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Here is a live Parker phrase I've slowed down, learn it and admire:
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08-11-2025 02:38 PM
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I do want to reiterate here, that I'm not claiming anyone came out of nowhere. Everyone is working with raw materials. To say that Shakespeare came from nothing and changed literature by shear force of will would be ridiculous and simplistic. Without access to the material he had, Shakespeare would not have left us what he left us.
Originally Posted by RLetson
But to say that Shakespeare didn't utterly change English literature in a way that is unparalleled would also be a little silly. Pretty much everyone coming after (writing in English) had to contend with the body of work, by looking through it for things to improve on or things to reject.
Charlie Parker and Shakespeare and Bach and probably a small handful of others are also interesting because their massive impact also can kind of render them invisible.
You can say you don't get much from Parker, but you still play a bunch of little Parker licks and Parker-isms and you can't go to a session without knowing a few of his tunes, and the way people deal harmonically with the blues is the way Parker did, and the ubiquity of rhythm changes, and contrafacts, and the quotes that people use, etc etc.
It's easy to miss because he's not the shells you're collecting, he's the water you're swimming in.
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Peter: Our conversation may not be traveling along the same vectors. It's just that by training and preference I'm equally interested in historical-cultural context as in great artists and works. (And I write that as one who specialized in Chaucer and Shakespeare in grad school.)
And FWIW, Shakespeare and Bach both reached their positions as crucial artists generations after their deaths. To be sure, Shakespeare was revived in the Restoration and 18th century--but almost always in revised, cleaned-up, and "improved" form--Lear and Cordelia survive! Cordelia marries Edgar!
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Right. But I think the other vector we’re traveling along is that you’re saying that like it’s contrary to what I’m saying and it’s not. Originally Posted by RLetson
Julius Caesar was a product of cultural context and didn’t bend the world to his will. A few historical changes or shifts of fate and he was a normal dude or a mediocre general or a villain rather than a hero of the history that was written about him. But by virtue of where he ended up, he became the yardstick by which two millennia of European rulers measured themselves.
If I tell you Caesar was singularly influential on the rulers who came after, you can say that he was just a product of cultural forces etc etc, and you’d be right, but it won’t change the fact that the rulers of Europe studied the Gallic Wars and called themselves things like Kaiser and Tsar for two thousand years after he died.
People view history through the lens of individual experience. I tend to think we’d learn more about history if we didn’t. But we do.
Now what were we talking about again?
Oh right. Yeah. I don’t know that that matters all that much? Does it make them less impactful?And FWIW, Shakespeare and Bach both reached their positions as crucial artists generations after their deaths. To be sure, Shakespeare was revived in the Restoration and 18th century--but almost always in revised, cleaned-up, and "improved" form--Lear and Cordelia survive! Cordelia marries Edgar!
And it would I guess mean Charlie Parker’s influence on his art is even easier to defend because his impact was immediate so we know what his contemporaries and immediate successors said about him.
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Not to be too nit-picky, but the enduring model of Roman imperialism started with Julius' nephew Octavius (later Augustus), who created the post-republican Roman state apparatus and cemented the centralization of power and the dynastic model of succession--which he branded with his family name. His uncle was what we might now call an oligarch who was about to become Boss Oligarch before his assassination by an opposition that didn't want an oligarch-become-king. Ironically, that's exactly what emerged after the Triumvirate imploded in civil war.
Which probably just means substituting Augustus for Julius in you historical example. But for a pedantic ex-English teacher, nits must be picked.
And I don't have anything against Charlie Parker. God knows I had to navigate enough of his tunes in order to keep up with those jazz guys. (And I've always listened to more Monk, but that's just me.)
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Not to be too nit picky, but you can substitute whatever you want and the Russians would still have named their emperors after Caesar for a few centuries. Originally Posted by RLetson
Not to mention that Augustus was an honorific used for “exalted” or whatever and denoted the senior imperial figure after Augustus died. Caesar was just the dudes name and came to represent authority for two thousand years.
Might not make sense that a bunch of people would’ve named their rulers after the Roman second in command but they did. Or maybe they were naming themselves after the family writ large, but still that would mean that they put more emphasis on the man's family name than on the highest title in the empire.
You can’t substitute your own understanding of history for that of the people you’re trying to understand. Even if you know more about the history than they did.
So to make this at least tangentially relevant. You might know more about music history than baby Sonny Stitt did, but Bird was his Sun moon and stars. And if you want to know about Bird’s impact on the music after him, then you can’t substitute your Birds Eye view.Last edited by pamosmusic; 08-11-2025 at 09:21 PM.
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Friends, guitar nerds, jazz-o-philes,
lend me your ears.
I come to bury Bird, not to praise him.
iykyk
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I'm offa Bird because of the aesthetics of the music - spaz squealing isn't my thing. But what Petey is saying is true. How he was an archetype in jazz, like Shakespeare to literature.
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For all Bird Nerds (like me), I just found this site which identifies loads of musical quotes found in his solos (with some audio clips):
Quotes in Bird's performance
I’ve always wondered what the quote was that he played near the end of ‘Warming up a Riff’ that makes someone in the studio laugh (probably Dizzy, I believe he was comping on piano in this session).
The answer is ‘Cocktails for Two’ apparently, not a tune I know! (Quote no. 045 on the list further down the page.)
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There’s more to Bird than that. Originally Posted by Strat-itis
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does that mean you do not know this gem of a record? Originally Posted by grahambop
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I suppose it makes Shakespeare a less typical Renaissance playwright and Bach less an exemplar of the Baroque musical style (because he was considered somewhat over-complex to a vulgar degree within his lifetime.) Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Which is important if you want to know what Renaissance drama or baroque music actually was - but less so if you aren't interested in historical genres and styles. Because if we said in one of those daft discussions - let's boil an art from down to one person - and you said Shakespeare for literature, and Bach for music, people might actually grudgingly accept it.
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Even now in 2025 I still find myself agreeing with Miles's history of jazz in four words.
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Originally Posted by Christian Miller
What four words?
“I’m working here motherf*****”
” listen to Frank Sinatra “
”who’s your keyboard player?”
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That's the version I thought of but it's a little hard to pick up in Birds quote at first listen. Originally Posted by djg
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And then there’s Spike Jones … Originally Posted by wintermoon
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the only time i ever heard bird stumped and out of his depth:
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hard to forget that one. Originally Posted by pcjazz
bird probably thought of benny carters version.
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doesn’t really help that Monk keeps going to the bridge unexpectedly. Originally Posted by djg
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Well, mine would be a disappointment after those. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
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it is spliced. dean benedetti only recorded bird. the mosaic box is the holy grail. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Dean Benedetti - Wikipedia
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groucho harpo chico zeppo Originally Posted by Christian Miller
actually: louis armstrong. charlie parker
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I read about him and the box set. Then looked at used copies on Dicogs for a while. Originally Posted by djg
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get it if you have everything else. there were sporadic releases from benedettis recordings over the years, and the complete collection was always something of a myth. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
until it was discovered and released.
i have a special place in my heart for the royal roost recordings. they are ok soundwise and ooze atmosphere. they got several working bands of bird plus guests including vocalists. the announcements are great. also it leads you to other great bebop recordings from the royal roost, the metropolitan bopera house. like tadd dameron.
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