In Bird Lives, Ross Russell relates a 1948 incident in which Charlie Parker (Bird) cornered Marshall Stearns, a Cornell professor and poetry scholar, in the men’s room at the Onyx Club and hit him up for cash. Stearns was at the urinal and Bird allegedly came up behind him, at the moment of maximum vulnerability, and opened negotiations regarding a small loan. After some back and forth, Stearns handed over $5. If true, this would have undoubtedly been a traumatic moment for Stearns. Two years later, it seems he still hadn’t made a full recovery. In May of 1950, Stearns had … Continue reading Weekly Posting, May 15th, 2020

On May 8th, 1947, Charlie Parker (Bird) entered Harris Smith Studios for his “homecoming” recording date for Savoy Records, the first since his return to New York City on April 7th. Bird was in robust health, free of his heroin addiction, and filled with ambition. At long last he had assembled the quintet of his dreams, and he was bringing in two extraordinary new compositions. Three out of the four songs recorded that day were destined to become classics. And yet the performances are vexed in ways that are difficult to account for. All we can do is guess. It’s … Continue reading Weekly Posting, May 8th, 2020

The following is the second half of Addie Parker’s remembrance, as told to Robert Reisner, with some reordering for clarity. The Gospel of Adeline, Part 2 Charles always thought he could make it in Kansas City, but after he and Rebecca disagreed he had to leave and went to Chicago for a while and from there to New York. He was in New York when he took those drugs..Charles’s father died when he was 17. We had been separated for years. Some lady stabbed him during a drunken quarrel. I got a hold of Charles and brought him home for … Continue reading Weekly Posting, May 1st, 2020

For the next two weeks, I am going to step aside and let Addie Parker do all the talking. As hinted at last week, her jumbed remembrance after Bird’s death males a fascinating mini-biography. I had to rearrange her words to make her story more linear. It’s possible that she was in a state of mild dementia at the time she was interviewed, because she veers from topic to topic, constantly tangling up the timeline. This would make her a somewhat unreliable narrator, and there are discrepancies between her version of events and documented facts, although nothing serious. Due to … Continue reading Weekly Posting, April 24th, 2020

On Thursday, April 20th, 1950, Addie Parker, graduated from the National Schools Institute of Practical Nursing in Kansas City. Charlie Parker (Bird) speaks of his mother’s achievement with pride in an interview recorded not long afterward, an excerpt of which is presented along with today’s musical offering. The circumstances are informal and Bird uses his natural speaking voice, setting aside the accent he affected for bandstand announcements and radio patter. Regrettably, the interviewers are squares of epic proportions who largely waste this invaluable opportunity. The following transcription of the excerpt in question gives some indication of the stilted atmosphere they … Continue reading Weekly Posting, April 17th, 2020

Charlie Parker (Bird) must have been relieved to fly out of Los Angeles on April 4th, 1947, doubly so to be rid of Ross Russell. Russell provides many details about driving Bird and his future wife, Doris Sydnor, to the airport, and even about checking their luggage and watching them board the plane, but he gets their destination wrong. The flight was taking them to Chicago, not New York City. Bird had an Easter Sunday gig with trumpeter Howard McGhee on the 6th, at the Pershing Ballroom. McGhee reports that Bird made $750 for the night (1947 dollars) and the … Continue reading Weekly Posting, April 10th, 2020

On April 3rd, 1946, Charlie Parker (Bird) drew up a handwritten agreement assigning to Emry Byrd, a Los Angeles drug dealer, fifty percent of all future royalties from contracts with Dial Records. Biographers generally take this at face value, presenting it as a measure of Bird’s desperation for heroin and also his poor business acumen. There is no doubt that Bird was utterly addicted to heroin. He couldn’t function without it, and Los Angeles was prone to supply problems. Even when you could get it, the quality ranged from so-so to rock bottom, including a product called “mud”, which lived … Continue reading Weekly Posting, April 3rd, 2020

Ross Russell, the founder of Dial Records, was a witness to jazz history. The ballads that Charlie Parker (Bird) recorded for his label in the late 40s (Embraceable You, Out Of Nowhere, My Old Flame, Don’t Blame Me) are among the most sublime creations in 20th Century music. In fact, all of Bird’s Dial recordings are of immeasurable value. Russell deserves a great deal of credit for making this happen, and it was, in many ways, a thankless task. Did this qualify him to write Bird’s biography? Yes and no. The biography in question, Bird Lives, published in 1973, is more accessible, entertaining, and … Continue reading Weekly Posting, March 28th, 2020

There is much evidence of Bird’s extensive vocabulary and his love of wordplay, but he left behind almost no writings, aside from his many telegrams to Chan, which are a story unto themselves. So the long letter he wrote on Saturday, May 22nd, 1954, is one of the very few we have. Unfortunately, it’s a rebuttal to charges brought by Jack Tucker, the manager of the Tiffany Club in Los Angeles, where Bird was working the week Pree died. As such, Bird’s tone is matter-of-fact and understandably humorless, but he expresses himself clearly in long, well-constructed sentences interspersed with short, … Continue reading Weekly Posting, March 20th, 2020

Charlie Parker (Bird) died of old age at 34. His life was not cut short. When he died at the Stanhope Hotel on March 12th, 1955, the arc of his existence was complete. By the close of 1954, after his two-year-old daughter had died and his marriage to Chan had disintegrated, Bird was living in poverty in Greenwich Village, waiting for death to claim him. He was well aware that his heart, liver, and stomach were finally giving out. Roaming the streets on New Year’s Day, he remarked to a friend, “I never thought I’d live to see 1955.” Bird … Continue reading Weekly Post, March 12th, 2020