A saxophone—correction, the saxophone of its era—instantly blazes out of the box with no introduction, no windup, no warning. The opening second in a series of live, private recordings is already in flight, already at speed. Flurries of patterned notes are sent twisting through the air, fast and sharp as switchblades. At times, they leap into the high registers, then plunge in tailspins, only to rocket up again in fits of furious exploration. Occasionally, melodic flecks of the day’s popular songs—“Pick Yourself Up,” “Buttons and Bows”—get pulled into the rush. Compared to the prevailing ‘play nice’ customs of musical engagement followed back then, the gloves are off here and convention be damned. This is daredevil creativity welded together with rule-busting innovation. An untamed sense of pushing the envelope fills the room.
Every genre has one: that meteoric figure—the fated, doomed hero—who burns white-hot only to tragically flame out far, far too soon. Robert Johnson stepped up for blues. Hank Williams claimed country. Charlie Poole preceded and presided over pre-country, first known as hillbilly, then as old-time music. Amédé Ardoin had enough time to get the dance started for Louisiana’s Creole and Cajun partiers.
Jazz? That came under the purview of the pioneering genius Charlie Parker. Or “Bird,” in hip parlance. The alto saxophone heard whipping about is being flown by none other.
Close to 70 years after dreadfully dying on the Upper East Side in 1955, at the ripe old age of 34, Parker is now graced with a new album—of rare, newfound music nonetheless.
Miraculous.
Bird in Kansas City curates 13 performances across three different settings, all traced to that thriving hub over the span of 1941-1951. All were originally chronicled without commercial intent. Who knew at the time that these personal mementos, stashed away for years upon years, would become the stuff of dreams? Undiscovered, unheard, unbelievable.
Despite often being casual, candid, relaxed recordings—rather than formal studio sessions made under business-like rigors—Parker’s horn remains the brazen, quick-draw Wild West frontier known as bebop. It is the fast, jarring, urgent, complex, small-combo style of jazz that drew gasps and dropped jaws when contrasted against the swing of big-band orchestras. No, the new direction taken was not for dancing or singing; this was serious listening music. This is how revolution sounded in the 1940s: punk in a coat and tie, exploding out from cool, hot-handed cats with names like Dizzy, Monk and Klook. But Bird was the de facto kingpin.
These glimpses of Parker every couple of years—when he’d find himself back in K.C., his birthplace (the Kansas side of town) and early stomping grounds (the Missouri side)—are fascinating. Aside from some basic rhythm support (walking bass and incidental drums here, a surprise guitar there), Charlie’s all-encompassing horn reigns supreme. The major exception twice resides in early, unofficial snapshots that find him ensconced—yet busting out in solos—within Jay McShann’s orchestra during a practice in the winter of 1941. “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You,” like the bouncier “Margie,” features Joe Coleman’s croon at the mic, the full band’s cushioned propulsion and a 20-year-old Bird taking flight when given the spotlight.
A few tracks stem from a June 1944 visit to a local studio owned and operated by Vic Damon. For 50 cents a side, anyone could walk off the street and cut a record. Charlie and some pals took advantage for a friendly, informal pickup date. “Body and Soul” was one of the four numbers called by Parker. As was the case with Charlie as well as with bebop in general, the song gets ransacked by extreme customization—albeit (relatively) calmly, deserving of its ballad status. However, that’s nothing compared to “Cherokee.” Because Bird fixated on Ray Noble’s swing piece, toiling tirelessly on how to crack technical aspects holding back his full soloing potential. One such solution arises here. (Wait seven years to hear the floodgates truly burst open.) Yet Bird wasn’t all fire and whiplash. Having saved the softest, sweetest notes, “My Heart Tells Me” swoons with sentimentality as well as a guitar comping a steadily chopped pulse.
The majority of performances occurred at friend Phil Baxter’s house party in July 1951. These are very much live, fly-on-the-wall recordings that come complete with ambient chatter to paint the scene. You can pick out Charlie’s muddy voice amid his spectators. Imagine being there when Robert Johnson was road testing “Come On In My Kitchen” among buddies in a Delta shack or Hank Williams yodeling out “Long Gone Lonesome Blues” with an ad hoc band instead of his Drifting Cowboys. It’s like that, except, in Bird’s case, the dream is reality and the proof is in hand.
Parker flies especially free through three improvisations consecutively given the simple, generic name of “Bird Song.” Each is quite different. “Bird Song #1,” the album opener, soars over a toe-tapping bassline running underneath. “Bird Song #2” takes an extended flight. “Bird Song #3,” catapulting off the changes of “Lady Be Good,” is the most scalding of the bunch.
“Perdido” and “Honeysuckle Rose”—the Fats Waller tune that originally sparked a teenaged Parker’s obsessive practicing after notoriously flubbing his solo while sitting in with members of Count Basie’s band—get aired out. “Body and Soul” returns. So does “Cherokee.” Benefitting from a few blowing years since the version in Damon’s studio, this one is far more abstracted, wholly disguised by torrents of mad molecules. Running up and down teetering towers of vertically-stacked notes while still advancing the music horizontally, his pace sends the bass into fibrillation. This one, in particular, is a volcano. That creative fury, a result of a chord-interval epiphany, is what morphed into his own signature, “Ko Ko”: The shot heard ’round the world when released in 1946. Jazz would never be the same again.
Blues were a specialty for Charlie. Not only could he play them, musically—in 12 bars. He certainly also lived them, personally and repeatedly—every 24 hours. Heroin, alcohol, pawn shops, divorce, suicide attempts, mental chaos, more heroin, more alcohol, rehab, the death of his two-year-old daughter, depression: All took their toll, prematurely as well as fatally.
But in Kansas City, Bird’s horn roars back, vibrantly alive and highly spirited. Shortly after Parker’s shocking demise, graffiti on New York City walls proclaimed in denial: “Bird lives!” And yes, for these 46 special minutes, he surely does indeed.
Label: Verve
Release Date: 10/25/24
Artist Website: charlieparkermusic.com
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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