aworks :: "new" american classical music

Relaxin' at Camarillo (1947). Charlie Parker /enduringly enjoyable/

The late Philip Larkin from the New York Review of Books on High Modernism:

I dislike such things not because they are new, but because they are irresponsible exploitations of technique in contradiction of human life as we know it. This is my essential criticism of modernism, whether perpetrated by [Charlie] Parker, Pound, or Picasso: it helps us neither to enjoy nor endure. It will divert us as long as we are prepared to be mystified or outraged, but maintains its hold only by being more mystifying and more outrageous: it has no lasting power.

On rdio, here's Charlie Parker's Relaxin' at Camarillo, still enduringly enjoyable...

Relaxin' at Camarillo (1947). Charlie Parker /honoring bird/

I like The Rehearsal Studio's statement on listening to the jazz of Charlie Parker:

It was from these broadcasts that I formed the personal ethic that the only real way to honor Bird was to give him the same serious listening I had previously committed to the classical music repertoire.

I personally honored Charlie Parker by driving by the old Camarillo State Mental Hospital in Ventura County, California to see where he had been committed during his decline. His six-month stay was presumably difficult. Songfacts says it was after an arrest but Parker's mental stability was always questionable. Still, the location is in fact peaceful (and now the site of a Cal State campus).

I wrote about this before where I made related comments about former Republican governor Peter Wilson and former music talent Don Henley.

While my serious jazz listening now centers around Thelonious Monk, Relaxin' at Camarillo remains an artistic highlight of American music:

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Klactoveesedstene (1947). Charlies Parker /as played by Ornette Coleman/

The Bad Plus on the early recording of Ornette Coleman and Paul Bley playing a Charlie Parker tune:

Ornette and Don play the same intro, head, and tempo that Bird played. Ornette solos first, on the form, with Bley laying out. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately? --Bley comes in on the third bridge in the wrong place, and the form is kind of a free-for-all afterwards, although they don’t leave Bb much, and there seems to be at least one more clear bridge. Cherry’s brief comments behind Ornette’s solo include the melody of “Congeniality.” The most astonishing moment is the rubato unison line that Ornette and Don play to conclude the solo. It is significant that on his versions of other people’s music, Ornette always includes some original written material.

Parker and Coleman both being musicians who couldn't help but play what was in their heads.

And John Litweiler in his Ornette Coleman biography asserts that Parker and Coleman (along with Buddy Bolden and Louis Armstrong) provided the "major turning points in the course of jazz history."

I'm fascinated by this intersection of two jazz legends, although frankly, this particular song is not all that great.

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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,...

Relaxin' at Camarillo (1947). Charlie Parker /closed in 1997/

For reasons unknown (although possibly Stanford/Alan Pierson-related), I have a new burst of blog energy. So, let's try a new idea. Here's the best track I've heard among the last 100...

Relaxing at Camarillo by Charlie Parker.

Is it "relaxing" or "relaxin'?" Regardless, this one reduces the usual bebop intensity to an appealing effect. The downward but fast introduction leads to a very pleasant horn line.

In my first trip to LA, I did drive around looking for Camarillo State Hospital, where "Bird" spent some time for a heroin problem. Songfacts says it resulted from Parker who fell "asleep while smoking and set his hotel bed on fire after wandering through the hotel lobby wearing nothing but socks."

Wikipedia reports the hospital has been re-purposed as Cal State, Channel Islands. after Governor Pete Wilson closed the hospital. Wilson is also known for turning the California Republican Party into a permanent political minority by attacking immigration during his successful re-election campaign.

I couldn't find any reliable information to confirm the rumo that the Eagle's Hotel California was written about a possible stay by Don Henley at the facility. There is a Hotel California in Baja, Mexico for what it's worth.

It's also not clear what Parker's attitude was about being forced to reside there; I will say the guitarist and trumpet on the song somehow miss the spirit of the experience. But it's a great track nonetheless.

Ko Ko (1946). Charlie Parker /max and dizzy and and bud and charles and charlie/

MIchael J. West reflects on the late Max Roach and recognizes this jazz classic:

Is it any wonder that Charlie Parker, a great talent scout, hired Roach for his own band? On “Ko Ko,” the record that broke Parker to the jazz public, the only full-length solo besides Bird’s is Roach’s. That solo is almost as eye-opening as the sax one—the whirl of frenetic cacophony is actually a musical variation on the riffy head Parker had written in place of “Cherokee,” played at blinding speed and utilizing seemingly every sound a trap set can make. Once you really hear it, you’ll never listen to “Ko Ko” in the same way again. It becomes a double revolution, a new way of conceiving percussion just as it’s a new way of phrasing melodies.

I wonder if Roach's death marks the end of the bop area? Although, Michael makes the point that as a musician and artist, the drummer accomplished so much more over a long period of time. Still, it's hard to believe Max was the last living musician from that renowned Massey Hall concert. This reminds me I read Geoffrey Haydon's Quintet of the Year: Massey Hall 1953; The Greatest Jazz Concert of All Time last year.  The author manages to successfully weave a book around the careers of the musicians and yet center it on one seminal performance.

Dancing in the Dark (1931) Arthur Schwartz-Howard Dietz /charlie parker with strings/

I'm listening to the 1950 recording of alto sax great Charlie Parker where he is backed by a studio orchestra. I last heard this in high school, when I thought the music stupid. Now, I've mellowed a bit,  Parker's alto playing is effortless and even Mitch Miller on oboe is tolerable in this context.

Wikipedia: One of Parker's longstanding desires was to perform with a string section; he was a keen fan of classical music. Contemporaries reported that he was keenly interested in the music of Igor Stravinsky...When he did record and perform with strings, some fans thought it was a "sell out" and a pandering to popular tastes. Time demonstrated Parker's move a wise one...

I just ran across this Steve Reich quote in an interview by Sholto Byrnes:

Then in a short space of time, a friend played him records of The Rite of Spring, Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, and Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Kenny Clarke. "It's like someone said [he puts on a deep voice]: 'You're about to be 14 years old, and there's one room you haven't seen in this house, son.'" He drops the voice. "I walked into that room," he explains, "I closed the door, and that's where I lived the rest of my life.

wikipedia: dancing in the dark mitch miller