Parkeology 009: Flatiron My second first debt is to Stanley Crouch, friend and colleague, who has been working since 1982 on an exhaustive study of Parker’s life and art. In what was surely an unusual if not unprecedented act of scholarly comradeship, Stanley made all of his research available to me so that I could “get it right.“ His extensive interviews with Rebecca Parker Davis convinced me that she knew the story I wanted to tell. – Gary Giddins, acknowledgements, Celebrating Bird, 1987 I find it discouragingly ironic that Stanley Crouch’s Bird biography (Kansas City Lightning) so closely resembles Ross … Continue reading Parkeology 009: Flatiron

Parkeology 010: Past Due If you play a track like, the difference in before he went in and the thing that he did after he came out, like Cheers and Carvin’ The Bird and so forth, this was a different man all completely from the way he sounded before he went in. – Howard McGhee (Interview WKCR) Dean Benedetti recorded Bird every night for two weeks in a row, from March 1 through 13, 1947, at the Hi-De-Ho Club in Los Angeles. This level of documentation was unprecedented in its day, and it’s hard to think of a comparable example, … Continue reading Parkeology 010: Past Due

Parkeology 008: Blow Me Down Charlie had a very nice disposition, kind of happy-go-lucky. During that time they had the comic strip Popeye. Charlie used to imitate Popeye’s deep toned voice, and he used to make that deep tone on his horn. – Ernest Daniels Bird loved movies from an early age. The first Popeye cartoon was released in 1933, when Bird was thirteen, and it’s likely he saw many Popeye shorts as a teenager. Both the comic strip and the cartoons were wildly popular in their day. The Popeye theme song became one of Bird’s quotes, as did the … Continue reading Parkeology 008: Blow Me Down

Parkeology 007: So There Bird never talked about music, except one time I heard him arguing with a classical musician friend of mine. He told the cat that you can do anything with chords. I disagreed, told him that you couldn’t play D natural in the fifth bar of a B-flat blues. He said you could. One night later on at Birdland, I heard Lester Young do it. Bird was there when it happened and he just looked over at me with that “I told you so” look that he would lay on you when he had proved you wrong. – … Continue reading Parkeology 007: So There

Parkeology 006: Lazy Bird I’d learned the scale and I learned how to play two tunes in the key of D. 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 – 1950 Stearns interview This is the punchline to Bird’s story of getting laughed off the bandstand in Kansas City, sometime around 1934, as told in the Stearns interview. It’s worth noting that Bird was capable of grammatically flawless English when … Continue reading Parkeology 006: Lazy Bird

Parkeology 005: Don’t Buy Sugar I learned to play the first eight bars of “Lazy River” and I knew the complete tune to “Honeysuckle Rose.” So I took my horn out to this joint, where a bunch of fellows I had seen around were, and the first thing they started playing was “Body And Soul,” long beat. So I go to playing my “Honeysuckle Rose” and they laughed me off the bandstand.” – Charlie Parker That, in so many words, is Bird’s epic tale of humiliation at the hands of Jimmy Kieth and associates, related in the Stearns interview, May … Continue reading Parkeology 005: Don’t Buy Sugar

Parkeology 004: Turnaround Is Fair Play Bird used to turn the rhythm section around every night. He would play in such a way that it made the rhythm section sound like it was on 1 and 3, instead of 2 and 4. Max would scream at Duke [Jordan] not to try to follow Bird. Eventually, Bird would come back to where the rhythm section was, right on time. – Miles Davis How much did Bird’s conception evolve throughout his career? That depends on how you measure it. All the foundations were in place on his earliest recordings (1940), so you … Continue reading Parkeology 004: Turnaround Is Fair Play

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 … Continue reading Parkeology 003: Plucked From the Atmosphere

Parkeology 002: Everything Goes Wrong His only real bad nights were when he overindulged – Earl Hines Every saxophone player knows from bitter experience that the G sharp key is inclined to stick closed, and must be pried open by hand. Here’s a recording of Ornithology from Christmas Eve, 1949. This is the opening number, and Bird realizes in the first bar that his G sharp key is stuck. There’s a slight pause as he pries it open, then he continues on to play flawlessly, this minor glitch forgotten. In his Bird biography, Chuck Haddix relates a story that must … Continue reading Parkeology 002: Everything Goes Wrong

Parkeology 001: Bird Is In the Details “You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker.”  – Miles Davis Or, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing, six words: Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Charlie Parker. The Lester-to-Bird connection is plain to hear. The Louis-to-Lester connection is largely a matter of faith. The search for Lester’s influences is so futile that in the end you just throw up your hands and say: who wasn’t influenced by Louis Armstrong? A direct Louis-to-Bird connection might seem unlikely, but it turns out there’s a link via the West … Continue reading Parkeology 001: Bird Is In the Details