levin or Wilson. Attempts to pursue this point with John S. Wilson, co-author of the original article, have thus far failed. — Carl Woideck And that’s the last word on the Levin-Wilson article and its one-sentence … Continue reading Parkeology 030: Child of the Prairie

M.1A is an ascending arpeggio, usually played as a triplet, but also common in other rhythmic configurations. Preceded by an upper or lower neighbor, it fre­quently begins a phrase. About forty percent of these arpeggios are of minor-seventh chords; E minor-seventh is the most common. – Thomas Owens, 1974 Dissertation Forty percent is quite a statistic, and the fact that Em7 is the most common certainly suggests that D major was Bird’s primal key. More broadly, it confirms that four-note ascending arpeggios were central to Bird’s vocabulary. This is so self-evident that no examples are required. What’s needed, though, is … Continue reading Parkeology 029: Marmaduke Part Two

I’d learned the scale and I learned how to play two tunes in a certain key, in the key of D for your saxophone, F concert? I learned to play the first eight bars of “Lazy River” and I knew the complete tune to “Honeysuckle Rose.” I didn’t never stop to think about there was other keys or nothing like that! –Charlie Parker It’s hard to overstate the importance of “Honeysuckle Rose” in Bird’s development. It was the first song he recorded on his own, and among his first with Jay McShann. Furthermore, “Scrapple From The Apple,” based on the … Continue reading Parkeology 028: Marmaduke Part One

Working over “Cherokee” with Fleet, Charlie suddenly found that by using higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, he could play this thing he had been “hearing.” –Michael Levin and John S. Wilson, “No Bop Roots In Jazz: Parker.” This single-sentence paraphrase of Bird’s “Cherokee” revelation has been chewed over for generations, with little to show for it. Had Levin and Wilson simply given us Bird’s exact words, it would’ve saved everyone a lot of trouble. Instead, another poor schmo, namely me, is about to tilt once again at this weary … Continue reading Parkeology 027: Ladder of Thirds

Charlie’s horn first came alive in a chili house on Seventh avenue between 139th Street and 140th Street in December, 1939. He was jamming there with a guitarist named Biddy Fleet. At the time, Charlie says, he was bored with the stereotyped changes being used then. “I kept thinking there’s bound to be something else,” he recalls. “I could hear it sometimes but I couldn’t play it.” Working over “Cherokee” with Fleet, Charlie suddenly found that by using higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, he could play this thing he … Continue reading Parkeology 026: Quoth the Yardbird Part Two

“Bop is no love child of jazz,” says Charlie Parker. The creator of bop, in a series of interviews that took more than two weeks, told us he felt that “bop is entirely separate and apart” from the older tradition; that it drew little from jazz, has no roots in it. The chubby little alto man, who has made himself an international music name in the last five years, added that bop, for the most part, had to be played by small bands. –Michael Levin and John S. Wilson, “No Bop Roots In Jazz: Parker.” Thus begins the questionable Levin-Wilson … Continue reading Parkeology 025: Quoth the Yardbird

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