The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (53 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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Williams. At some point during this session, according to a widely circulated story, Gillespie surreptitiously put benzedrine in Williams's coffee; you can hear the singer get progressively wilder as the session goes on.
Every Bit of It
is also worthwhile for the tracks Parker recorded (sans Gillespie) with pianist Sir Charles Thompson and his all stars, which also feature Buck Clayton, the great trumpeter from Count Basie's band, and new tenor star Dexter Gordon. Bird takes fantastic solos on "20th Century Blues" and "The Street Beat."
An interesting study in contrast is a 1945 session for the small Comet label, on which Bird and Dizzy appeared in extended performances with older musicians such as Teddy Wilson, Red Norvo, and Flip Phillips. Several takes of "Hallelujah," "Get Happy," ''Slam Slam Blues," and the exciting "Congo Blues" go in and out of print on various labels. All the musicians in the studio that day seem to have gotten along fine musically, although at the time much was made of the difference between the jazz generations.
Bird went to California with Gillespie's band late in 1945 for an engagement at Billy Berg's nitery. Three tracks from a California broadcast are included on.
The Complete "Birth of the Bebop"
(Stash ST-CD-535). The band, with Milt Jackson playing vibes, performs "Shaw 'Nuff," "Groovin' High," and "Dizzy Atmosphere." Before Gillespie left California, he and Bird recorded some tunes with the novelty singer and instrumentalist Slim Gaillard; the sides - "Dizzy Boogie," "Poppity Pop," "Flat Foot Floogie," and "Slim's Jam" - are available on
Bebop's Heartbeat
(Savoy ZDS 1177). On all of these Bird blows extremely strong, cogent solos, and on "Slim's Jam" you can hear him talk a little with Gaillard, who introduces each member of the ensemble in turn.
After Gillespie left, Parker recorded his first of many sessions for the small California label Dial Records; this outing produced the classics "Yardbird Suite," "Ornithology," "Moose the Mooche," and "A Night in Tunisia," the last of which contained a famous break for Bird's alto. The break on the issued take was great, but a legendary break from an unissued take has been included on reissues as the "famous alto break," a brief miracle of rhythmic and harmonic inventiveness and equilibrium. (A break at that spot is part of the tune's compositional structure, and it is fun to compare what different musicians do with it. Pianist Bud Powell plays a tremendous one on
The Amazing Bud Powell
,
Volume 1
[Blue Note 81503].) On this date, Parker is in the company of Miles Davis and the fine tenor saxophonist Lucky Thompson, whose gruff, asymmetrical phrases make an interesting contrast to Parker's gliding, unflappable lines.
These sides, along with the rest of the material Bird recorded for Dial, are available on
The Legendary Dial Masters
,
Volume 1
(Stash ST-CD-23) and
Volume 2
(Stash ST-CD-25), as well as on a series put out by the English Spotlite label,
 
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Bird on Dial
,
Volumes 1-6
(Spotlite 101-106). The Stash CDs supposedly contain only the master takes issued on 78-rpm records at the time, although in some places the producers substituted alternate takes for the actual master takes, for no apparent reason. The alternates still offer excellent music, though. The Spotlite issues contain all alternate takes. The alternate takes are important, because Bird played completely fresh things on each take.
Bird's next session (for Dial) produced four tracks ("Max Is Making Wax," "Lover Man," "The Gypsy," and "Bebop'') which were recorded while Parker was having a physical and nervous breakdown. The results are painful to listen to. After that session he was committed to Camarillo State Hospital, where he mended for a while. When he was released, he recorded a good session for Dial with pianist Erroll Garner (who went on to become a star and a major influence in his own right), which produced "Cool Blues," "Bird's Nest," and two vocals by Earl Coleman, "This Is Always" and "Dark Shadows." Bird doesn't seem quite as flexible or comfortable here; Garner's rhythms aren't really appropriate to Parker's style, but Bird blows with great energy nonetheless.
A week later Bird recorded four more tunes for Dial, "Carvin' the Bird," "Stupendous," "Cheers," and "Relaxin' at Camarillo," the last an intricate, ingenious blues line dedicated to the place where he convalesced. He is spelled in the front line by his West Coast trumpet companion Howard McGhee and the fine tenor saxophonist Wardell Gray; the mix made for a swinging, happy session.
Bird came back to New York to get his classic quintet together and make some of his most enduring statements. The quintet, composed of Miles Davis, Duke Jordan (sometimes replaced by John Lewis or, on one session, Bud Powell), Tommy Potter, and Max Roach, made most of their records for Savoy and Dial. On a few Dial sides, trombonist J. J. Johnson was added.
The majority of the material on these sides is based either on the harmonic structure of the blues or "I Got Rhythm," interspersed with ballads either named as themselves ("Embraceable You," "Out of Nowhere," "Don't Blame Me") or retitled ("Quasimodo," based on "Embraceable You," and "Bird of Paradise," based on "All the Things You Are"). You can see how fertile Bird's mind was just by comparing the different melodies he wrote on the same material. His blues were as different as the happy, Latin-flavored "Bongo Beep," the cooler, rhythmically shifting "Bongo Bop," the white-knuckle, up-tempo "The Hymn," and the straight-ahead "Drifting on a Reed" (not to mention the Savoy classics "Barbados," "Parker's Mood," "Perhaps," and "Another Hair-Do").
In his solos on successive takes, Parker constantly used different strategies and different beginnings, like different chess openings, from which each solo
 
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would unfold differently. You can hear this best on the Spotlites and on the Savoy boxed set
The Complete Charlie Parker Savoy Studio Sessions
(Savoy ZDS 5500), in both of which all alternate takes of the same tune are programmed continuously. To take an example, listen to "Bongo Beep" on
Bird on Dial
,
Volume 6
(Spotlite 106). Bird opens his solo on the second take with a completely different phrase than the one he uses on the first, and his solo develops in a very different direction. On the other hand, trombonist J. J. Johnson, who follows Bird, uses exactly the same opening phrase in both takes. This quality of inventing fresh melodies is not necessarily the most important gauge of a soloist's worth - many great soloists varied their solos very little, just making minor variations in emphasis and phrasing. But in the bebop era, spontaneous creation of melody was at a premium.
Other examples of Bird's phenomenal melodic inventiveness are the two takes of "Embraceable You" (on
Bird on Dial
,
Volume 4
[Spotlite 104]) that he recorded on October 28, 1947. From the first notes, both are completely new melodies, based on the harmonic structure of the Gershwin standard. Certain phrases and melodic fragments recur, but they are twisted and recast.
In general, I find the Dial sides more relaxed, carefully routined, varied, and satisfying than the Savoy recordings of the same year, although the Savoys can't be avoided, containing some of Bird's most famous lines as well as much fine playing. But in general they haven't the same frothy sound you find on the Dials and tend to consist only of a head (melody) and a series of solos (almost always alto, trumpet, piano, and then the head again and out).
That being said, two Savoy sessions from 1947 are indispensable. One is a session with the Dial quintet but with Bud Powell substituted for Duke Jordan. Bird and Bud didn't work together a lot; both were leaders, both geniuses, and the sparks flew, although the sparks seemed to fly between Bud and everybody during this time. On the four tracks recorded at this session -"Donna Lee," "Chasin' the Bird," "Buzzy,'' and "Cheryl" - they are both fired up.
The other session is by the Dial quintet, which included Miles Davis, and has John Lewis, later to be the leader of the Modern Jazz Quartet, on piano, Nelson Boyd on bass, and Bird playing tenor saxophone, one of the few occasions he recorded on the bigger horn. The results of this session are available under Davis's name, with all alternate takes, as
First Miles
(Savoy ZDS 1196). The tunes were all written by Miles, and they have a cooler, more sinuous sound than most of the hard-charging bop lines of the day. The other Savoy sides contain no less a performance than the slow blues "Parker's Mood," fascinating alternates and breakdowns on "Another Hair-Do," and whirlwind showpieces like "Klaunstance" and "Bird Gets the Worm."
This group was also caught live, unfortunately in grotesquely distorted and
 
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painfully difficult-to-hear sound. Released as
Bird on 52nd Street
(Fantasy/OJC-114), it catches the quintet in some very freewheeling playing that is much looser than either the Dial or Savoy sides. This material is included, along with much more from other sources and with better sound, on the connoisseur's feast
The Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings of Charlie Parker
(Mosaic MD7-129). An essential live performance from this time, September 1947, can be found on
Bebop's Heartbeat
(Savoy ZDS 1177). Parker was added as a guest artist at a Gillespie concert in Carnegie Hall and plays with tremendous ferocity on "A Night in Tunisia," "Dizzy Atmosphere," "Groovin' High," "Confirmation," and an unbelievable "Ko Ko.'' Not for the fainthearted, this is some of the most intense Bird available.
Later that same month Bird and Diz were together for two all-star radio broadcasts put together by critic Barry Ulanov as a fund-raising effort for U.S. Savings Bonds. Available as
Lullaby in Rhythm
(Spotlite 107), these are worth having, especially for a blazing "Fine and Dandy," with Bird and Diz outblowing each other over a harried announcer's final words, and a unique version of "Tiger Rag," with Bird and Diz playing Dixieland. The set-up on these broadcasts was to pair an all-star "traditional" band with an all-star "modern" band -at the time, the division couldn't have been more marked in most fans' minds. At a point in each broadcast, the modernists called a tune for the traditionalists to play, and the traditionalists returned the favor. On the second broadcast, the traditionalists called for "Tiger Rag."
In November of that same year there was another "Bands for Bonds" broadcast involving Parker (on
Anthropology
[Spotlite 108]). This time his front-line mate was trumpeter Fats Navarro. Although there isn't a lot of Bird here, what there is is excellent, and Navarro plays a definitive version of "Fats Flats, his showpiece on the chord changes of "What Is This Thing Called Love?" Sarah Vaughan is also heard singing "Everything I Have Is Yours."
By the end of 1947 Bird had more or less made his contribution; he had laid down the language for a new generation of musicians and helped add a new subtlety to small-group playing. After that, his style was in place, and it was heard in many different settings. The period in which he was changing the face of the music was over, but he continued to refine his playing, and some of his best work was recorded in the years following 1947.
In the Studio
Beginning in 1948, Charlie Parker recorded a series of sessions for producer Norman Granz, with whose touring jazz concert series, Jazz At The Philharmonic, Bird had played in 1946 in California. Bird would record for Granz's labels, which included Clef, Norgran, and Mercury - these recordings
 
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would later be re-released on Verve - until he died, his last session being just three months before his death on March 12, 1955. All of this material is collected on a ten-CD box,
Bird: The Complete Charlie Parker on Verve
(Verve 837 141-2), which includes every scrap of studio dialogue, every false start, and every alternate take of everything Parker recorded for Granz. Verve combines and recombines this material in a number of single CDs as well, which seem to go in and out of print. Rather than breaking down every "greatest hits" and "essential Bird" package, I'll discuss the recordings session by session; Bird rarely recorded the same tune in different sessions in Granz's studios (although his live recordings contain countless versions of his best-known tunes from the 1945-1947 period), and you should be able to tell what's what on these packages by the tune titles.
One disc that does seem to stay stable is the mighty
Now's the Time
(Verve 825 671-2), which is probably the best all-around Verve album for those who want Bird with no distractions. Recorded partly in 1952 with a rhythm section of Hank Jones, Teddy Kotick, and Max Roach and partly in 1953 with Al Haig, Percy Heath, and Roach, the album is pure invention and pure swing, a kind of summing-up of Bird in an unbuttoned but focused quartet setting. The rhythm section, thanks to Roach, has the frothy, relaxed, but concentrated swing of the Dial sides, but Bird solos at greater length.
The program consists of medium-up blues ("Chi-Chi," "Now's the Time"), relaxed, down-home blues ("Cosmic Rays,'' "Laird Baird"), standards ("The Song Is You," "I Remember You"), a bop standard ("Confirmation"), and an up-tempo showpiece ("Kim"). It is one of the best-recorded Bird albums, with the slightest quality of echo setting off Bird's tone, which was a marvel on this occasion. He plays a lot in the middle register here; on "I Remember You" he almost sounds like a tenor during the theme. One thing to listen for is how much attention Bird pays to detail. Rarely will he play a long line of eighth notes without throwing a flourish into the middle of the line - a triplet figure or a little double-time section - for variety and greater expressiveness. He never plays the obvious.
Also excellent is a pair of sessions originally issued on LP as
Swedish Schnapps
. On five tunes from 1951 featuring Red Rodney on trumpet, Bird's sound is heavy and throaty, and he tends to play in the middle register. Rodney, too, plays mainly in the middle register, with a kind of poise that's an attractive counterpoint to Bird. This is an example of Parker just below his peak form; he plays very well, but he tends to rely on his stock phrases, creating variety by ending them with interesting melodic turns. "Si Si," a fine, rarely played blues, "Swedish Schnapps," "Blues for Alice," "Back Home Blues," and a remake of "Lover Man" are the selections.

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