Charlie Parker - Bird/The Savoy Recordings (Master Takes) - Part 1

1976 Savoy issue

Today's post covers Charlie "Yardbird" or "Bird" Parker's first three sessions for Savoy records.  The first from September 15, 1944 finds Parker in Tiny Grimes' quintet.  The second from November 26, 1945 features some of his most definitive material with Miles Davis on trumpet, Dizzy Gillespie or Sadik Hakim on piano, Curly Russell on bass, and Max Roach on drums.  The final session from May 8, 1947 features the same band with Bud Powell on piano and Tommy Potter on bass.  Bird is in awesome form and except for the first session, the music is bebop all the way.   While it feels strange writing about music that's been written about a lot, I find there are so things to directions to go when listening to a performance.

The first session is surprising to hear as Parker is backing someone else.  I've mostly heard him as a leader so it's revealing to hear how he plays otherwise.  Well, the answer is that he plays the exact same!  "Tiny's Tempo" is Grimes' answer to Charlie Christian and the sound of Benny Goodman.  It's a riff-theme in that style (played by Parker and Grimes) complete with a flashy shout chorus with lots of repeated notes.  Parker takes the first solo and plays as he always does.  He jumps in right away with that line featuring an ascending arpeggio followed by a descending scalar pattern and just announces himself and bebop in that moment.  It's as if he couldn't wait to play the music he heard rather than the "old school" Swing Era music.  

1989 Japanese reissue

However, he is the lone bebopper and everyone else around him plays in the older style. It gives one an idea of what he sounded like at the time at a jam session or with Billy Eckstine's band.  He just doesn't play remotely like the other players, but fits in anyway.  That's because of Grimes I think, whose Christian-informed solos point in the direction of bebop.  However, he's stiffer and he plays strong, choppy quarter notes when he comps.  Clyde Hart on piano is riff-y in his solo with octaves, blues licks, and a stride-ish approach.

"I'll Always Love You Just the Same" and "Romance Without Finance" feature Grimes' novelty singing.  These tracks feature Parker soloing behind the vocal and it's great to hear because he can really quiet down and play pretty behind the vocalist without taking over.  Of course, he still throws in his double time lines.  As Leonard Feather points out in the liner notes, his tone was still softer and hadn't quite acquired that "diamond cutting edge".  

The fourth and final tune of the session is Parker's "Red Cross".  Based on rhythm changes, it is riff-oriented, but the uptempo, the rhythms, and brief outline up a half-step indicate bebop.  The bridge has a nice hemiola twist that Monk uses a lot, but actually it's an updated idea first heard in ragtime(!) that's been modernized here.  Grimes never pulled together that one line and the syncopated rhythms seems to throw the drummer off a little, but this might be one of the earliest recorded performance of a Charlie Parker composition.  

1989 French reissue

The November 26, 1945 session is Parker's first session as a leader.  He had recorded earlier in the year with the quintet he co-led with Dizzy Gillespie, and while those recordings are part of the jazz canon,  they are joined by musicians who maintained a Swing aesthetic.  Here, everybody involved is bebop and the presence of Max Roach on drums really opens the music and adds that critical piece that completes the bebop picture.  Six songs from that session are here including two blues, a rhythm changes, two pieces based on "Cherokee", and an incomplete ballad performance based on "Embraceable You".  

As a composer, Parker was not interested in new harmonic patterns, and instead he was enticed by the complex ways a musical line could imply harmony.  His style of improvisation is entirely based on this and he had the chops to execute these lines at will and at any tempo, and the mind to recreate these ideas.  Sometimes, he's like a kid who puts together a train set, only to take it apart just to see what he would different when putting it back together.  But his use of registers and rhythm is sometimes so unpredictable that it sounds like he's putting together a different train set! 

Parker was a true improvisor----he may have had his favorite motives and lines and ways of getting around the chords, but he learned to vary it so much as to sound fresh again.  Ornette Coleman has talked about Parker's freedom when he solos and I hear it.  "Thriving From A Riff" sounds like a sound check, but Parker's solo (that's all it is and all we need actually) is a brilliant example of this.  Playing on "Cherokee" changes, his favorite, he sounds like he. could solo forever.  The freedom in his playing is so great, yet he does so in context of playing chord changes.  This is all the more remarkable considering the difficulty of the tune.  In 1945 and for decades afterwards, this tune has been a rite of passage for jazz musicians, long considered a challenge to improvise over. Yet, here is this twenty-five year old man from Kansas City just tearing it up!  The bridge was particularly challenging because it modulates to the key of B major (where Grimes was tripped on "Tiny's Tempo"), but Parker probably broke a sweat as they say.  

2009 Savoy issue

He had mastered the tune, his instrument, and his style of improvisation and the results were stunning.  How could you not follow through?  He single-handedly raised the bar of the jazz musician and really made people practice in a way, that they hadn't before I think.  There's exceptions but this music demanded theory knowledge and keen ears to hear what was going on.  Despite all of the changes, Parker's music fits right in with jazz had been and had come from.  I mentioned ragtime, the other element is Parker's phrasing and melodic sense.  Maybe it's just me because I've been listening to him since high school, but I find his lines singable.  Prior generations of jazz musicians (and future ones) prioritized a vocal-like approach to playing that stems from the blues and Parker does that.  But not just when he plays the blues, it's there when he's playing bebop.

The other thing is the rhythms and the syncopations as in his original blues composition, "Billie's Bounce".  Miles Davis was nineteen and probably nervous, but he was missing notes on the head in and out.  I'm guessing those rhythms took some practice at first---as they all do for everyone still.  Parker's solo is brilliant again blending blues, bebop double-time lines, and a great swing feel.  I mentioned Max Roach on drums and he is just a hawk behind the soloist, waiting for when to jump in and play.  His comping on the snare and bass drum behind the head and the solos is unpredictable and fits right in.  All of a sudden, limb independence became a necessity for jazz drummers wanting to play bebop.  One last note about "Billie's Bounce" is Parker's harmony line before the IV chord.  Again, he doesn't do this often but it works great here.

"Now's the Time" is another Parker composition and perhaps his easiest to play.  Listening to the recording, I'm amazed how relaxed it sounds.  Taken at a medium tempo, it has a down-home feel which I guess makes sense.  Often young musicians play it today and it sounds peppy and far from relaxed.  Maybe it's because they're young and inexperienced, but I feel the intent from the original performance got lost, even when non-beginners play the tune.  

Tommy Potter, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Duke Jordan

Miles Davis' solos on the blues tunes are similarly constructed with some of the same motives and ideas.  Years ago when I listened to "Now's the Time" from this session for the first time, I was shocked to hear Miles Davis' solo because I knew it!  On "Straight, No Chaser", from his 1958 album Milestones, pianist Red Garland plays his solo from "Now's the Time" in block chords.  I know it well from learning Paul Chambers' bass solo right afterwards.  Davis' tone is weak on the album, but the ideas are very unusual and he brings out the #11 in both blues solos.  

Curly Russell

Russell takes a walking bass solo on "Now's The Time" and he has nice, strong groove.  He seems extremely reliable and given the freedom of Roach's playing, having that rock in the bass probably made his job easier.  He really digs in on "Thriving On A Riff" and almost sounds like he's carrying the rhythm here.  I guess he was older than Roach so he was probably leading the groove in this respect.  Hard to tell as the cymbals were not well-recorded, though the impact on the cymbal does ring through with careful listening.  Sadik Hakim takes a piano solo on this and he offers a non-Bud Powell perspective on bebop piano.  The head out is "Anthropology" with a small variation in the bridge. 

"Meandering" was recorded without the musicians knowing.  Based on "Embraceable You", Parker takes a chorus here and while it is good, it's not quite as astonishing as his performance on faster tempos.  The Dial version from 1947 has Parker playing at his balladic best.  Dizzy Gillespie is on piano for most of this session and takes a short solo here before the performance abruptly ends.  He certainly knows his voicings and I guess he's practicing what he preaches: telling Miles Davis and a host of others to learn piano.  The fact that jazz piano is a requirement in jazz degree programs everywhere is likely due to this fact.  Sometimes his voicings are a little thin, but like I said he knows the voicings and where to place them.

"Koko" is a Charlie Parker line for "Cherokee".  I say 'for' because the form for the theme is only sixteen bars and the melody does not seem to allude to the original tune.  It's more of a send-off than anything else.  It's very fast and syncopated and difficult to count through let alone play!  Parker sounds really fierce on this and he is in absolute control of the whirlwind performance.  Roach gets a sixteen bars to solo, but those polymetric ideas he would be famous for are not here.  Instead, there is a barrage of notes on the snare that I believe draws from Sid Catlett.  

Bud Powell

The last session from May 8, 1947 features the same band but with Bud Powell on piano and Tommy Potter on bass.  Unfortunately Powell's solos are just too short to get anywhere, getting no more than sixteen bars on a tune.  Regardless, it sounds like him and he is Charlie Parker on the piano, with his own lines and licks that would become standard jazz vocabulary.  

"Donna Lee" is the first tune and Parker's two choruses are tremendous.  They basically the same format, but like I said earlier, he inserts enough variety to make them sound independent of each other.  At one point he also displaces the harmony.  Davis' tone is far stronger here.  He is supposed to be the composer and I believe it as he quotes from the melody during his solo.  Powell's sixteen measures is more of a tease as he rips through the solo.

"Chasin' The Bird" is another rhythm changes and features contrapuntal lines from Parker and Davis.  Similar to "Ah Leu Cha", this seems to be a lesser-known or -played aspect of Parker's bebop.  This style is reminiscent of New Orleans collective improvisation and I wonder how much it affected Gerry Mulligan's own contrapuntal lines which he would explore extensively in his piano-less groups.

I have a soft spot for "Cheryl" as Joe Henderson's version might be more well known.  It's one of the great lesser played Parker compositions with its syncopations and creative motive that somehow make it sound more modern than bebop.  It also plays really well on bass which makes me wonder how easily it lays on the alto.  Parker's solo is a delight, playing his "Cool Blues" lick and even acknowledging the off-beat syncopation of the melody.  Behind Davis's solo, Powell plays some nice alternate changes----sounds like ii-V a tritone away before the final I chord as well as some aspects of 'Bird Blues'.  Davis acknowledges and plays those changes so it was likely worked out as the regular blues changes return for Powell's solo.  "Buzzy" is a fast-tempo, riff-blues.  Parker's solo alludes to the melody often and shows off his humor which is said to be legendary.