Charlie Parker--c/d?

just got Charlie Parker: A Studio Chronicle (1940-1948) on JSP and it is making today a good day, musically anyway. i only had various parker comps before, but decided it was time to take the plunge. a cheap plunge, too! only set me back $20 for 5 CDs. the packaging (as is standard for JSP) isn't anything special, but the remastering sounds as good as anything.

hey speaking of those phil schaap shows -- are those archived anywhere?

i can't believe someone made a C/D thread on Charlie Parker

One way into Parker: compare and contrast him w/ Ornette Coleman.

Or Jimmy Lyons. I started backwards: got into Albert Ayler, late-period John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, then Bird. The problem with Bird was the problem with me: I was listening/waiting for things in his music that simply were not going to happen (like multiphonics). After a spell of listening to some particularly Lyons-heavy Cecil records, I came back to Bird. Not only did it suddenly make more sense to me, but the sheer drive of it was inescapable.

One way into Parker: compare and contrast him w/ Ornette Coleman.

^^^i dont get this
ornette is way more out there than bird

is this more of that if-it-hurts-my-ears-its-good type shit, where avant garde stuff becomes easier to get into bcuz you were raised on edgy rock

i can't believe someone made a C/D thread on Charlie Parker

― funderwear (san frandisco)

I just came in here to say exactly that. Nothing is sacred.

Holy shit, Dentistry - my own path to Bird-fandom was nearly identical to yours.

If you're struggling to 'get' early bop and looking for a way in Ornette is not the way - Dolphy is the way in ... he's modern enough to maintain your interest and he quotes Bird so often that when you return to those Bird records you don't understand it will seem like you already know what going on. It's like going back to a song that a dj has sampled. You already know you like the sound, so just go enjoy the source.

On another note, ILM is constant reminder that I cannot tolerate reading other people's opinions. A Charlie Parker c/d, really?

A Charlie Parker c/d, really?
Honestly, why is everyone so surprised? It's like this with everyone here.
Oh, and classic.

ornette is way more out there than bird

No shit! But in comparison to his predecessors, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, or any of the 1930s jazz musicians, Parker is way out there. I think you need to consider the context of the music and a frame of reference.

Charlie Parker is unarguably the single most important figure to jazz of the last century. Talk to any jazz musician and they will tell you that he was the pivotal in changing the face of jazz and most of anyone who has followed him have either quoted and taken from him or have adopted a direction contradictory to what he was about. Talk to any sax player and they will tell you his sound and technique are just as good if not better than any player to follow him.

An S/D thread maybe, but C/D, please.

frame = point

Charlie Parker is unarguably the single most important figure to jazz of the last century.
Um, ever hear of a guy named Louis Armstrong? He was a tad influential in jazz in particular and pop music in general. And then there's Miles, Monk, Duke, Ornette, etc.
I think you'd have plenty of arguments there.

Your only argument might be for Louis Armstrong, who was pivotal for the advancement of jazz, but who was not doing things incredibly original harmonically. The manner in which Parker harmonically advanced the style was unparalleled.

I'm not saying those people weren't influential but they have not done for jazz what Charlie Parker has and perhaps I should rephrase my statement. With respect to soloing and improvisation, I still hold Charlie Parker is unarguably the single most important figure in jazz. Duke and Monk opened up compositional avenues previously unexplored, I agree. And the direction Miles and Ornette took jazz away from bop was incredible, but they were moving in a contradictory direction to what Parker had already established.

but who was not doing things incredibly original harmonically

uh, they were pretty original at the time

i shouldn't have even gotten into this, the point is, its obnoxiously naive and moreover fucking retarded to even have a c/d thread on parker. s/d ok, but whatevs, i don't want to argue who is better or more influential because i love all the musicians mentioned.

Louis Armstrong ... was not doing things incredibly original harmonically
Sure, Bird sounds more out there today, but Armstrong was doing things harmonically that were revolutionary for his times. I'd argue that his 1920s solos were more mind-blowing in their day than Parker's were in the 40s.
And as much as I love Parker, he didn't singlehandedly direct all of these harmonic changes in jazz. Diz, Charlie Christian, Monk and others were right in the mix as well — they were all learning from each other at Minton's. Parker gets more of the credit because he was probably the most accomplished musician (and the biggest fuck-up). Christian didn't live long enough and Monk's music didn't catch on until years later.

its obnoxiously naive and moreover fucking retarded to even have a c/d thread on parker.
Again, this is ILM!

armstrong, parker and ellington kinda stand above the rest dudes, incl monk and miles

i dont mean in terms of personal preference, but in terms of causing major shifts in terms of how musicians were recording

i guess i sound kind of annoying there but im basing that on my understanding of consensus as much as my own observations - i might put coltrane above miles & monk as well

d-minor bagz, let's not fight about who was the biggest influence, who was the raddest, who had the sweetest tone, etc. let's just freak out about the fact that there are these awesome recordings of parker, monk, ellington, armstrong, et al that we can listen to OVER AND OVER. it's neat!

it's great music to dance to!

http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s46/guitar_town/Calvin_dancing2.jpg

best fuckin musician of the 20th century. I assume he'd lose to Trane in an ilm sax poll and at that level of greatness it's hard to be really partisan but Christ almighty every time I put on some Charlie Parker these days I feel like I am listening to the greatest music ever made

I'd definitely rate him in probably the top 2 or 3 most influential musicians of the 20th century.

I listen to more Coltrane, but I wouldn't fuss against any Parker vote.

mentioned it upthread but bears repeating -- Charlie Parker: A Studio Chronicle (1940-1948) is innnnnnnsane. the guy was incapable of making anything but brilliant sounds.

looks like crouch's bio of parker (first volume at least) will be out soon. he's been talking about it for decades.
http://cdn.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2013/09/23/what-made-charlie-parker-great-reviewing-stanley-crouch-s-biography-on-bird/_jcr_content/body/inlineimage_0.img.503.jpg/1379929518894.cached.jpg
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/23/what-made-charlie-parker-great-reviewing-stanley-crouch-s-biography-on-bird.html

Thanks for posting that! I was actually just wondering today what the status of that project was.

It looks good; actually can't wait to read it, even though I'm a little ambivalent about Crouch. He can be brilliant one moment, and then completely embarrass himself the next by, for instance, blindly trashing Miles' electric period or renouncing his avant-garde past (he came to NYC as David Murray's drummer, and actually acquits himself well on the Wildflowers comp). (though I doubt either of those two topics will come up in the Bird bios.)

whoa, I had no idea about Crouch's career as an out drummer, kind of surprising. found this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXTC-sQR9r0

yeah crouch is obviously kind of a blowhard, but i dunno, i like that his parker bio will be feisty at least, as opposed to a dry academic thing.

Christgau digs it.

hah, this is the season for first-part music biographies that don't even get to the good part (see lewisohn's beatles tome). still, sounds pretty cool, just ordered it.

Am about 20 pages into it, and totally digging it. It makes sense that it only goes up to 1942 considering the chronology starts at the 16th century.

haha, sounds great.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/popcast-early-bird-and-kansas-city-lightning/?ref=music&_r=0
haven't gotten the book in the mail for some reason, but this interview is good. i dunno, crouch's writing can be didactic and off-putting at times, but whenever i hear/read an interview with him, i think he seems like a nice guy.

Yeah, whenever he's not expounding on What Jazz Is(n't), he's a great read/listen. In Montgomery Burns' Jazz he came up with this great description of Parker's sound, that it was "devoid of pity."

I naively assumed this bio wouldn't contain a flailing, predictably Crouchian, mis-timed swing at hip-hop. I was wrong.

Seriously, it's like he's trying to hit a ball thrown in the opposite direction.

"Montgomery Burns Jazz" still gets me every time -- who originated that?

I did. Welcome!

good display name too

Hey, what? I was calling it that back in early 2000, when that shit first aired.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n02/ian-penman/birditis

great etc etc

excellent

True believers want to reclaim Parker from a now (as they see it) deeply degraded image, emphasising instead the dare and complexity of his music; this is already a gamble when many fair-weather fans tend to shut down at the first mention of flattened fifths and roving thirteenths. Even if you’ve loved this music for half a lifetime, you can find the algebraic lingo of jazz theory about as clarifying as a book of logarithms baked in mud.

This leapt out at me and it's indicative that other people on Twitter have cited this bit while linking. Can't go with this; you can't keep on talking or writing about jazz by thinking it's some aleatoric game of chance whose theories are arrived at by sheer luck and chutzpah. You HAVE to get in the technical knowledge; jazz isn't rock. "Algebraic lingo" sounds borderline racist too, i.e. how dare these uppity blacks have complicated ways of thinking up and playing music, who do they think they are, WHITE EUROPEANS?

Piece borders on "tl;dr" territory and no I wasn't inspired to go and listen to Bird after reading it. Perhaps reading the books themselves will persuade me.

With all due respect I'm inclined to think you "dr" the piece if that's what you think penman's getting at

Jazz was pop.

He is saying the theory he has read as written by others on Parker's music doesn't elucidate the inner workings of it. But it isn't confined to black music; Penman reviewed the Merce Cunningham box a couple of years ago, wasn't shy of calling the sleeve notes academic or dry (but in a more readable, not as reactionary a manner, I don't have the article at the mo.) The important thing is, despite any lack of theory, I think the ear for music is working great whenever I read him - in that article, he got that David Tudor was the best of the lot in that set.

But yes, its hard to deny he has never had a lot of time for theory - its never played a role in the middle of one of his arguments of why Zappa is terrible or Tim Buckley is great - nor would you find him writing about his favourite solos were he reviewing a Parker box set instead of biogs. But that's ok, I don't agree that theory is the way to engage with this music, only a way.

^yeah. I wasn't trying to be snarky, Marcello - well, plainly I was, because I'm in a crabbit mood. Your putting those words in the author's mouth just felt offensive & disingenuous to me. The review is about different critical approaches; it explains the reasons IP personally finds them unsatisfying, and argues for a new approach - this is a million miles away from saying that George Russell should have known his place or whatever nonsense you read into it. As xyzzz__ says, Penman has a pretty complete aesthetic sense and he applies it consistently to all music. I don't always agree with him (I'm largely in it for the writing, I wouldn't presume to argue w/you guys about the necessity of theory in jazz criticism or whatever) but you were being ridiculously unfair at the end of your 1st paragraph.

he becomes better known for a ruinous pile-it-high lifestyle, for being the only addict pre-Fassbinder to get fatter, not thinner, as his habit deepens; for plunging into late decrepitude only to die in the lap of luxury, in a high-society eyrie belonging to the Rothschild child and ‘Jazz Baroness’, Pannonica de Koenigswarter.

Really? I always thought the popular perception of Charlie Parker included the fact thathe pushed jazz into headier, less pop-oriented territory and fucked with the audience's expectations from standards. I mean people who disliked bebop at the time usually thought it was "not melodic enough" or "too esoteric" or that sort of thing, I thought.

One way into Parker: compare and contrast him w/ Ornette Coleman.

^^^i dont get this
ornette is way more out there than bird

― joe 40oz (deej), Tuesday, October 7, 2008 6:12 PM (6 years ago)

. . .

Yeah, whenever he's not expounding on What Jazz Is(n't), he's a great read/listen. In Montgomery Burns' Jazz he came up with this great description of Parker's sound, that it was "devoid of pity."

― hopping and bopping to the krokodil rot (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, October 7, 2013 3:13 PM (1 year ago)

yeah it's not the out-there-ness, it's the free, cutting lyric lines, just playing these little songs that slice through everything

there's some place where nietzsche is doing his usual thing and posturing a lot, and distancing himself from his past views on art (lots of affiliation w/ romanticism via wagner in them), and he says something about how all he wants for music now is like rossini or something, not all this heaviness. 'devoid of pity' reminds me of that.

listening to live earlier stuff in the car this morning & then to some Verve stuff after getting home -- the way his melodic phrases always carry on a few bars beyond the central hook (specifically thinking of "Ornithology" here), they're like paragraphs, really chewy paragraphs with dependent clauses, or like listening to somebody talk and make clever asides while making a vital point

Goddamn...
"Yardbird Suite" is like someone juggling firecrackers, but also just tremendously cool... like, laid way back, but sharp... it's an amazing balance...
And such a beautiful melody as well...