View Poll Results: How many Charlie Parker tunes do you know?
- Voters
- 75. You may not vote on this poll
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I don't know any
16 21.33% -
A couple
32 42.67% -
A half dozen or so
17 22.67% -
At least a dozen, probably a few more
6 8.00% -
Twenty, easy, probably more
4 5.33%
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Art...man...one of my little jazz wisdoms I give to people getting into jazz is that if it has Art Blakey on drums, it's probably worth hearing.
as to Parker.
He's someone I haven't transcribed much of, just a few licks here and there...I should do more, I suppose. I don't know how much I'd get out of it at this point, I certainly don't have the technical facility to pull some of it off in "real time."
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03-25-2015 12:05 PM
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In thinking about a theme of this thread, one name popped into my head: Miles. I love a lot of his material and some of his bands and recordings are among my all-time favorites. He had a distinctive way of blowing the horn but I don't think it can be said he changed the way most trumpet players played. (I mean physically play---hold, finger, blow--their trumpets.)
I say this because there seems to be a suggestion that being an influential jazz musician means changing the way people play that same instrument (and other instrumentalists play their instruments). I don't think that's, um, a clear idea. (It may be a good one, it may be true, but I'm not clear on what truth is being claimed.)
To take a simple example: Max Roach was a wildly influential drummer, as was Elvin Jones, but they didn't invent some new way of hitting a snare drum or ride cymbal. They are both giants. They were both great. They were innovative. Any band they played with was better for having them. But they didn't reinvent the snare drum or something. Miles didn't reinvent the trumpet. And I'm not sure how one might say Charlie Parker's playing changed the way, say, Clifford Brown played a trumpet or Oscar Peterson played a piano.
I love Bird too and think his tone was distinctive. (I think the main thing about Bird and Coltrane---and Miles, for that matter---among non-musicians is simply their tone. They express a lot of feeling with their basic tones.) But I don't know how much he changed the way people play alto saxophone. (I'm not saying he didn't. I don't play alto sax, or any sax, and don't know how Bird's mechanics influenced those of, well, most bebop alto players since.) And I really don't know what it would even mean to suggest he changed the way Wes played guitar or Elvin Jones played drums or Horace Silver played piano.
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All great points!!! I guess my main contention on this guitarist as an innovator that changed the music of jazz through their playing is that I have never had a horn player,pianist,drummer,vocalist etc. call 4on6, Bright Size Life, Minor Swing, Cisco,El Hombre, West Coast Blues, etc. But on many many gigs I've been on Now's the Time,All Blues,Blue in Green, So What,Joy Spring etc. Are called and there is an expectation that I know these tunes.I believe that all of the other instruments have dominated the growth/progress of jazz up to now, this current generation. As innovative a guitarist and beloved giant master of jazz that Wes is horn players don't know his tunes. Yet here we are talking about how many Bird tunes we know. Ha ha ha. As an aside the number one jazz guitar tune that audience and other instrumentalist request in my experience is Breezin' mostly associated with Benson even though Gabor Szabo made an earlier version that is super tasty.
Last edited by eddy b.; 03-25-2015 at 02:02 PM.
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Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Originally Posted by Vladan
We have never met in person so some technological wizardry was used!
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Originally Posted by eddy b.
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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About Parker's tone and the way he changed what people played ...
Others have commented on Parker's phrasing, articulation, and timing. At the moment I accept on faith that these are distinctive, and perhaps more than I can appreciate at this stage of my journey.
While not to detract from the totality of Parker's genius, some elements of his phrasing and vocabulary were heavily used before him. For example, buried somewhere around the house I have a Louis Armstrong transcription that came out of Scott Reeves' book Creative Jazz Improvisation (4th Edition) and that has significant across-the-bar phrasing, enclosure, and IIRC some sidestepping. I have heard at least one Armstrong clip where the rhythm section seems unable to keep up! I will look for these things, but I fear they may have been lost in a move.
The three things that seem distinctive about Parker to me are
- His speed
- His vocabulary including the liberal use of bebop scales.
- His ability to put everything together high tempo.
These are not the only great thing about him, but they are the three distinctive things of which I am aware at the moment. The second item, vocabulary, seems to me to be a way that he (and Diz) influenced how people after him play.
As for tone ... It is difficult to separate a player's tone from the rest of their presentation, but people do it, myself included. That said, I have to say that I find Parker's tone beautiful, but not earthshakingly so or in any way pioneering. I find it easier to focus on his tone in his slower presentations, and this is the best one I've run across in terms of tone:
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Originally Posted by HighSpeedSpoon
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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Originally Posted by HighSpeedSpoon
If you slow one of Bird's solos down and try to play along, even if you know the correct notes, trying to match his rhythmic complexities and 'elasticity' is incredibly difficult.
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Originally Posted by Vladan
Actually I think it's really useful to record yourself. You hear the weak points that you don't notice while playing. Then you know what to focus on to improve.
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Re: Mark's post-
Except Max and Elvin did re-invent how the drum set is played in jazz.
And it's likely that the approach of the Coltrane Quartet (which remains influential) was - in part - developed to capitalize on the sound and approach of Elvin Jones.
From the Washington Post Obit:
"Mr. Roach's most significant innovations came in the 1940s, when he and another jazz drummer, Kenny Clarke, devised a new concept of musical time. By playing the beat-by-beat pulse on the "ride" cymbal instead of on the thudding bass drum, Roach and Clarke developed a flexible, flowing rhythmic pattern that allowed soloists to play freely. The new approach also left space for the drummer to insert dramatic accents on the snare drum, "crash" cymbal and other components of the trap set.By matching his rhythmic attack with a tune's melody, Mr. Roach brought a newfound subtlety of expression to his instrument. He often shifted the dynamic emphasis from one part of his drum kit to another within a single phrase, creating a sense of tonal color and movement.
Virtually every jazz drummer plays in that manner today, but in the 1940s, it was a revolutionary musical advance."
But to Mark's point about Miles and to bring this back to the OP a bit, a musician's influence can be multi- dimensional. Is Miles more important as a trumpet player, composer, musical conceptualist, or band leader ( including who he hires and how much control he delegates)? And Parker? Player, theorist, and composer. He's like Bach. Like him or not, he's directly and indirectly responsible for the development of our language - the language of jazz and music in general. If you are serious about music you would be wise to study and understand it.Last edited by rictroll; 03-25-2015 at 07:10 PM. Reason: add stuff
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Grahambop & Dutchbopper.
Congrats on the Jordu rendition, I've heard it previously but it's
certainly worth another listen , absolute bliss.
Best.
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Originally Posted by rictroll
Here's a classic example. I have listened to this track loads of times, and I still can't figure out the drum pattern Elvin does here. It sounds like he is constantly fitting more sub-divisions of beats into the bar than there can possibly be.
This performance always takes me 'out of this world'!
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Originally Posted by grahambop
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Originally Posted by grahambop
Let's not divert the thread to one more sub topic.
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I know Ornithology, Bill's Bounce, Blues for Alice, Little Suede Shoes (from a workshop- don't care for the tune), maybe a couple more I can't recall off-hand. I like Anthropology so maybe I'll work on that. When it comes to Bird I stick to the heads. I don't want to spend time on the solos.
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Originally Posted by HighSpeedSpoon
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This may sound stupid , but i don't know the answer. Why the horn? i mean... things couldn't have been easy for black folks in those days. And i think a horn would be, one of the more costly instruments.and id think hard to get. was not like they were in every corner store!!!. where did all these horns come from? and get into the hands of a very discriminated people group in those days. I hope that's not a Racist question. i hate everyone equally. but would love some in-site , not a war lol
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Originally Posted by Pocket Player
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Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
Some of the ballad recordings probably give a better idea of how full his tone really was.
Did that sax player ever hear him live? It makes a big difference.
I once heard Dexter Gordon at Ronnie Scotts, and believe me, I have never heard a sound like that from any sax player. Even the modern recordings do not fully capture Dexter's sound. It completely filled the club, it was a massive 'wide' tone that seemed to come from all directions in the room. He started playing as soon as he left the dressing-room backstage, and his sound did NOT get any louder when he approached the mike and went through the PA system. I have never heard that happen before, and I saw most of the famous sax players at Ronnie Scotts.
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Originally Posted by Pocket Player
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Originally Posted by grahambop
One wonders why Parker did not usually record as well.
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Originally Posted by rictroll
Earlier, someone pointed out how rhythmic Bird's playing was and someone else mentioned that Bird had played drums. I think that rhythmic quality of Bird's playing----like bebop drumming----is important. But I don't know if he got that from Max Roach or Kenny Clarke or it was a separate development....
band in a box tabs..
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