The Verve Years (1948-50) Charlie Parker
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The Verve years -YEARS (1948-50') ul U I..,... ,i,-,,,,,,i,,,d chronologicallA: 'he legen(lary recordings. "ncluding the first "Charli( Parker icith Strings ide,;: the 1)izzy Gillespie. heloniou ,, llonk. luddv Ric12. (:urly h'ussell y,ssio'n: ;-ind l'arker:c ' irst' 1 eri-e reeordinz. IC.,' cut-ion. n'ith the el-lielti Orchestra Parker you once read or heard, it is because Ruffing, and fathered a child: he was all of later, so did Parker. Tatum went to play on band, Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clark such heroes became exactly what their fifteen years old. Soon he was spending the West Coast, Parker to his first New dropped by to hear him. "He was playing creators want them to be—and the legend more time at the Reno Club, listening to York gig, grinding out tired music for twice as fast as Lester, but using harmonil of Charlie Parker is essentially an up-date Lester Young, the important new tired feet at the Parisien Ballroom on Lester hadn't even touched," recalled of the legend of Bix. But, although groups saxophonist, than he was at home. Broadway in the Times Square area. After- Clarke. "He was running the same way w( of Beiderbecke's admirers still gather— When Parker's domestic situation hours, Parker continued to sit in with were, but he was way ahead of us." Monk almost half a century after his death—for became intolerable, he pawned his sax and more compatible musicians at such Harlem and Clarke persuaded Parker to join then an annual rally, firm in their belief that made his way to New York by way of spots as Clark Monroe's Uptown House and at Minton's, and so strong was their desir "Bix lives," hero-worshippers in jazz are a Chicago, where Billy Eckstine heard him Dan Wall's Chili House; both were to have him play there that they paid him dying breed. Even the graffiti that once so play. "He blew the bell off that thing... he eminently suitable for nurturing the seeds out of their own pocket when manager widely proclaimed "Bird lives" has been Tatum, Young, and others had planted Teddy Hill refused to add him to the all but washed away as a waning Coltrane in Parker's musically fertile mind. payroll. With former Teddy Hill band cult forms the last vestige of romantic It was at the latter place, while rendering member Dizzy Gillespie a frequent visitor attachment to jazz heroes; new generations "Cherokee," that Parker is said to have to Minton's, the addition of Charlie Parke of cultists focus their attention on such "hit upon a new way to go." to the group was comparable to finding latter-day saints as Jimi Hendrix and That new way, using an eighth note as the final jigsaw-puzzle piece. Janis Joplin. the basis for melodic rhythm, helped to But, as it all began to come together While tales of Charlie Parker's escapades, chart a course jazz would soon be taking. professionally, Parker's personal life bega his bouts with drugs, his social or But it is a fallacy to claim that Wall's to fall apart: heavy drinking and increase , anti-social behavior, and the number of customers that night witnessed the indulgence in drugs had made him a shell hamburgers he ate at some given point will arker's dishwashing spontaneous birth of be-bop; by a strange of himself. He had divorced his first wife undoubtedly continue to see print in job at Jimmy's Chicken Shack coincidence, Dizzy Gillespie—then and married a second, but he continued t versions of diverse magnification, his P somewhere in transition between the Teddy live the life of a gypsy, moving from recordings remain a constant; untouched was made bearable by the Hill and Cab Calloway bands—was develop- rooming house to rooming house. by human imagination ( except Parker's fact that the place ing his own harmonic concepts that would Concerned about Parker's deteriorating own, of course), they comprise the only prove to be the salt for Bird's egg. condition, trumpeter Benny Harris tangible evidence of his artistry and its featured the music of Before anyone really paid attention to managed to get him a regular job with the development, at the same time giving us a pianist Art Tatum.. his music, Parker was called back to Earl Hines band, replacing Budd Johnson, traceable—if vague—chart of the man's Kansas City by the death of his father; on tenor. Though Hines was the product emotional ups and downs. Briefly, lest prior to returning to New York, he spent another era in jazz (that of Louis Hollywood should one day tell you five weeks as a member of Harlan Leonard's Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven, otherwise, the Charlie Parker story begins blew so much he upset everybody in the Rockets, followed by a more successful stomping flappers, and scorching bathtul in Kansas City, Kansas, on August 29, joint," Eckstine told Parker biographer stay with a new band led by pianist Jay gin), his musical thinking had advanced 1920. His father, failing to make it as a Ross Russell. But, despite the enthusiasm McShann. In November of 1940 the with the times; this is probably the reaso song-and-dance man, worked as a Pullman ( or perhaps because of it ), Parker soon touring McShann band stopped in Wichita that young revolutionaries such as chef, leaving the home altogether in 1931 moved to New York, where he stayed in the where eight of its members—including Gillespie, Parker, and trombonist Benny to take up a life of pimping and gambling. apartment of Buster Smith, one of his Parker—recorded some transcriptions for Green—the avant-garde of the early 40s- Charlie's mother, Addie, employed as a early Kansas City mentors. radio station KFBI. Recently unearthed, domestic, encouraged his education and Musically, Harlem was jumping in those they represent. Parker's earliest recordings saved money in the hope of one day days: the great bands had resident blacks and give us an interesting glimpse of enrolling him in medical school. When it and visiting whites stomping at the Savoy Charlie Parker on the threshold of his seemed obvious that her wishes would and truckin' down the aisles of the Apollo; genius—a glimpse that, frankly, would not come to naught and that her boy's only house bands throbbed with infectious be terribly interesting had it all ended real interest was music, Mrs. Parker, rhythm in numerous little clubs, priming there. But it didn't end there; Parker was unhappy at the sight of her son marching the customers for the late-hour jam still with McShann when the band came to in the Lincoln High School band with a sessions to come. It was a time when one New York in 1942 to record a few sides for cumbersome tuba coiled around him, could hear the greats, the near-greats, and Decca."When I look back," Gene Ramey spent $45 of the money she had saved up the ne'er-greats side by side, slashing the told Jazz Review in 1960, "it seems to me s the 40s for his education to buy him the smoke with riffs and imagination. Parker, that Bird was at that time so advanced in pressed toward the 50s, Parker aforementioned first alto saxophone, an new to the Big Apple, made the rounds, jazz that I do not think we realized to what instrument dating back to 1898 and said to listened, and sat in here and there, but he degree his ideas had become perfected." continued to breathe new have been be in such poor condition that it failed to stir up a job offer (at least, the When the McShann records were released life into American took an even larger sum of money to paying, playing kind ). He did find (the band also had recorded in Dallas and make it function at all. "The instrument employment as dishwasher and general pot Chicago the year before), and the band music, but he was slowly and wasn't fit for the worst kind of amateur cleaner at Jimmy's Chicken Shack, a began coast-to-coast broadcasts from the painfully taking his own. band," recalled bass player Gene Ramey, popular restaurant on St. Nicholas Avenue Savoy, musicians began to notice Parker's who had recently moved to Kansas City where prominent black performers and playing, but few knew his name, as it was when Parker, "a chubby, happy-go-lucky sports figures congregated in the pre-dawn rarely if ever mentioned. kid," joined just such a band, Lawrence hours for a bit of food and fresh gossip. In the summer of 1942, when McShann so easily managed to infiltrate the Earl "88" Keyes' Deans of Swing. It was a Parker's job was made bearable by the fact took his men back to Kansas City, Parker Hines Orchestra. Due to the American third-rate dance band, but, being his first that the place also featured the music of was the only one who stayed in New York. Federation of Musicians' recording ban a job, it represented a major step for Parker pianist Art Tatum, whose eloquent style— Living off his share of the kitty, Parker this time, there is a two-year gap in the and took absolute precedence over any incorporating clever musical quotations became a regular at Monroe's. It beat chronology of jazz recordings; one of the interest he might have had in school.