Can you imagine Picasso`s ”Guernica” at a Starving Artists sale? The Taj Mahal in the middle of a shopping center? How about ”Pagliacci”
performed by Enrico Caruso and the cast of ”Hair”?
Something that incongruous has happened to Charlie Parker`s music, in the soundtrack from the film ”Bird” (CBS Records). The movie, now playing in Chicago, is based on Parker`s life and it does feature his glorious alto saxophone solos.
But through the magic of digital recording, Parker`s creations have been lifted out of their original contexts, and new accompaniments to them have been recorded by 1988 musicians.
Those musicians can`t help but infect Parker`s 1945-54 performances with post-Parker techniques. Most annoying are the thuddy, ahead-of-the-beat timekeeping of bassist Ron Carter and the nervous flourishes of drummer John Guerin. And would Parker have permitted the botched trumpet playing on the soundtrack version of ”Koko”?
That`s one of three Parker masterpieces done here in cruel new versions. An oozing string section has been added to ”Parker`s Mood,” destroying the starkness of his playing; the intimacy of his 1945 ”Now`s The Time” vanishes in the soundtrack performance. As for his extraordinary ”Koko” solo, a perfect example of the passionate Parker intensity that could blister the paint off the walls, it even sounds stiff behind the rococco drums and horse- race bass.
Parker and Louis Armstrong were jazz`s greatest improvisers, and the saxophonist was among the great lyric artists of the century. As the central figure in the bop revolution, Parker`s discoveries forever changed the realm of jazz`s possibilities.
Most significantly, Parker`s is a music of extremes: of dissonant harmony, of broken rhythms and startling accents, of fast tempos-all of which demanded a coordination of nerve, muscle and mind that extended human creativity.
Those extremes arose because Parker had to communicate extreme emotion, a breadth and depth of feeling that the human spirit can hardly bear. So, along with his extraordinary melodic qualities, the acuteness of his sensibility is what is communicated to his listeners.
Savoy Records has just released ”The Best Of Bird On Savoy,” on LP and CD. It includes the original ”Now`s The Time,” in which Parker`s rich, vivid blues phrases respond to the involvement of Max Roach, drums, and, playing piano, Dizzy Gillespie, of all people. And ”Koko” is an extraordinary turbulence of emotions, each precisely stated in a glorious, fleeting instant.
Both are from Parker`s first session as a leader, as is another classic blues, ”Billie`s Bounce.” Even more revealing is the blues ”Parker`s Mood,” in which a veneer of sophistication quickly yields to alternately subtle and heart-wrenching blues lines, a complex, intense mood. Incidentally, this album is taken from a two-LP album ”Bird/The Savoy Recordings: Master Takes,” itself taken from the five-LP boxed set ”Charlie Parker/The Complete Savoy Recordings,” which includes many alternate and incomplete takes, all from 1945-48.
”The Very Best of Bird” (Warner Bros.) is a two-LP album of 1946-47 master takes from Dial Records, which was founded specifically to document Parker. Certainly the Dials are as brilliant as the Savoys, and much more diversified. Parker`s ”Ornithology” chorus is a masterpiece, and two generations of young saxophonists plunged into despair trying to copy the devastating four-bar break that begins his ”Night In Tunisia” solo.
He became a great ballad improviser on his Dial dates. In his classic
”Embraceable You”, he abandons George Gershwin`s gently seductive theme in order to confess and develop complex conflicts and promises, all of which expand on the pledge of devotion with which he opens, in a thorough portrait of a romance. If ever a man was in love, it was Charlie Parker. (Twelve of his Dials have been issued on CD only in ”Bird Symbols,” from Charlie Parker Records.)
Verve has issued Parker`s studio recordings from the end of 1948 to his last session, in December, 1954. ”The Original Recordings Of Charlie Parker” collects 12 Verve sides, on LP and CD, including his most popular recordings, ”April In Paris” and the fine ”Just Friends,” both with an unsympathetic string section. His Verves include Latin-jazz experiments (the first are in ”Afro-Cuban Jazz,” a two-LP set). Joined by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Thelonious Monk, he delivers a terrifically driving
”Bloomdido” solo and a nutty ”Melancholy Baby” (on the ”Bird & Diz”
LP).
During the 1950s, Parker recorded with big bands and background singers, and often with small groups. The best group is a forceful 1953 quartet with pianist Al Haig, include Parker`s only studio recording of his finest composition, ”Confirmation,” in a great performance. Nevertheless, the drugs and alcohol that had often stimulated him in his earlier years had turned against him. None of his post-1948 work equalled his Savoy and Dial masterpieces.
Yet even on days when the very act of living was agony, Parker could summon the resources to create. There`s a 1952 blues, ”Cosmic Rays,” in which his sax tone is thin and coarse, and his phrases reek of despair. Suddenly in his third chorus he blurts a harrowing tumult of cries, totally at odds with the rhythm, yet confined within a four-bar unit-and the tragedy of his life, the vulnerability of his humanity and his lyric art in a brutal world, overwhelm the listener. (This and ”Confirmation” are on the ”Now`s The Time” LP.)
Dozens of Parker`s live performances have been issued on records. A classic is his witty flow of melody in ”Lady Be Good,” in the Verve LP
”Bird and Pres 1946: The JATP concerts”. There`s also the LP ”The Quintet: Jazz At Massey Hall” (Original Jazz Classics), where, using the pseudonym Charlie Chan, he`s joined by Gillespie, pianist Bud Powell, bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Max Roach in what may have been the finest all-star band ever assembled.
Among his best are the fiery ”Diz & Bird In Concert,” a Roulette LP from Carnegie Hall, 1947; Savoy`s glowing, expansive ”Bird At The Roost,” on four CD`s, and also on two two-disc and one single-disc LP albums; and ”One Night In Birdland” (a two-LP Columbia album), in which his intense alto sax is perfectly complemented by the immense poise of Fats Navarro`s glittering trumpet. In a happy 1950 set, ”One Night In Chicago” (a Savoy LP), he was joined by such Chicago musicians as tenor saxophonist Claude McLin, guitarist George Freeman and pianist Chris Anderson.
True, Parker`s life was chaotic and, as a result of his addictions, physically painful. But in the words of critic Max Harrison, ”he is not a man to be pitied. On all but his darkest days, he experienced the joy of creation that is given few men to know and he enriched the lives of all those who could respond to his work.”
Thanks to Alan Goldsher of the Jazz Record Mart for his discographical assistance.
