[Dixielandjazz] Charlie Parker & Roots jazz

[Stephen G Barbone]

When I was a young clarinet wannabe, Omer Simeon introduced me to  
Charlie Parker, outside Jimmy Ryan's on 52nd Street. Simeon insisted I  
hear Parker's next set. (He was playing across the street) He asked  
Bird to play his composition Ko Ko for me. Telling me it was based on  
Cherokee Chord Changes.

So I went in to listen. What did I hear? On his first solo chorus,  
Bird quoted the first two bars of the Picou solo in High Society.  
Later I listened to a lot of Bird live and on records and realized  
that he quoted those Picou bars fairly often in various tunes. Perhaps  
as a way of paying homage to a past great?

Simeon and Bird taught me a good lesson about "hearing" jazz, Bird, it  
turned out, wasn't so very far out. He was, IMO, a blues player who  
just heard the music a little differently from moldy figs like me.  
Luckily, I started "hearing" music and realizing that there is a  
connecting thread to all of it. And I broadened my appreciation to  
many styles, jazz and classical.

Later on Bird was quoted in a Down Beat Interview as saying  "I like  
Dixieland, but can't play it because I just hear music a little  
differently, that's all" But he listened to all kinds of music  
including Country & Western and he found things to like about each  
genre.

Cheers,

Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband