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Can you recommend me a biography of Charlie Parker that focuses on the music? Amazon has one by Stanley Crouch but that seems to be dealing with the early days only. I'm less interested in the legend, more in the music. Thank you.
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05-17-2023 07:21 AM
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Carl Woideck's book. I have it and I like it.
Charlie Parker: His Music and Life (The Michigan American Music): Amazon.co.uk: Carl Woideck: 9780472085552: Books
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Bird: The life and music of Charlie Parker by Chuck Haddix is a good read. Here is a link - Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker by Chuck Haddix | Goodreads 'Book is less than $10.
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Crouch's Kansas City Lightning is confined to the early years, as you say, but the writing is vivid: "The rhythm section had him by the tail, but there was no holding or cornering Bird. Disappearing acts were his specialty. Just when you thought you had him, he'd move, coming up with another idea, one that was as bold as red paint on a white sheet."
Crouch talks to people who knew Parker, including the guitarist Biddy Fleet: "The thing I loved about Bird is this: he wasn't one of those who's got to write something down, go home, study on it, and the next time we meet, we'll try it out. Anything anyone did that Bird liked, when he found out what it was, he'd do it right away. Instantly. Only once on everything."
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I don't know that much about Bird but remember reading that he was rejected/embarrassed and kicked off a stage, then did some serious shed time, then came back strong. Not exactly "The Bridge" duration shed time, but something intense.
Originally Posted by Litterick
What Biddy Fleet describes above sounds like it came after that reflection period. Maybe, but I'm not sure.
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The rejection was at Reno's in Kansas City in the spring of 1936. Jo Jones, Count Basie's drummer, was leading the jam session. Parker, then sixteen, got up to play, but soon lost track of the changes. Jones threw a cymbal at Parker's feet. Parker resolved to practice more: fifteen hours a day sometimes. He learned Lester Young's solos from Count Basie's records and worked the summer of 1937 in a band at a resort in the Ozarks.
Parker met Fleet in Harlem in 1939. Fleet's son has written about the friendship.
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Bird Lives! by Ross Russell was the book that really opened up Parker, his music and the world that shaped him, for me. I was familiar with his music and had listened to a lot of it but as I read this book, I was made aware of the other musicians, the people who surrounded him in the times when he formed his own identity as a person and as an alto player. I know you said you want a book about the music more than the life, but after I read about the other people in that world and time, and the influences and well researched anecdotal information, I have to say I had a solid springboard of listening and context and it was through my own follow up that I got an in depth understanding of the music itself. It's a good read and I recommend it; it brought the music to life for me.
It also showed me that there is nothing that can substitute for a deep, broad, and guided commentary to the actual recordings of the time. I can't separate Parker from Kenny Clark's drumming, Dodo Marmarosa's playing, the evolution that he experienced in his contacts with Dizzy Gillespie and Red Rodney and this book gave me a good chronological timeline for their recordings. Then I "got it".
My two cents.
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There's one book that chronicles every day of Bird's career, hour by hour practically!
Forgot the name.
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Yeah, I;d stay away from Crouch-. two words: racial politics. There's no winner there. Originally Posted by docsteve
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Oh I don’t mind a solid opinion as long as it is well argued. It’s just that I’m more interested in the music than into the social situation in Kansas City in the 1920s. Originally Posted by sgcim
I’m from Europe anyway, so I don’t really have skin in the game of racial politics in America.
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Well you can’t understand jazz without knowing where it came from. Think those chords and syncopation came out of nowhere?
And of course the social and cultural situation of Kansas City, etc.
Having said that, for the most part with an individual artist the social element is not the main driver. I mean, we all know about Miles’ harassment at the hands of police and even some recordings he did about it, but he was a middle class dentist’s kid who studied at Juilliard. He and Parker were musical sponges who soaked up everything that came along, and had the talent and training to know what to do with it.
I enjoyed the docufilm that Clint Eastwood did about Bird. It was said to be very true to life, and his widowed common law wife Chan Woods (later married Phil Woods—guess she liked horn men) consulted with him on it and gave him unreleased recordings.
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You got me there Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
Read the extract of Crouch's biography on Amazon and got the Kindle edition for the sheer vividness of its writing. May check out Woideck later.
Thanks to all for your suggestions!
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I read Kansas City Lightning last summer (checked it out from the library like a proper old man should). I didn't find the racial politics overwhelming or even out of place. He mentions race when it's a part of the story. Overall I loved it...wasn't so much about the music per se, as it was about getting Charlie to the first point where he's a star. I think it's a worthwhile read for any fan of Bird. Originally Posted by sgcim
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Hi docsteve
Henry Martin's Charlie Parker, Composer (Oxford University Press, 2000) is an in-depth consideration of the tunes themselves. It's a good companion to Woideck's Charlie Parker, his Music and Life.
There are a couple of interesting guitar connections there, too: Martin dedicates his book to Ben Givan, (who has written on Django's music) and Martin also quotes Woideck citing Gene Ramey saying that "I think it was a guitarist named Efferge Ware who helped to straighten Bird out on the cycles — the relationship of the chords and how to weave melodies into them."
All the best
Mick W
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