Hootie Blues (1941). Jay McShann /fifteen seconds/

Parker sculpture via Wikipedia

From the book Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker:

His style seems to have been fixed from the beginning. Hear him on early Jay McShann records such as "Hootie Blues" or "Dexter Blues" as far back as April, 1941, and, from out of the solid Kansas City jump beat, emerges the free-flowing eloquence and idea-jammed notes which he was permitted on perhaps fifteen seconds of a three-minute record.

Sophisticated but not yet manic.

Hootie Blues - Charlie Parker,...

Comments

[Alex V. Cook]

funny thing about that sculpture - it is in Kansas City (where I lived for a couple of years)at the foot of the partially renovated 18th and Vine district, which the city hoped would become a jazz tourist magnet. Parker famously said in his life that NYC was his home and he hoped never to go back to Kansas City, but his family had him buried in a nearby cemetery, and the city commissioned his bust to preside over their failed jazz preservation efforts. Most of the buildings there were still derelict with the facades Robert Altman slapped up when he made his film there.