[Dixielandjazz] Charlie Parker

[John Farrell]

Can't stay out of this any longer - for years I shared the opinion of those
listmates who have condemned Bird's playing as an incomprehensible
cacophony. Nothing could be further from the truth, Charlie Parker's total
mastery of harmony (for instance he could play the notoriously difficult
Cherokee in every key) is unequalled in the history of jazz, he just came at
it from a different angle.

It was at a party that his genius first dawned on me (and genius is
certainly le mot juste here) - it was very late, I had drunk a little too
much, after an evening of nonstop OKOM on the turntable somebody put on a
Parker LP of containing a tune I knew but cannot now remember - listening to
it carefully, quite alone in my alcoholic half-world, the amazing things
which he did with the changes simply blew me away. From that moment on I
listened to Bird with new, more receptive ears and now cannot get enough of
his glorious romping through anything put in front of him. On his famous
Massey Hall recording it is no wonder that the rest of the front line.
knowing what is about to happen, make a point of always taking their solos
first - when Bird steps up to the mike he blows them all to kingdom come.

I suspect that some of the anti-Parker comments we have read were prompted
by such faulty reasoning as "I don't like this kinda stuff therefore it must
be garbage", a misconception of which I have been guilty many times in the
past - in fact in my younger years I would not go to hear a band unless the
rhythm section included a banjo!!. Admittedly Parker's great flurries of
notes, his brilliant alternative chord sequences, his angular construction
of familiar tunes all fall strangely on OKOM attuned ears but the fact
remains that Charlie Parker was probably the most accomplished jazz
saxophonist ever to grace this planet.

John Farrell
http://homepages.tesco.net/~stridepiano/midifiles.htm