Bernard, I love Bird and I love reading what you say about him, but I would caution you about romanticizing his drug addiction. Fans forgive their heroes too much in this regard, believing that great talent confers great license, but this does NOT help the hero or honor the work. It only enables the hero's self-destruction, which is not the same thing as his/her talent.

(I'm working on a book about John Lennon, so this dynamic is very alive in my mind. Forgive me if this seems overly "hot." Your post just joggled me, and Bird's one of my faves, too.)

Getting ripped off is part and parcel of the creative field--and I speak as one who's been directly bilked out of over $100,000 in royalties, and whose style helped launch a gold rush that I (mostly) didn't participate in. You learn to shrug it off, especially if the work is what interests you, which it certainly was for Bird. That answer he gave Babs is bullshit, and Bird knew it. A friend of mine knew Bird, and he always talks about how smart Bird was; smart enough to rationalize; smart enough to work his fans and camp-followers; smart enough to get what he wanted, even if it was exactly what he didn't need.

I'm not blaming Parker or any other addict for their disease; nor am I saying that I would've been able to hold up any better under the pressures and sorrows of the man's life. But we do them no credit to romantically intertwine their addictions with their talent. And we impoverish our future, because future generations absorb this notion of drug-use-as-crucifixion. A friend of mine who knew John Belushi told me that he had a life's plan of dying young, rooted in his love of Jimi Hendrix.

It's a terrible shame that Bird didn't realize the dreams you mention, but the person who kept Bird from them was Bird. Anybody who loves Bird's music (or Hendrix's, or Lennon's, or Belushi's comedy, or Lenny Bruce's) should hate their addictions, not attempt to lessen them because we like them so much. Our liking them so much is, perhaps, part of the problem.

Anyway, just some food for thought. Sorry to name-drop, but I thought it might add some interesting texture to my opinion.

Thanks for the comment, Mike. I completely agree with you and I am sorry if I romanticized the drug use. I didn't mean to. That quotation has an undeniable bullshit tone, you're right. But I think beyond the drugs he's expressing the frustration of someone who can't get a break. He was ripped off blind in ways Belushi and Hendrix never were.

Also, it is a fact that when you asked Bird "What do you do in life?" his first answer was "My mission in life is to keep people off drugs." Maybe that was his idea of a joke but I don't think so. He was genuinely upset when Rodney fell into that trap. Life is full of paradoxes.

Last comment. The emphasis on drugs is actually what annoyed me in Clint Eastwood's movie. (Unlike Ken Burns's, Eastwood's passion for jazz is deep and genuine, and it shows.) But it becomes so damn depressing. There's been millions of drug junkies and 1 Bird. So I don't think drug has much to do with what his fans ought to be really after.
And certainly romanticizing that particularly aspect is both a distraction and a nuisance.

Your mention of Stravinsky couldn't help but remind me of this anecdote (from Alex Ross' "The Rest is Noise"):

"Jazz musicians sat up in their seats when Stravinsky's music started playing: he was speaking something close to their language. When Charlie Parker came to Paris in 1949, he marked the occasion by incorporating the the first notes of the Rite into his solo on "Salt Peanuts." Two years later, paying Birdland in New York, the bebop master spotted Stravinsky at one of the tables and immediately incorporated a motif from Firbird into "Koko," causing the composer to spill his scotch in ecstasy."

I love Charlie Parker with strings. You can really hear how much fun he's having with the music, the arrangement. A groundbreaking album.

Thanks once again for a great post on Parker Bernard. I’m impressed with your knowledge of music as well as Parker. I also really enjoy Mike of Angle’s input on this, very thoughtful.

The story goes that Parker became addicted after a serious injury in an auto accident and became addicted to the morphine given him during his recovery which led to his heroin addiction. I have always taken that with a grain of salt as heroin addiction was fairly common among Jazz musicians though that is not to say that all Jazz musicians had a habit. My own belief is that Parker would have been that much better of a musician without the drugs and booze. I have believed for a long time now that Jazz is over romanticized and there is an awful lot of myth surrounding the life and times of Charlie Parker. While I enjoyed Russell’s biography “Bird Lives” I think he took, shall we say, a certain amount of liberties with his book. If anyone is interested I believe the book by Carl Woideck was a much more honest attempt in filtering out the myth from the facts.

http://books.google.com/books?id=NmDfBAAACAAJ&dq=Carl+Woideck&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result

The first part of Woideck’s book is a biography and the second half consists of an analysis of Parker’s music. I don’t agree with Woidecks’ analysis in every detail particularly his claim that Parker’s music was made up of a myriad of small motifs. But to be fair there is more than one way to analyze and think about music so people will have to judge for themselves. While it is true that Jazz musicians use certain devices to make the music more interesting I believe it is a mistake to conflate that with motifs. But that is just my opinion and I am sure many would disagree.

That’s an interesting choice of tunes you picked. I completely disagree with people who say Parker sold out with his albums “with strings.” One of the musicians who played the violin during the recording said something along the lines “Parker picked up his horn and proceeded to play like a god,” an exaggeration perhaps but not that far from the truth. I think I would have chosen “Just Friends” which supposedly was Parker’s favorite. It was not one of his most musically challenging solos yet it was undeniably one of his most beautiful and inspired solos. The story goes Parker was in his turn very impressed by the classical musicians for their accuracy in playing and their superb sense of time which I find interesting as Jazz musicians like to play slightly behind the beat, or some do at any rate. I’m a bit puzzled by your choice of “Lover Man.” Woideck describes what happened during the recording session which was painful in the extreme to read about. I also believe that Parker was furious that they released that recording.

I agree with you absolutely about Parker’s sound being recognizable and in fact for sax players their “sound” is a very personal thing and not something taken lightly. A person’s sound actually starts with the size and shape of your body especially the shape of your throat and mouth. Then of course the mouthpiece you use is all important and mouthpieces come in a huge variety described as “open” “closed” “bright” and “dark” but that is a topic one could write a book about. However I am very, very, skeptical about Parker playing on an unplayable reed. If it was unplayable how could he play it? The set-up of a saxophone is a personal thing and the difficulty comes from the amount of back pressure. The more back pressure the greater the endurance a musician needs have. I am just skimming over this but the more back pressure the harder it is to articulate and control the horn. The idea behind a stiffer reed is that it supposedly produces a louder sound though the dynamic range can be reduced by using too stiff a reed. Also the ease of getting around your horn (an important aspect of Be-bop which requires excellent technique) can be greatly affected by the stiffness of the reed. But remember that the mouthpiece and the horn itself can affect your sound to a great degree. A stiff reed can be fairly easy to play on closed mouthpiece but impossible to play on an open mouthpiece (close and open basically refers to the distance between the tip of the reed and the tip of the mouthpiece). Then of course there is the “table”, the curve of the mouthpiece, and the style of chamber which all comes into play. But who knows perhaps Parker did play on a very difficult set-up though among players of that era it was common to play on an open mouthpiece with a medium or soft reed.

Great post Bernard, thanks again for taking the time to write it. I can’t wait for your posts on Coltrane (hint, hint).

Thanks for the comments and link, Rob. I think I got the "unplayable reed" story from Russell (he tries it himself, and can't get a sound out). But as you say Russell's book has been criticized for accuracy (though it's such a great read (reed?))

Re. pick of music, I guess I could upload some of my CDs but I am always hoping to find videos on youtube. Re. bebop the pickings are still so meager.

As always it's great to read your musings on jazz, especially as it always gets such interesting responses from Mike and Rob.

Your recent posts on Charlie Parker are well-timed for me. A friend and I have been spending the summer practicing about a dozen of his tunes-- trying to practice our grammar, as it were. I don't consider myself a great connoisseur of the man's music yet, but there is definitely something there that can suck you in if you're not careful. You can chase the Bird, but you can't catch him.

Coltrane was praised for his "sheets of sound" technique, playing patterned lines so quickly as to be not immediately comprehensible to the casual listener, so that it was more of a kind of musical impressionism. But I think Charlie Parker got there first. I recently listened to "Jazz at Massey Hall" for the first time (I'm ashamed it took me song). That's the one where Bird is playing with Diz, Mingus, Max Roach and Bud Powell... on a plastic alto sax that they scrounged up for him last minute because he had pawned off his own for drug money. Talk about sheets of sound-- I felt like I just kind of had to let it roll over me and hope for the best, like a hurricane.

I tried listening to the cut of Lover Man just now with an empty mind, but it was too late-- I'd already gone and polluted it with what you wrote about it, and it gave me the chills. I wonder if it would have done that if I'd just listened to it without reading. It's always so hard to separate the "pure" experience of art from the stories surrounding it, isn't it.

I have always enjoyed the Ella Fitzgerld/Louis Armstrong version of 'Summertime' VERY MUCH.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSs4HkYFRMQ&feature=related

After hearing Charlie Parker's version once, I listened to it again and again with my eyes closed ( which is what I do, always, to concentrate on the music ). It is BEAUTIFUL. Thank you for posting it.

Great music, great post, great comments. Thanks

I read a Gary Larson cartoon today titled " Charlie Parker's private hell." Charlie Parker, in shirt and tie, sweating,is behind a glass panel with a devil dj playing new age music over the pa.

Mike Meyer : This is real weird! I saw the same cartoon last night in a book called "The Unnatural Selections"!--a book of cartoons by Gary Larson, A FAR SIDE COLLECTION. Unbelievable!