We Were Talking About Bird, Right?
Okay, so let’s continue. 1945 would be the big coming-out party for Charlie Parker, and for the new music called "bebop" in general. The beginning of the year would see the great alto saxophone virtuoso in two seminal recording sessions led by his friend, the spectacular trumpeter, John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie. These two sessions would be, arguably, the most important and exciting jazz recordings since Louis Armstrong first recorded with his Hot Fives and Sevens in the 1920s. These amazing sides are the documentation of a musical revolution that, in essence, broke the history of jazz in two halves. Beginning here, we finally, definitively arrive at what we today term "modern jazz."
Where Are These Recordings?
These sides are so essential, that they should be readily available anywhere, right? But you may have to do some hunting. Now, you should be able to purchase these tunes separately on MP3. There are seven titles in total, and should be listed under "Dizzy Gillespie." But if you want "hard copies" on Compact Disc, it’s ridiculously tougher.
If you’ve got the big Bird box set that I have - The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948 - they you already have them. But for some reason, on the "essential" 3-disc collection, The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes, these revolutionary statements of bebop are nowhere to be found! Where can you get them?
Well, you could buy the 3-disc Dizzy Gillespie set, Odyssey 1945-1952, which is great if you want a lot of Diz. But as we’re charting Charlie Parker here, I’d try to find the single-disc Groovin’ High (Savoy, 1992). It features six of the seven (omitting Sarah Vaughan singing "Lover Man"), and includes other early Dizzy favorites like "Blue ‘n’ Boogie." There are some other collections on cheap labels, so you might just look around until you find these. Still, it’s a crime that some of the greatest, most important recordings in jazz history are so neglected and hard to find.
Still, you can hear them here, right?!!
Alright, Parker and Gillespie recorded two sessions together in early 1945, each with a different set of musicians. The first session is as follows:
Dizzy Gillespie Sextet - February 28, 1945
Dizzy Gillespie (trumpet); Charlie Parker (alto saxophone); Clyde Hart (piano); Remo Palmieri (guitar); Slam Stewart (bass); Cozy Cole (drums)
1. "Groovin’ High"
2. "All the Things You Are"
3. "Dizzy Atmosphere"
Now, aside from Bird and Diz, who the hell are these guys?
Well, they weren’t all beboppers. And they were mostly older. (Gillespie was born in 1917 and Parker in 1920.) I don’t know how or why Diz picked them up. Clyde Hart, the pianist, was a swing player who was born in 1910. (Sadly and kind of strangely, he would die the very next month of TB at the age of 35.) Remo Palmieri, the guitarist (born 1923), was one of the hot new players, who was extending the ideas of the great Charlie Christian. (He spent most of his life as a session musician and playing for Arthur Godfrey! Slam Stewart (born 1914) was a swing player who had the unique (some might say annoying) style of bowing his bass while humming along an octave higher. Finally, Cozy Cole (born 1909) was a veteran swing drummer who had played with many bands, and would later go on to play with Louis Armstrong’s All-Stars.
No matter, though. Diz and Bird were both playing light-years beyond what anybody outside the inner circle at Minton’s had ever heard before, and these records absolutely knocked the fans and critics out. (Not everybody liked them, however. A lot of music critics despised them. Louis Armstrong famously dismissed the new sound as "Chinese music.")
Although both Bird and Diz play equally on these cuts, you can definitely tell that Gillespie’s in charge. Contrasting greatly with Parker’s later method of "theme-solo-theme," Dizzy was highly interested in arrangements - he would go on to start the first bebop big band - and these pieces are highly and tightly structured.
Groovin’ High
This Dizzy Gillespie composition is an adaptation of the chord structure of "Whispering," a standard first recorded by Paul Whiteman in 1920. Its article in Wikipedia discusses its impact:
First published on the 1945 album Shaw ‘Nuff, the song is one of seven on that album that, according to jazz critic Scott Yanow, "shocked" Gillespie’s contemporaries, contributing to that album’s "permanently [changing]...jazz and (indirectly) the entire music world". In Jazz: A Regional Exploration, Yanow explained that at the time such songs "were unprecedented . . . displaying a radically different language" from contemporary swing. But though fans and fellow musicians found the material "very strange and difficult", The Sax & Brass Book notes, they were quickly adopted as classics. According to Yanow, "Parker and Gillespie’s solos seemed to have little relation to the melody, but they were connected. It was a giant step forward for jazz".
Thomas Owens highlights the innovative use of source material, pointing out that while it was not uncommon for jazz musicians to utilize existing chord structures in their compositions in 1945, Gillespie’s "melodic contrafact was the most complex jazz melody superimposed on a pre-existing chordal scheme", "atypically elaborate".
After a full 70 years of "modern jazz," It’s difficult for us to travel back in time to imagine how outrageous this new language employed by Gillespie and Parker sounded to listeners at the time. Formally speaking, "Groovin’ High" is a 32-bar ABAB structure, which Gillespie has arranged with a couple of little tricks.
He begins with 6-bar introduction that leads into the main theme. The ensemble blows the first 16-bar AB pattern, then begins to repeat it. However, after playing the 8 bars of the second A, instead of moving on to the B section, Gillespie has the ensemble suddenly shift to a 6-bar transition section, which on closer inspection, reveals itself to be an altered form of the introduction. Parker immediately enters and plays a 2-bar "mini-intro" to his own solo, which fills out the full 8 bars of what would normally be the length of the B section. (Thus, after the intro, there are a full 32 bars played before Parker’s solo proper begins.)
After Parker’s full 16-bar AB solo, Slam Stewart enters as if he is going to play the second AB section, but Gillespie pulls a variation on the stunt that he did during the statement of the theme. Stewart solos over the first 8 bars of the A section, but when he continues playing into the B section, he suddenly stops after 6 bars, and there abruptly appears a truncated version of the transition section, this time measuring only 3 bars. Gillespie then immediately launches into his own "mini-intro" in the manner Parker did, but he plays a full 4 bars before his solo starts. Thus, there is a total of 9 full bars where the second B section should go here (lengthening the entire "chorus" to 37 bars total). This quirky, unexpected, asymmetrical stunt certainly lives up to the name, "Dizzy."
Gillespie then plays his full solo of a half-chorus (16 bars of both the A and B section). The second AB section is then begun by Palmieri on the guitar. But like Stewart before him, Palmieri gets interrupted. He only plays the first 8 bars, (the second A section), when suddenly, Gillespie unexpectedly and dramatically re-enters, the band shifts abruptly to a slow tempo, and Dizzy finishes out what becomes a dramatic trumpet coda (which is actually a slowed-down version of the second 8-bar B section) before the piece ends with Gillespie holding an impossibly high and triumphant Eb note.
Thus, the entire structure is basically this:
Intro: 6 bars, ensemble
Theme: 24 bars, ensemble (ABA)
Transition: 6 bars, ensemble
Parker mini-intro: 2 bars
Parker solo: 16 bars (AB)
Stewart solo: 14 bars (A, 1/2B)
Transition: 3 bars, ensemble
Gillespie mini-intro: 4 bars
Gillespie solo: 16 bars (AB)
Palmieri solo: 8 bars (A)
Gillespie coda: 8 bars (B)
Gillespie’s stops and starts, and his slowed-down coda at the end all serve to accentuate the power and novelty of the new style. The intro and the theme alone are enough to grab the listener’s full, startled attention. Then before the theme ends, there is a sudden twist and turn before (BAM!) there comes a fully developed and beautifully delivered Charlie Parker solo that is absolutely unlike anything ever heard on earth before.
The sound of Bird’s "mini-intro" alone must have sent chills down many a spine. (What the hell was that?) But that solo . . . As always, the winking nonchalance of Charlie Parker sailing in full command, knowing he is displaying the impossible, is absolutely devastating in itself. His first phrase flows a full 5 bars, floating to its end, carelessly, one full bar into the first B section. And such speed, grace and brilliant construction! And where did all those notes come from? Remember, nobody outside the "inner circle" at Minton’s had heard Charlie Parker’s brilliantly extended chromatic approach to soloing before. This must have sounded like it came from outer space!
There is a brief pause, so that the listener can momentarily take in what has just occurred. Then Bird casually resumes, playing a total of three more phrases that nobody on earth had ever played before, and then (BAM!): he’s done.
I wonder how many people picked up the needle right there and started the record over before they got to the end of Slam Stewart’s solo? I wonder how many times they played it? It is impossible to convey the kind of absolute, stunned shock and wonder at hearing Charlie Parker for the first time - especially in this kind of wild and bizarre context!
Make no mistake, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie records were played over and over and over again by the jazz cognoscenti - especially the young, and especially the musicians - until every note was thoroughly memorized and absorbed into the bloodstream.
Stewart’s solo, of course, is a bizarre experience to hear, just because of his strange gimmick. But somehow it fits in nicely here with Dizzy’s outrageous design. And speaking of Dizzy . . .
(BAM!) Nobody expected that. In the most electrifying entrance since Louis Armstrong’s "Cornet Chop Sooey" twenty years earlier, Dizzy Gillespie, in one bold stroke, completely revised the power and potential of the trumpet. If Parker was slyly cocky and smooth about his immortal powers, Dizzy was bold, brash and in your face. Even if you were so dull that you missed Parker’s brilliance, you could not escape this extraordinary onslaught of notes. God, he could play fast - and high - and dramatically. Though Gillespie and Parker were different as night and day, they were both right there, at a new peak in music, locked in together as equals. Listeners and players sat stunned, once again, to these 16 bars. And the son-of-a-watcha’ goes into double time on the last two! Wow, indeed.
Every heard of Remo Palmieri before? Well, there’s probably a reason for that. I know that’s unfair, because he really plays a lovely (and truly modern) solo on the guitar here. Unfortunately for him, however, his surroundings are too much for him, and he becomes the point on the record where you get to rest until the big unexpected finish.
And there it is! As if descending out of a cloud, the pure, impossibly brilliant, impossibly high sound of Dizzy Gillespie’s trumpet comes down from heaven, granting a bebop benediction on the world below. You have been touched by the new gods, my friends! All in under three minutes, no less.
And this was just the first tune they recorded that afternoon!
All the Things You Are
This is a beautiful rendition of a 1939 song composed by Jerome Kern (lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II). The harmonic structure of this piece gives it a lovely, mysterious air, and all the musicians sound wonderful playing over its fascinating chord changes. Unfortunately, there are no extended solos by Parker or Gillespie, though Parker’s love for the composition would return with his own, later embellishment, "Bird of Paradise," recorded a couple of years later.
The tune grabs the listener right away with its cool, evocative 8-bar introduction in a minor key, its dark and inviting riff repeating on bass and the left hand of the piano. The structure of the song proper is 36 bars, arranged like this:
A1 A2 B A3
The melody and harmony of the 8 bars of the 2nd A section are the same as the first, but lowered down a fourth. After the bridge, the third A section begins the same as the first, but it suddenly detours and then adds four extra bars at the end to extend the phrase and round it out.
Gillespie’s arrangement on the recording is like this:
Intro: 8 bars, rhythm section
Theme: 16 bars, Gillespie (A1A2)
Theme: 8 bars, Parker (B)
Theme: 12 bars, Steward (A3)
Theme (repeat): 16 bars, Hart (A1A2)
Theme: 8 bars, Palmieri (B)
Gillespie solo: 12 bars (A3)
Outro: 8 bars, rhythm section, Gillespie
Notice that the only indication I have given for a solo improvisation in the performance is on Gillespie’s final 12 bars of the final A3 section. The reason for this is that it seems to me that each of the players stays close to the melodic exposition, even though the entire piece is played twice through. It is not until the end of the second time through that Gillespie pulls away and delivers his own, radically different "bebop" approach.
Even though each player "holds back" in the sense of hewing close to the written melody, there is quite a good deal of "modernistic" embellishment, and things generally become looser on the bridges. Gillespie’s simple scheme here pulls the listener into the beauty of the piece and allows each player to luxuriantly demonstrate the beauty of his respective tone and approach to this lovely ballad material. (This is, of course, especially true for Parker, whose elegant sound glides effortlessly over his 8 bars, and for Gillespie, who plays with a mute, close to the microphone, in the manner of a later Miles Davis.)
Finally, after all the melodic sections have been passed around, Gillespie returns - still muted - with an astonishing (but still restrained) fast double-line run, which he plays out cooly in the extended length of the final A section.
After the intro is repeated at the end (this time serving as an outro), Gillespie quickly enters as the rhythm section ends suspended in space, to add a beautiful little phrase, amounting to a musical question mark. The entire effect is absolutely gorgeous, no doubt stunning contemporary listeners, and it remains a classic to this day.
Dizzy Atmosphere
This Gillespie composition is based on the harmonic changes of "I Got Rhythm," a tune that the early beboppers often practiced playing over. This is one of the wildest and most overt demonstrations of the new improvisational style, and both Parker and Gillespie’s solos on this piece must have been absolutely jaw-dropping to their contemporaries. (They’re still mighty impressive today.)
The melody that Gillespie gives for the theme is pure bebop, almost to the point of parody. He and Parker play a short, fast figure that is continually repeated at different pitches in the standard 32-bar AABA format. The bridge section uses two shorter phrases, followed by two even briefer ones, giving the entire piece a hurried, "cartoon-sounding" character. It is also taken at extraordinary breakneck tempo that may have fooled some record-buyers into thinking that it was somehow playing at double-speed!
Even if Dizzy is living up to his nickname with the humor of his composition, the solos are all business. The basic structure of the piece, up until the time for the restatement of the main theme is this:
Intro: bass & drums, 4 bars, Gillespie over bass & drums, 8 bars (12 bars total)
Theme: 32 bars, Gillespie and Parker (AABA)
Parker solo: 1 chorus (32 bars, AABA)
Gillespie solo: 1 chorus (32 bars, AABA)
Stewart solo: 1 chorus (32 bars, AABA)
Alternate theme: 24 bars, Gillespie and Parker (AAB)
Original theme: 8 bars, Gillespie and Parker (A)
Outro: bass & drums, 4 bars, Gillespie (then Parker) 8 bars (12 bars total)
Stewart and Cole begin the piece alone for four bars, setting a tone of expectation. Suddenly, Gillespie enters, muted, playing a short, repeating 2-bar descending phrase that is extrapolated from the coming melody, but set in a "faux-Oriental" mode that presages his future compositions like "Night in Tunisia." This gives the whole intro a sort of mock exotic feel. On the last two bars, he plays the phrase out, and he and Parker suddenly jump into the wild ride of the theme, in unison, with the whole band in support.
Charlie Parker gives the bewildered listener no time for recovery, as he launches immediately into a full chorus solo that was carefully calculated to cause an immediate mind melt. This is the fullest expression that we have heard of Parker’s extraordinary, super-human powers to date, and the effect is still devastating today. Without so much as breaking a sweat, Bird summons an entire flock of notes that had never been heard before, smooth as silk, and at lightning-fast speed. His first phrase covers the entire eight bars of the first A section with the seeming ease of taking a sip of white wine. He pauses for a breath, then delivers the second phrase, a mind-boggling series of quick downward passages that take full advantage of his mastery of chromatic thinking, only to deftly turn back up and finish out the second A all in one breath. On the bridge, he contrasts this smooth fluidity by breaking his statement up into one four-bar statement, followed by two short two-bar answers that loop around like a spiraling roller coaster. On the final A, he floats toward home, only to stop just shy of the finish line and add one last two-bar phrase for emphasis.
The dazed listener has no opportunity to recover from this onslaught, as Gillespie enters, his horn open now, answering Parker’s cool with a demonic assault in brass that threatens to blow him right out of his chair.
Dizzy’s first phrase covers four bars, and it cascades up and back down like a fireworks rocket. He pauses momentarily, then screams up into the dizzy atmosphere itself, holds in air for a second, then dramatically descends again. On the bridge, he seems to ask a musical question that he answers like a fish flopping over on all sides, hitting notes other trumpet players never even knew were ever there. And he finishes it all off on the final A with a staggering exhibition of triple-tonging before gliding out with a beautiful, clean phrase. No one ever accused this man of being shy.
The fireworks are now over, and we can - and I think we should - enjoy Slam Stewart’s wacky solo, hums and all. Somehow it fits right there, as if this was all a crazy cartoon.
Instead of giving someone else a solo (Palmieri or Hart, for example) or going back to repeat the theme, Gillespie and Parker immediately begin playing a new theme, together, in unison. Unlike the opening theme, however, this fast and busy "supertheme" has all the hallmarks of a solo (Gillespie’s or Parker’s, no doubt) that has been transcribed, and the two men amaze by playing it together perfectly, only to move away into harmony at the end of the bridge.
Suddenly, without warning, they switch back on the final A section to the original simple theme. As they finish it out, the bass and drums keep going, and Dizzy repeats his "Oriental" intro line three times again, which now seems like a natural extension of the main theme, and Parker joins him for the final phrase which ends it all.
Wow! Talk about a wild ride - this isn’t a record, it’s an amusement park. Seriously, "Dizzy Atmosphere" was the most ostentatious, in-your-face statement of the new music by its two greatest practitioners, and when it was released as a 78 rpm single (with "All the Things You Are" as the B-side), it caused waves of amazed listeners - especially musicians - to have to literally re-think their entire attitude and approach to thinking and playing - either positively or negatively.
There was some initial resistance, but in the end, the positives won. These sides are the recorded foundation not only of the style we can bebop, but of all of what we know as "modern jazz" up to this very day.
And Gillespie and Parker would return to the studio in less than three months’ time to record more!
- petey
No comments:
Post a Comment