*
Today Charlie Parker would have turned 90. His birth date has been lodged in my head since 1980, when I listened to a live birthday tribute concert from the Chicago Jazz Festival on WBEZ-FM. It featured Dizzy Gillespie, James Moody, and other luminaries that I don't remember at the moment. Anyway, here's the Bird with big band recorded in March 1952, one of a handful of sessions he did in the studio with a big band, as opposed to small combo or strings. Yes, it's that "Night and Day," featured on this very blog last night as performed by Earl Bostic. Both sides were recorded within, at most, 3 or 4 years of each other --- one being a dance tune for teen parties, the other being bop in a jazz/pop setting.
The CD compilation on which this tune appears, Charlie Parker Big Band, collects several sessions from the early 1950s. The bands are staffed by both veteran and rising stars of the era. This performance boasts a rhythm section with Oscar Peterson (p), Ray Brown (b), and Freddie Green (g). Another session features Charlie Mingus (b) and Max Roach (d), not to mention Miles Davis french horn blower Junior Collins (from Birth Of The Cool). A third session features Fifty50 hero Buddy Rich.
Strangely, this YouTube clip appears to come from one of the virtual radio stations --- "Jazz Nation Radio 108.5" --- embedded in the Grand Theft Auto video game. And judging from the YouTube comments, at least a few shorties think it's awesome.
Happy birthday, Yardbird.
Night And Day, Charlie Parker and big band (1952, from "Charlie Parker Big Band," track 6; Verve reissue of Mercury 11068), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.
Heroin addict making it to 90? That would be some amazing genes, or some bizarre mutation. Although Bill Burroughs kept on ticking....perhaps punishment via rememberance for playing William Tell with his wife. But of course duration doesn't always equate in proportion to affect. Since it stuck, a bit of Shelly on the topic:
ReplyDelete"The flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow dies.
That which we wish to stay,
Tempts and then flies.
What is the world's delight?
Lightening that mocks the night.
Brief, even as bright."
Simply masterful says I, Olive Oyl, nuk, nuk, nuk. He must of et his spinach.
Signed,
Dust from the poets corner
oh yeah? Can that explain Ernest Borgnine?
ReplyDeletecase 1): no heroin problem (that I could easily fnid -- at 93(?) you'd think there'd at least be rumors)
ReplyDeleteErnest on drugs: "No, I've never done anything. At least, not to my knowledge. I once took a bunch of goofballs by accident. They looked like candy. They were in a little bowl at a party. I grabbed a hand full and went to town. That was some New Years Eve. I didn't have a coherent thought till February."
Case 2): heroin use; hence the "mutation" case.
Your point please?
The supposition was that anyone *on heroine* is unlikely to live to 90. E.B. might be the exception to "prove the rule" but it doesn't look like it. "Bird", where this started, was certainly no exception. For those far gone the nickname of "Ooozers" perhaps hints at the adverse health impacts.
(To paraphrase), Signed,
There is no free naked lunch.
Can anyone explain Ernrst Borgnine??? Can anyone explain Keith Richards?
ReplyDeleteAll: the unspoken premise of my flight of fancy was that Bird could have kicked permanently. Now, according to some (very past) classroom learning that may have been incomplete, I've understood that there's no reason why a person couldn't remain a functioning heroin addict indefinitely if he had a clinical source of the stuff, a perpetual supply of clean works, and avoids overdose. Three big ifs, yes, but nothing impossible about them. Bird and Burroughs both were on and off the wagon during their lives. The major killing factors, I think, are the nihilism, disease, and self-destructive impulses that the cycle of poverty breeds. Anyway... Bird dead, regrettably.
ReplyDelete