Jump to content

So, you don't any Bird eh......


BERIGAN

Recommended Posts

The other thing that limits me (self-limiting, to be sure), is that bebop changes both wear me out, and also (often) bore me to tears. (Oh god, here's the turn-around, again -- and again -- and again -- and again). Head, solo, solo, solo, head. Head, solo, solo, solo, head.)

years of hearing enough changes to drive a person batty has soured me on that era.

I don't think I follow you there. You're tired of "changes"? Considering how much of jazz in general has been in the "head, solos, head" form, I don't know whether to feel sorry for you that you're bored to tears, or simply wonder if you've been stuck in the wrong genre all this time. ^_^ No offense, really, I just think your comment sounds kind of extreme considering the company you're keeping here...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 93
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

My other "excuse" (and this probably really is just an excuse), is that when I first got into jazz (circa early 90's), there seemed like so much Parker out there -- literally, in terms of the shear number of recordings available. But also in terms of cats that were tryin' to cop Parker's style.

Now I free admit that this is now just an excuse, because there are plenty of resources (here, in particular, and elsewhere) to help one narrow down the vast number of choices.

The other thing that limits me (self-limiting, to be sure), is that bebop changes both wear me out, and also (often) bore me to tears. (Oh god, here's the turn-around, again -- and again -- and again -- and again). Head, solo, solo, solo, head. Head, solo, solo, solo, head.)

Now intellectually I know there's more out there than just that, but years of hearing enough changes to drive a person batty has soured me on that era.

It ain't right, but it is so.

I hear that, now more than ever, but that's where Bird (& vintage Dizzy, & Bud) seperated themselves from "Bebop" as a style (and that's also why I'm preaching listening to the music instead of the style). What those guys did with "bebop" was as free as any music can be. They as a matter of course did shit with the changes that implied (and quite often literalized) alternatives that prevent that deadening cyclic repetition thing from setting in. And Bird in particular had a rhythmic thing that was about as free as free can be. Bar lines and beats meant nothing to this cat in terms of how he phrased. You wanna hear free really free music, hey - Bird is it.

Biggest eye-opener I ever got was transcribing Bird's "Perdido" (an archtypical "endless cycle of predictable changes" tune if ever there was one) solo from Massey Hall. I could sing it, and eventually - after learning where all the apparently endless harmonic sleights-of-hand were going to occur - play most of it, but when it came time to put it down on paper, damn near nothing went on the paper where I though it was going to (or how it was going to go). I've never had that extreme an experience with any other player, and it drove home once and for all that this cat was one of the freest, most open creators of music that has ever been documented.

All I'm saying is that Bird is somebody for whom detailed listening/feeling is even more essential than usual, simply because there is so much detail there (and this being about "objective analysis", we'll not get into the realm of the emotional, even though Bird's music is as complex and multi-layered in that regard as it is in the constructive). Even on all but the crappiest sounding live shit, you can still hear the lines and feel the rhythms, so this "sound quality" thing doesn't fly with me unless you're just listening to "music" as an ambient tool rather than to the actual details of what's actually being played. Anybody who's inclined to do that has that as their perogative, but any opinion as to the merits of Bird's music based on listening to only the surface "stylistic" qualities of it has zero credibility as far as I'm concerned. Which again, is their perogative, but I ain't gonna hear all that.

Not often that I take such an intractable absolutist stance about anything, but this is one case where I do. No wiggle room here. Even an endless omniverse has certain signposts, and Bird is definitely one of those.

Edited by JSngry
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, the very best Bird is often heard on some pretty rough sounding airshots. The Dial/Savoy/Verve trilogy (none of which is in anything resembling "poor" sound) is far more often than not just the tip of the iceberg. Live Bird is a universe unto itself, a freakin' glorious universe, and the sound quality often requires active listener engagement.

Deal with it.

The Man speaks the truth!

I love those Royal Roost airshots. That's music you can feel!

parker-11.jpg

Move on the Birdland ( w/ Fats) set is high art.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, let's not stone to death the "Big Als" of the world over the Bird issue. I still have plenty of room in my heart for guys easing into jazz. It starts with small steps. How many of us got into certain musics through pretty lame entries. My introduction to blues started with a horrible Gatemouth Brown meets Roy Clark LP! I loved that stupid record. Whereas maybe I wouldn't have had ears for Mercy Baby or Lazy Lester at that time. So yeah, EASING into Parker through his early 50's stuff ain't a crime in my book at all. Preach all you want Brother Sangrey! It ain't a perfect world, and Parker is an acquired MUSICAL taste for a listener of any generation, regardless of sound quality. Armstrong's "Hot Five" is not going to catch the ear initially of MOST easily as "The Sidewinder." To damn those who would otherwise get there, goes against everything you otherwise subscribe to on this board. Who's the guy who was saying he wanted to stick his Johnson in something the other day after hearing some badass R&B? Now people HAVE to get Dial-era Parker or they're out?! Dude....

Anyway, it's all a journey. HOW we get there is not as important as that we DO get there. I'm sure as listeners, we all have a different story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, let's not stone to death the "Big Als" of the world over the Bird issue. I still have plenty of room in my heart for guys easing into jazz. It starts with small steps. How many of us got into certain musics through pretty lame entries. My introduction to blues started with a horrible Gatemouth Brown meets Roy Clark LP! I loved that stupid record. Whereas maybe I wouldn't have had ears for Mercy Baby or Lazy Lester at that time. So yeah, EASING into Parker through his early 50's stuff ain't a crime in my book at all. Preach all you want Brother Sangrey! It ain't a perfect world, and Parker is an acquired MUSICAL taste for a listener of any generation, regardless of sound quality. Armstrong's "Hot Five" is not going to catch the ear initially of MOST easily as "The Sidewinder." To damn those who would otherwise get there, goes against everything you otherwise subscribe to on this board. Who's the guy who was saying he wanted to stick his Johnson in something the other day after hearing some badass R&B? Now people HAVE to get Dial-era Parker or they're out?! Dude....

Anyway, it's all a journey. HOW we get there is not as important as that we DO get there. I'm sure as listeners, we all have a different story.

This ain't about guys "easing into jazz". Not even.

This is about people who are already there who think they've heard Bird & think that's nothing more than someing you're "supposed" to like. Or even worse, think that it's just "good" or even "great".

The evidence speaks for itself that Bird was one of the greatest documented creators of music. Period. Hear it now or hear it later, but don't think that any other opinion is correct or even justified. It ain't. Anybody who thinks that it is is simply wrong.

Fuck "bebop", fuck "jazz", and for that matter, fuck "music". This ain't about any of that. This is about life. What Bird showed about life is about as deep, no - as true as anything that anybody's ever shown. This little piddling "musical taste" shit is not the point. It's anything but the point.

I'm not generally one to draw lines, but here I do. And there is no backing down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Love Bird, own lots (studio and live, but no solos only records), sound quality NOT an issue for me - I listen to Son House on Paramont fer fuck sakes so Bird's studio stuff is sparkling Hi Fi, relatively speaking. And I totally agree that Bird is as deep as the ocean, albeit on a more emotional level since I can just barely play the saxophone...BUT I don't listen all that often 'cause listening, really listening or even anything close, is about as daunting as trying to swin the ocean, takes real focus and is kinda exhausting, on some levels I find Ayler easier, but I do know it's all there anytime I'm up to making the effort.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That Birdland 1950 airshot w/Navarro, Powell & Blakey is my favorite live bebop-era date. Love the 1945 Town Hall date on Uptown, but man, that 1950 show smokes up the stereo every time.

I was a bit bummed when Savoy yanked all of the chatter, commercials, and other extraneous stuff from the last reissue of the live Royal Roost material. The late-1980s set (I have only one volume) really gives you a sense of hearing Bird in an NYC club setting. Speaking of live Bird--the other Uptown release, BOSTON 1952, definitely worth checking out. Hell, the chance just to hear Bird w/Mingus, Roy Haynes, Joe Gordon, and Dick Twardzik is worth the price of admission alone!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess that being REAL OLD has some compensations .... I started to collect jazz albums when I was 11 in 1951 and growing up in South Africa. These were Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw 78's (remember those?). I started playing the clarinet at the same time, and added the alto when I was 13 ... by this time I was deeply into BOP .. and those early Parker albums on Savoy and Verve (I was only able to acquire the Dials much later when I moved to England), and especially "Massey Hall" were required listening for my little coterie of teenage jazz devotees. My first LP machine was a portable plastic Swedish machine, with a tone arm that must have weighed 5 lbs! So, for me the issue of sonic quality was not a factor. When I did acquire my first real "Hi-Fi" in 1957 (a converted Garrard player with a great manual Acos tone arm, and small JBL speakers) I was suddenly in a whole new world of sound. (My parents continued to use this setup until their deaths in the late eighties!).

Also, my personal circumstances make it possible for me to indulge my jazz habit so that I can acquire basically what pleases me (within reason, of course). I could not imagine having a collection of jazz without a substantial representation of Charlie Parker's music. A rough count in my own collection, shows about 45 Parker CDs, including several boxed sets. But, of course, musical tastes do differ ... for instance, I only own one Cecil Taylor album, a very early one on Contemporary.

Interestingly I have found that when I have tried to "educate" friends about jazz, that the issue of sound quality is a significant factor. The major complaint is that "the music sounds so old ..." and lacks the dynamic sound quality of modern, mostly rock-oriented recordings ... This seems to be particularly true with vocal records ... Ah Well! Their loss ....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I first started listening to Bird in 1984. Then I started collecting all the Dial sessions on those import Spotlight LP's. Then of course I had to get the Savoy stuff, then the Verve, various live sessions... Well, what can I say? As with all the true giants of jazz, as with Armstrong, Ellington, Prez, and so on, there's always something more to appreciate, some aspect you've overlooked, some new layer you didn't notice before.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First Parker I got was the old Stash LEGENDARY DIAL MASTERS V. 1. I went for at least a month without listening to much of anything else--save for the several Parker Savoy/Verve sides that I picked up as a result of the Dial. A friend of mine said, "You are in a Charlie Parker haze."

I don't have much of a musician's appreciation for what Bird accomplished (a rudimentary understanding, and certainly an abstract sense of it), but I surely have the human (as Jim said) appreciation of it. It's all there, all right... and the all that's there is an awful lot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interestingly I have found that when I have tried to "educate" friends about jazz, that the issue of sound quality is a significant factor. The major complaint is that "the music sounds so old ..." and lacks the dynamic sound quality of modern, mostly rock-oriented recordings ... This seems to be particularly true with vocal records ...

That's the difference between people who listen to music primarily as "entertainment" and those who listen to it primarily for "information". Not that one is intrinsically more "noble" than the other or anything like that, but it does have a bearing on how various opinions about the music itself should be taken. Both are valid approaches, and opinions from both approaches are totally valid, but only within the realm of that approach. Somebody who can't listen to 78s as a matter of principal beacause the music sounds "old" has as skewed/limited a perspective as somebody who can't listen to rap as a matter of principal because there's no "melody" or some such. In both cases, the dislike/discomfort is primarily caused by one's "entertainment needs" not being met.

All well and good, "entertainment" per se is a basic, positive, vital human function, and I'd never suggest that anybody is "wrong" for not being entertained by any type of music, but - music also functions as a conveyor of information, and one should consider the possibility that one's entertainment biases, whatever they may be, might be preventing them from receiving some vital human information, information that could possibly have a deep and lasting impact on the way they perceives their own life. And that once that information has been received, processed, and began to be digested, it might well begin to be "entertaining".

This can be extrapolated out past "recording quality" into all other areas of musical expression/experience. There's no musical "genre" that I know of that is incapable of conveying, in its own way, some heavy human information. But nobody like everything. Which is as it should be, except when something is dimissed on entertainment-rooted grounds masquerading as "informed commentary" on the information contained in the music.

Again, as blanket statements of general taste, "I can't listen to 78s" is no different than "I can't listen to rap", and "I can't listen to house" is no different than "I can't listen to classical", and "I can't listen to avant-garde" is no different than "I can't listen to bop".

It really isn't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As much as I love Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Hodges, Rollins, Trane, etc. to my mind, the two greatest jazz soloists were Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker. I started listening to Bird back in the mid 50's and have been listening to him ever since. His greatness has been unsurpassed in my opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Damn..... that's the last time I confess something so sensitive around here. :g

Why don't I own any Bird? Goldberg hit it early on: limited time, limited resources. I listen to what I want to listen to, not what I think someone else thinks I should listen to. Of course I think Charlie Parker is a genius, and that pretty much anything I listen to owes a humongous debt to him; I'd have to be an even bigger damnfool than I already am to think otherwise. That, however, does not mean I want to listen to him when I'd rather be listening to something else.

Simple and shallow as this: I listen to music as entertainment. End of story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another thing: anyone who has any preconceived notion that I am even remotely a "jazz fan" is nuts. I am no more a jazz fan than I am a rock fan, or a big band fan, or a bossa nova fan. If it catches my ear, that's all I care about. I hang out and post here because I enjoy the music made by a lot of the cats that get discussed here. If not owning a Bird record is tantamount to treason (as the great Nez sez) and is cause for banishment, well..... nice knowing you guys. :g

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That Birdland 1950 airshot w/Navarro, Powell & Blakey is my favorite live bebop-era date.

Do you have the 1953(?) Birdland broadcast w/Bird, Dizzy, Bud, Forgetwhoonbass, & "Sgt. Roy Haynes"? That's another one...

Don't have it--I've got a ton of live Bird, but not that date. What's it on? (I've got a bit of Bird w/Bud at Birdland on one of the ESP 1953 discs, but that's w/Art Taylor on drums, along w/Candido--just two cuts.)

Did that second Ember live-Bird set ever come out? Probably would've covered the date you're talking about...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Being a late-20th century youth and most assuredly a child of your so-called "avant" stuff far, far more than anything else, I've probably seen both angles--the dabbler thing and the in deep thing. I can't count how many times I've forced my ass down to the record shop to buy something I knew was beyond my (then-present?) means or interests--The Hot Fives/Sevens, the Blanton/Webster Ellington, some Bird--perhaps out of some stubborn desire to force-expand my horizons. And I can say this much--Coltrane, Ornette, Ayler, Dolphy, and Rahsaan are and always will be my gospel, but Bird scares the shit out of me.

I may have developed some sort of appreciation for Messrs. Armstrong, Ellington (etc.)--and I sure as hell enjoy the music on the bluntest of levels--but Parker has the capacity to incite visceral reaction from the listener. And as I've slogged through the different roles--casual listener, connoisseur, scholar, disciple, musician--the music has reached me in different ways. For people who know more than a piece about what jazz is about, I (emotionally) can't understand the disconnect with Bird. This hews more toward what JS was talking about--the strong dualism among the listening community (again, dabblers and the in deep).

In short, if you can't listen to it, there are probably a whirlwind of reasons, but if you can't feel it, there's something missing there. I think it is a hard line.

Edited by ep1str0phy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bird is thee goddamn pinnacle. (We can put Duke & Monk there also, tho' i ain't gots time to explain why.)

c

Those would be my three choices for the pinnacle, Clem. Ellington and Monk as musical architects first and (amazing) soloists second, Parker the reverse. But there's no doubting that as a soloist, Bird burned the brightest of anyone. In fact, though I own a lot of Bird on disc, I don't listen to him as much or for as long as I should because he's so brilliant that really listening to him can be like staring into the sun.

Time to pull out the discs and go burn those aural retinas again...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's possible that a pure music fan who is not just a "jazz" fan could only dig Trane and not even dig Bird. Or maybe they are real into Bob Marley and Monk, and not "jazz" in general. Are they "wrong"? Many "jazz" fans would say YES!!!!! I'm not one of those people. I know lot's of people who are very, very, very much into lots of different kinds of music that would not Bird or Louis Armstrong. If you don't dig Albert Ayler are you wrong? If you don't dig Ornette Coleman are you wrong? If you don't dig Wynton Marsalis are you wrong ( :P )? If you don't dig Black Sabbath are you a poser Metalhead?

For me, musical tastes aren't that strict and I can allow for someone not digging one or THE founding fathers of any particular genre. Me, I love Bird now. But he wasn't my first jazz love. It was Hank Mobley. Guess I wasn't living right back then.... :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think it's a matter of 'right' or 'wrong' per se. I think the zealousness of listenership is sort of a non-issue, anyway--personally, I love Bird when I hear him, but it can be like staring the sun in the face (short bursts... maybe I can't hear Bird 24/7, that is). I'm of the mind that tastes do differ, but I'd prefer to speak along the lines of appreciation. I won't speak for others, but I would doubt the cred of any 'in deep' jazz man on the street who couldn't look past the scratches, blips, and audio din of a Bird recording.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...