Is it ok to not like Charlie Parker?

[Ingo Lee]

Louis maybe. Elvis I don’t think I’d really think of that way.

EDIT: pop music at that time was obviously complicated by those separate R&B charts and a lot of black musicians doing things that just weren’t heard by the broader public. So Elvis was a huge revolution for a lot of people but also wasn’t doing anything particularly new and probably wouldn’t claim to be. Then again, Bird probably wouldn’t claim to be either? Who knows. Interesting stuff, anyways

I don't want to give Elvis any credit either, he just blundered into his success while Bird worked thousands of hours and died penniless. But Elvis changed the world, probably as much or more than any other single person?

[Christian Miller]

Max Roach too?

Probably.

Kenny Clarke is the name that came up as the guy who established the new style - but Max was around at the time - although he was ten years younger.

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[Jazz4Four]

Listen to music before the bebop era - stuff like Chick Webb, 30s/40s Basie, Benny Goodman etc. it’s a different world.

This is what jazz drumming sounded like before bebop

Kenny Clarke popularised time keeping on the ride cymbal and comping on the snare, a radical shift but something absolutely basic to modern jazz drum technique - earlier drummers had kept time on the bass, snare and when they became available in the later 30s, the hi hat. Cymbal manufacturers had discovered ways to make dedicated ride cymbals for the purpose around the same time - a meeting of art and technology.

Also bass started to walk in four more and the rhythm guitar was increasingly dropped from small jazz band line ups.

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Thanks Christian, very interesting. That was certainly a big shift.

[AllanAllen]

I don't want to give Elvis any credit either, he just blundered into his success while Bird worked thousands of hours and died penniless. But Elvis changed the world, probably as much or more than any other single person?

I think Elvis worked hard too, anyone who can deliver like that has put time into their craft. He might not have studied chord extensions and substitutions, but he studied something.

All music is hard to play well. One isn’t a better or worse musician on genre alone.

[Ingo Lee]

I think Elvis worked hard too, anyone who can deliver like that has put time into their craft. He might not have studied chord extensions and substitutions, but he studied something.

All music is hard to play well. One isn’t a better or worse musician on genre alone.

You're right. Elvis was also talented enough to become a superstar and jump start the age of rock and roll and all the cultural changes that followed. The inequities of our world are not his fault. But I just always liked Chuck Berry so much better for that genre in that era. He never could have done what Elvis did though.

[Hep To The Jive]

Listen to music before the bebop era - stuff like Chick Webb, 30s/40s Basie, Benny Goodman etc. it’s a different world.

This is what jazz drumming sounded like before bebop

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Sounds great to me! As one good man once said : fk art, let's dance!

[Hep To The Jive]

Speaking of Elvis, the king of r'nr, yeah? But hear this: When Charlie Parker and the bebop movement started to take over the swing scene, most jazz musicians followed the Bird and co right, but there was a smaller but significant group who still wanted to entertain more than innovate, and they started to create small combos with emphasis on the beat kind of like swing big bands before. Thus the original R'nB genre was created. Louis Jordan, guys like that. And that was a direct predcessor to Rock'n roll that we all know and love! Therefore I conclude Charlie Parker has inadvertently helped the birth of the very important genre that influnced and shaped the world far more than bebop actually. Genius is usually in more than just one way ya know!

[grahambop]

the cult members

If you want a jazz cult, there’s the Tristano school.

[JazzPadd]

Fascinating thread! Who’s to say it’s OK for someone to like Charlie Parker, or anyone for that matter?

Personally, while I respect Parker’s contributions to jazz and get why some may like it, it’s not music I enjoy playing or even listening to.

Having said that, horn players at the several venues I frequent for jazz jam sessions here in Japan love to play Bird, and bebop in general, so I learned enough to keep up when tunes get called.

A couple of weeks ago at one venue, I was the only comping instrument; no piano nor other guitars, just a few drummers, a couple of bassists, and five horns. I stayed on stage for three hours comping when needed while they blew to their heart’s content. In fact, I eschewed calling any tunes that night, except maybe a Monk number. As a social experience, it was interesting to me. And all the horns had fun, while I got to work on locking in with bass and drums.

[Christian Miller]

If you want a jazz cult, there’s the Tristano school.

[Christian Miller]

Sounds great to me! As one good man once said : fk art, let's dance!

No-one plays like this! Well, except for that bloke.

And Steve Smith from Journey, for some reason. But he won't answer my calls.

Seriously there's like two guys maybe in London who do this and they are always working. It works so well with acoustic rhythm guitar.

(Aren't drum kits of that era beautiful?)

[Hep To The Jive]

No-one plays like this! Well, except for that bloke.

And Steve Smith from Journey, for some reason. But he won't answer my calls.

Seriously there's like two guys maybe in London who do this and they are always working. It works so well with acoustic rhythm guitar.

(Aren't drum kits of that era beautiful?)

Sometimes I think you gotta pull the ride cymbal out of their kit that will teach them.

In New York there are a few drummers who get that, but in China well...

There was a gig I was on, a New Orleans style band with a sousaphone, our regular drummer wasn't available, so there was this stupid Chinese kid fresh out of jazz school of course. He attempted to play Tiger Rag bebop style on the ride totally falling out of tempo of course, messing up the groove badly. I gave him the look, and on the break almost threatened a physical violence if he ever do it again lol. You gotta teach those kids!

[GuyBoden]

I'm curious, what was the big change in the rhythm?

Personally, I think Jazz rhythms were slowly evolving before early 1940's Bebop, but below is a Parker type rhythm:


I think Parker played a bit of drums too.

[AllanAllen]

I’m surprised how many of you don’t regularly listen to Charlie Parker.

[AllanAllen]

Speaking of Elvis, the king of r'nr, yeah? But hear this: When Charlie Parker and the bebop movement started to take over the swing scene, most jazz musicians followed the Bird and co right, but there was a smaller but significant group who still wanted to entertain more than innovate, and they started to create small combos with emphasis on the beat kind of like swing big bands before. Thus the original R'nB genre was created. Louis Jordan, guys like that. And that was a direct predcessor to Rock'n roll that we all know and love! Therefore I conclude Charlie Parker has inadvertently helped the birth of the very important genre that influnced and shaped the world far more than bebop actually. Genius is usually in more than just one way ya know!

I think swing bands shrunk due to decline in venue budgets, correlated to Parker and bebop, but not caused by it.

[lawson-stone]

Great point—the instrument used can have an affect on how we perceive the music. Jazz flute "should" sound good but I never seem to like it.

Wait until you hear some bebop accordion playing!

[djg]

Wait until you hear some bebop accordion playing!

how about accordion *and* flute?

also this:

[Christian Miller]

I’m surprised how many of you don’t regularly listen to Charlie Parker.

People go through phases of listening to things.

[Hep To The Jive]

I think swing bands shrunk due to decline in venue budgets, correlated to Parker and bebop, but not caused by it.

It could be both. Bird and bebop changed jazz forever, it was becoming concert hall music, an art form, more than just soundtrack for dancers and party goers. It made an opening for R'nB at the time. Personally I'm more interested in that niche where some jazz musicians of that period didn't follow the bebop route and instead helped to create the new genre which eventaully became rocknroll. It fascinates me.

[James W]

I’d be lying if I said I was sufficiently into Max Roach.

But one of my best friends in college and the first guy I met in the music department was a trumpet player a few years older than me and he was VERY into Clifford. So Clifford has been very big for me for a long time.

Most of the Max Roach I’m into is incidental because of the Clifford Brown. Also Charlie Parker Quintet at Massey Hall. I’ve probably listened to that record 500 times if I’ve listened to it once.

(speaking of which — @james … that’s a Bud Powell and Bird date)

Yeah I knew of that, but haven't checked it out much, or enough as I should have done.

[RLetson]

It's tempting to treat changes (I avoid terms like "evolution") in artistic traditions as though they sprung entirely from the internal creative machineries of individual artists or even "schools." But the environments in which artists operate offer both opportunities and constraints. For working musicians in the 1940s, that included where the work was, what the audiences for various kinds of social music wanted (or could be persuaded to listen to), the level of technical sophistication available, along with "internal" matters like aesthetic fatigue and desire to explore and expand the product. (And, I suspect, the impact of the war on availability of personnel and various public-performance/venue licensing regulations in NYC.)

As Hep points out above, the 1940s saw a kind of bifurcation in the live-music environment, some of it thanks to the costs of running a performing unit. It's probably no accident that both bebop and jump blues outfits were smaller than the full-size dance bands, just as it's no accident that audiences could be divided between listeners and dancers. There's also a technological angle--amplification allowed a smaller unit to sound bigger, and a five-piece jump-blues band could make a lot of noise.

None of which minimizes the roles of creative talent and exploratory zeal, and those elements belong to individuals and happy combinations of players who collaborate and compete and push-pull the music into new spaces.

[pamosmusic]

It's tempting to treat changes (I avoid terms like "evolution") in artistic traditions as though they sprung entirely from the internal creative machineries of individual artists or even "schools." But the environments in which artists operate offer both opportunities and constraints. For working musicians in the 1940s, that included where the work was, what the audiences for various kinds of social music wanted (or could be persuaded to listen to), the level of technical sophistication available, along with "internal" matters like aesthetic fatigue and desire to explore and expand the product. (And, I suspect, the impact of the war on availability of personnel and various public-performance/venue licensing regulations in NYC.)

As Hep points out above, the 1940s saw a kind of bifurcation in the live-music environment, some of it thanks to the costs of running a performing unit. It's probably no accident that both bebop and jump blues outfits were smaller than the full-size dance bands, just as it's no accident that audiences could be divided between listeners and dancers. There's also a technological angle--amplification allowed a smaller unit to sound bigger, and a five-piece jump-blues band could make a lot of noise.

None of which minimizes the roles of creative talent and exploratory zeal, and those elements belong to individuals and happy combinations of players who collaborate and compete and push-pull the music into new spaces.

I get all that. And I agree with you. But I'm also saying something different (as are the others making a similar case). Charlie Parker didn't spring from nothing and have no influences. I'm more talking about what came after. The impact he had on later musicians was singular. As an experiment -- could we try and name a jazz musician more often cited by other musicians as a primary influence? Anyone even close?

He didn't invent bebop out of whole cloth, but he's like a funnel everything before had to pass through to get to all the stuff after. They still do. We're just far enough removed now that we can learn his language from people who learned it from people who learned it from him. That's not the same thing as saying we can skip him. We can try, but it won't work. He'll find us.

[djg]

[pamosmusic]

[RLetson]

Peter: Not disagreeing at all, since there are clearly crucial figures in every tradition--Armstrong, Bix, Django, Hawkins, Christian, Bing, Billie, Ella, Frank. And there are also, I think, crucial figures whose contributions don't get noticed right away--say, Chick Webb. And figures whose importance is less technical or innovative than popular or iconic or charismatic--Elvis can be seen that way, though I suspect that his channeling of black music was a kind of cultural breakthrough.

Parker's contributions are certainly as transformative as Armstrong's--he is, if the term means anything, a great artist. But the Great Artist trope is like the Great Man trope in history--it tends to diminish the role of environment and colleagues and predecessors. My own take on this is partly the result of trying to teach undergrads about the network of factors that produce the art (in my case, literary art) we agree is worth attending to. Chaucer and Shakespeare (and probably Homer) didn't come out of nowhere, and it doesn't diminish their achievements to understand what the somewhere was.