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That he was a blues player 1st and foremost---even put it on ballads. And you could always pat your foot, no matter how involved or far afield his ideas went.
Lots more to tell, but I'd wear my finger out writing about the giant of giants...
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10-02-2016 08:02 AM
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Non repetitive？wow,I'm constantly amazed how people can hear the same music in radically different ways.
Originally Posted by neatomic
think there have been a few books released where his melodic patterns have been codified, and found to be used again and again quite extensively. When I first heard Parker I understood what David baker meant when he discussed 3 levels of improvisation. To paraphrase, at level 3 you are consistently combining ideas that that were formerly apart. For mine, his ability to play into and out of his cliches, and the ability to start an idea from anywhere in the bar and to phrase over the bar showed me he had total command of the language and the rhythmic drive of his playing kept his ideas sounding fresh.Last edited by Jazzism; 10-02-2016 at 09:51 AM.
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Bob (bobsguitars09) last posted a comment on another thread on 8/18, so I hope he's just gotten busy and that we'll see more of him in the future. He didn't deserve hostile responses. There were only a few, but they were very abrasive and could make anyone guy-shy about starting new threads. He replied to another thread on 8/18, so I hope his absence since then is just due to being busy. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
I sent him an encouraging PM.Last edited by KirkP; 10-02-2016 at 11:19 AM.
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Tell me somebody what's wrong with 'repeating' anyway? I'll wait. Originally Posted by Jazzism
Lee Konitz astutely called Bird a 'composer'---in my estimation the highest grade to be given an improviser. He explained that Parker had a storehouse of ideas that he cross-referenced or quoted at will. If that's 'repeating' Lordy let me do it too.
Lest we forget, like most jazz greats Parker was a bluesman. It is common practice in blues solos to repeat phrases to get a groove going and get the people in line with one's thinking before taking it where one will...
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bird lives
cheers
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I was just listening to some great Albert King Ed Cherry posted on FB. To me these 2 are different branches of the same tree, Parker's branch with maybe denser harmonic 'leaves', the tree planted in blues soil... Originally Posted by neatomic
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Albert King, oh man! Talk about repetitions! The man played the same few licks all the time, live and on the records, and yet he gets you every time! The magic happens happens somewhere else, regardless of repetitions. Maybe it's delivery that matters? Originally Posted by fasstrack
I agree with Jazzism, if you study CP solos, you can see patterns, that vary in timing and little details, but definitely repeat from solo to solo. But if he could make it sound fresh and exciting, who cares!
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I like bird because hes old
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Maybe. But if the FEELING ain't there... Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
It's also IMO a thing of not 'overstaying your welcome'. The blues masters were great self-editors. I think the jazz masters are, too.
Don't let's forget that Bird's first records with McShann were made in the 78 era---when 3 minute or less recordings necessitated short (or NO) solos. Parker, Lester, Roy---all had that discipline. Fortunately for us, he went on recording into the LP era, where we can hear him stretch out more. Live dates even more so...
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Bird is almost singlehandedly responsible for the fact the music I love is still around. What's not to like?
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i just saw this thread. things I like about bird, not in order
1. nice tone--hard edged but not abrasive: focused, not "sweet." Compare his tone to someone like Paul Desmond, who like bird started out imitating Lester Young. Both are good, but Parker is more forceful and interesting. You know how Coltrane has that yearning, seeking thing going on? Desmond has a "too cool to take my shades off" quaity. Bird has a direct, get your attention, vernacular thing. He's not interested in soothing you, though he can play that way if he wants. There's a man in the streets thing to his tone. Ralph Ellison accussed him of having an amatuerish sound, because it didn't aim to show off how polished it was.
2. Da Blues! Parker is just the world's greatest blues player. Blues phrasing and harmony pushed really far. He mixes beautifully played standard blues licks with flights of fancy that leave your pentatonic scale in the dust. So many guitar players just play the same pentatonic crap but add more effects. Bird took an acoustic instrument and challenged the edges of blues harmony.
3. witty--as mentioned bird started out imitating lester young, and like lester he has a puckish and mischevious sense of originality, humor, and irony.
4. Phrasing--bird is the master of the beat and is always dropping phrases that don't land where you expect. It's like he's dancing instead of walking.
5. Chops. He can do whatever he wants and it shows.
What I don't like
He relies on a lot of standard licks
Bebop gets really tiresome--the combination of avantegarde and relentless cycling-back-to-the-tonic--you can see why Miles wanted to go modal.
Sometimes I hear the mental illness
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I don't know if I agree about Pres. I see what you are saying about Paul Desmond, although I love him. For me it's apples and oranges.
Johnny Hodges for me represents one of the great 'non-Bird' traditions in alto sax... It's hard to play that instrument without going down the bebop route. It's interesting to me that Hodges was a major early influence on Trane.
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Joe Pass wanted to sound like him.Thanks C P rip
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I love Charlie Parker's playing and grew up listening to him. He'd only been dead a few years before I got turned on to him as a kid. imo he had a great tone that worked for what he was doing but it wasn't his greatest asset and he's not remembered specifically for a fantastic tone in the conventional sense. Apparently he realized that as well. He cleaned up for a minute and made a successful tour of Europe around 1950. He met the famous sax educator Sigurd Rascher who taught at the Paris Conservatory if I'm correct. I also believe that later students included Eric Dophy and Michael Brecker. Rascher was big on pitch control by using the embouchure alone. He supposedly could play a chromatic scale off of any fingered note on the horn. He developed ways to extend the upper limits of the horn and get notes higher than a high F# on the horn (A concert) which you can hear in Dolphy and Brecker's playing. Rascher had Selmer build him an alto that had no keys whatsoever, just a smooth conical bore and a mouthpiece, and he was able to play almost anything on it. There's pictures of him with it and it's a thing of beauty. Anyway, Bird was impressed with him and said he would like to study with him to improve his tone.
There's a funny spoken intro by Slim Gaillard on an early 40s side which featured Parker. Gaillard was of course famed for his own brand of hipster dialect with nonsense words like "vouty". In the intro he's saying things like "And now we've got Yardbird McVouty on the alto a rooney. Hey Man, what kind of reed you got Man? Is that a tenor reed you're cutting down?" This is a reference to Parker's habit of taking the hardest tenor reed he could get (sax reeds come in different degrees of hardness numbered from 1, soft, up to 4 or more) and shaping it to fit the alto mouthpiece. The deal with the sax is that the softer reeds have a more complex tone for want of a better word but you can play faster and have more facility with a harder reed. The notes just seem to pop off of the instrument faster. (I used to play the alto. I took it up at 30, studied and got pretty good pretty quick and did some pro gigs). So with reed hardness you're sacrificing tone for facility to some extent. A tenor player I know asked Sonny Rollins at a gig around 1960 what kind of reed he was using and Sonny said a 1 1/2 (one and a half). That's WAY soft for a typical pro but Sonny was going for tone over speed it would seem. There are some contradictions to this issue though. I understand that Desmond used a very hard reed which seems strange because he seemed to go for tone over speed. The type of mouthpiece and what sort of facing it had (open or more closed) could have been a factor, also just chops and intent. And style. Think of Ed Bickert using RW 10s. Desmond once joked that if he practiced a lot he would play too fast.
Just some personal thoughts and any different or more informed opinions are welcome.
http://musicmedic.com/media/WP/news/2011/rascher3.jpg
There's joke about a sax player's hell: Eric Dolphy's timing, Jackie McLean's intonation and Charlie Parker's tone.Last edited by mrcee; 11-27-2016 at 12:21 PM.
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Like others have mentioned, rhythmically his playing is astounding. By that, I mean the rhythm of his phrases and his ability to play with time, racing ahead or slowing down but like someone else said just dancing with such command. Maybe I am wrong, but I don't think that aspect of his playing has been matched to this day.
Along with this command of rhythm, his phrasing is incredible. I can't even think of the technical terms to describe this but I feel like his lines are Bach like with the way he creates tension and then resolves things and which notes are played on the beat and off. Again his work here is the basis of much of what is codified by people like Barry Harris. When you combine this with his command of rhythm you end up with some of the best Jazz playing ever.
I could be wrong, but harmonically, I don't think he is the most advanced, even among some his peers but what he has more than makes up for it.
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Originally Posted by pkirk
you are a good boy,
when Birdy boy, when comes in after that Oboe its just too much, superb. this is a tune where he really plays the melody out, interesting the oboe by itself could be construed as bit gooey, its not Birds sound is right there making the whole thing wow.
also the ethereal quality of the song is brought out, the tempo just floats, Laura gorgeous changes not complicated just moving down whole tones not establishing home key/tonal zone till right at the end.
mines a double
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He's a hell of a singer too :-) Originally Posted by charlieparker
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He's everywhere. Pretty hard to deny he's influenced everyone. I really hope I don't offend someone saying this about Charlie Parker: sometimes the sheer amount of technique is just very overwhelming and slightly annoying. It's like listening to a statistician explain their data in a very precise, articulate, rapid manner. It is difficult to say he has endless musings because he doesn't always, but that's the feeling that I'm left with.
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