Dizzy Gillespie (tp, voc); Charlie Parker (as); Al Haig (p); Curly Russell; Sidney Catlett (d); Sarah Vaughan (voc -3)
1. Salt Peanuts
2. Shaw ‘Nuff
3. Lover Man
4. Hot House
Gillespie and Parker paired up again in the recording studio on May 11, 1945, producing four new recordings, including the standard "Lover Man", beautifully sung by the young Sarah Vaughan. As with the previous Gillespie/Parker session, all four of these tracks are available on The Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948, but for some reason are missing on the three-disc Master Takes collection, a most egregious omission indeed! In even worse news, the Dizzy Gillespie collection Groovin’ High only has two of these recordings from these sessions. "Shaw ‘Nuff", along with "Salt Peanuts" and "Hot House" can be found on an excellent Gillespie 3-disc collection entitled Odyssey 1945-52. While I’d call this collection pretty essential, presenting pretty much all of Diz’s most important work from this period in one package, the tune can also be found on the single-disc collection, The Best of Odyssey: 1945-52. (Of course, if you’re just downloading these tunes, you can get them from any of these collections. Still, this should be easier!)
Notice, except for Bird and Diz, we have a completely different band here. Who are these guys? Well, first of all, there were more solidly bebop musicians here, such as Al Haig on piano, who was one of the earliest (and best) keyboard proponents of the new music. The guy is good - he has been described as "a forgotten giant." Plus, on bass, we have what is probably the definitive bebop bassist in Curly Russell. Sidney "Big Sid" Catlett was a bit older, and he was definitely a "swing" player on drums, though a damned good one, and he delivers a lot of momentum on these sides. Still, we haven’t yet seen a recording session that features exclusively "modernists" - and we won’t until Parker lays down his first session as a leader later in the year.
Still, this is a tremendous combo (just put together for the session, of course) and there are fireworks a-plenty from the two big guns, with superior backing support here.
"Salt Peanuts"
Gillespie was known as "Dizzy" for a reason, one of which is the near-slapstick humor he sometimes puts into his music. "Salt Peanuts" is a fast AABA structure with a quick repeating figure that jumps back and forth from octave to octave. The second time the theme is played through, Diz sings the lyrics rather than plays. The lyrics: "Salt peanuts, salt peanuts." That’s it. Four times. In the context of such brilliant mercurial playing as we have on this track, the silly vocals joyously enhance the thrill of musicians being able to to whip out such virtuosic brilliance and keep such a great sense of humor at the same time. The overall effect is a hilarious, braggadocio routine that still delivers the goods, producing great art.
The structure of the recording is this:
Intro: 16 bars (8 bars drums, 8 bars ensemble)
Theme (statement 1): 32 bars, ensemble (AABA)
Transition section: 8 bars, ensemble
Theme (statement 2): 32 bars, Parker, answered by Gillespie on vocals on the A sections, Parker on the Bridge (AABA)
Transition section 1: 8 bars, bass, with drums & piano
Here we get another of Gillespie’s "wild" arrangements to match the audacity of the playing, but now he’s leaving plenty of room for the three main soloists to have a full chorus each.
We start out with a high-hat introduction that turns into a solid drum figure by Catlett. Then come the horns, playing a little stop-and-start figure, jumping back and forth on a tritone, before tumbling chromatically down at the end. The effect is something akin to two clowns falling down a set of stairs.
It’s an appropriate entrance, as the main theme itself is ridiculously silly: a twisting little 2-bar riff, followed by a pause and a couple of octave-leap hops, each repeated twice on every A section. Two downward bridge passages come fast and straight, giving the piece a little more structure (and sanity). Suddenly, after the entire 32-bar theme has been stated, the horns launch into a little 8-bar transitions section that features simultaneous hard bebop playing. This is a compositional strategy by Gillespie that is quite cagey, actually, as it opens the piece up and forces the listener to take the whole confection more seriously as music than they might otherwise do, given all the wackiness.
Still, it just gets wackier. We return to the theme, only this time, the first section is played by Parker only, then everyone slams quiet as Gillespie "sings" the double-octave jump up to falsetto: "Salt peanuts, salt peanuts." These are the only words to the song, but Gillespie dutifully repeats them over and over throughout the entire 32 bars, as serious as anything. No wonder they called him "Dizzy"! This is one of the silliest things you’ll ever hear, but it’s tremendously fun, and it serves as a tremendous launching pad into some of the greatest jazz soloing ever recorded.
We get a little preview as Charles Parker stretches out and plays fire over the bridge before returning to Dizzy’s last "statement". Two more 8-bar transition sections follow, the first being a "mini-bass-solo" by Curly Russell, along with the rest of the rhythm section. They second is another arranged horn part that acts like an on-ramp to take you to the solos proper.
The first one is taken by Al Haig on piano, and it is an impressive display of high-speed runs that shows off the virtuostic dexterity of this new breed of musicians. Charlie Parker plays next, though and that’s what we’re here for.
What can I say? Everything Bird plays during these 32 bars is extraordinary, beautiful and unexpected - yet it all fits together. Charlie Parker is an acrobat, seemingly turning the tune upside down and inside out, while somehow keeping it all melodically engaging and sweet. Bird’s sense of rhythm is as impeccable as his mind-boggling choice of notes. Sometimes he’ll play even phrases, then he’ll do summersaults over multiple bars that leave you breathless. No wonder he caused a sensation. There is simply no explanation for this rapid-fire level of unprecedented creative ideas. This is simply genius. And once again - as he almost always will - Parker performs these impossible feats with such a lovely restrained tone, a relaxed cockiness and a knowing wink that to call him a show-off is simply foolish. The man is just that good.
At the end of his solo, seemingly a part of it, Parker plays a little 2-bar phrase that is immediately picked up and imitated by Gillespie on his trumpet. Parker plays it one more time, the band stops, and Dizzy launches into a 4-bar intro that will take him soaring right into his own chorus. Talk about showmanship!
Dizzy Gillespie may not have been the authentic genius that Parker was, but he’s one of the greatest trumpet players of all time. The fact that he can keep up the standards that Bird has set in his playing is simply amazing - his ability to increase the dramatic momentum is simply unbelievable. Diz plays so high and so fast, and God, does he know how to turn a phrase! There is no wonder that these recordings set off a revolution!
After his chorus, Catlett begins an excited drum solo, but after four bars, he switches back to the opening rhythm, and we have a repeat of the same wacky intro. Only this time, right before the end, everyone stops playing and chants, "Salt peanuts, salt peanuts!" as if it’s some kind of manifesto, and the final chord drops down. All great art should be so ridiculously fun - 70 years later, and it’s still a mind-blower!
"Shaw ‘Nuff"
Go ahead and find this one as I described above. I will take another little moment to complain about the fact that these extraordinary, seminal tracks aren’t all easily collectable and ubiquitous, as they damned well deserve to be. Now, on to the tune!
"Shaw ‘Nuff" is co-credited to both Gillespie and Parker, and it is sounds like a straight bebop contrafact: that is, the use of a new melody over an already established harmonic structure, usually of a popular tune. One of the most widely used songs used for bebop contrafacts was George Gershwin’s famous tune, "I Got Rhythm" (1930). The chords from this song were used so often, in fact, that they are simply referred to in jazz circles as "Rhythm Changes." I’m not certain, but that’s what "Shaw ‘Nuff" sounds like to me - at least it’s not very far off from that.
The structure of the piece is so simple that it has become practically the backbone of modern jazz structure. "I Got Rhythm" is itself composed in what is called the 32-Bar AABA American song structure." So much modern jazz - especially as established by Parker, Gillespie and others - is built upon this format (along with the traditional 12-bar blues ABA structure), that virtually anything that deviates from it is considered "experimental" to some degree.
I’ve been mentioning the AABA structure, but I haven’t really explained it yet, so I really should. Knowing this structure (and its variations) makes it much easier to listen to jazz and tell precisely what is going on. The structure is actually very simple.
First, there is an "A" section of melody that is played in eight bars of four. This A section can generally be thought of a being divisible by two, so that you tend to get a two-bar "statement" followed by a two-bar "answer."
The first A section is then immediately repeated, usually verbatim, although occasionally there will be some variations: in that case, we will usually use the designations A1 and A2. ("Shaw ‘Nuff" repeats the A section without variation at all.)
After playing the first two A sections, we have traversed 16 bars, and we are halfway through the "composition", properly speaking. We now have another 8-bar section, and it is labelled "B". Why? Because it’s completely different - different melody, different chords. In a song format (which this is), this section is known as the "bridge", and its purpose is to throw in some harmonic variety, to deviate from the established melody before "coming home" or returning to play the final 8-bar A section one last time.
The "bridge" is always the most notable section of the piece, since it is the only part of the structure that significantly deviates from the rest of the structure. A lot of these B sections can get quite complicated, and it’s always interesting to hear what musicians come up for these "tricky" little 8 bars.
So, once the entire thing has been played: AABA - you’ve got the whole song structure (basically the entire composition) stated. So what happens next?
Well, basically, the group plays the harmonic structure of the entire 32-bar AABA pattern over and over again. That is, it plays the same chords each time. Jazz usually doesn’t develop its compositional shape the way classical music does. Its interest, rather, comes from the improvisations of the soloists. The musicians take turn playing over the same chord changes, but inventing their own (usually highly complex) melodies right there on the spot. This improvisation, is, of course, the very essence of what jazz is all about. And Charlie Parker was simply one of the greatest and most inventive improvisers in the history of the music. Not only was he incredibly creative with his improvised melodies (which he could spin out endlessly at an extraordinarily high speed), but he devised a way to mathematically extend the number of notes that could be played over any given chord. The fact that he could take all of these exponential choices and endlessly recombine them in real time to create fascinating, dazzling melodic statements was seriously something that no one had come close to doing before.
In creating his style of playing, Charlie Parker essentially invented a new language for jazz music. And since all of the musicians of the time - and most of them since him - have been imitating what he created, it’s pretty much safe to say that the language of modern jazz in general is the language of Charlie Parker. Great musicians like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, etc. would all develop their own styles - but like all "modern" jazz musicians, they were building on what Charlie Parker first created.
It is this, fundamentally, that makes Charlie Parker one of the greatest and most important musicians of all time, and makes many music historians place him in the same class as say, Beethoven, who radically opened up new musical forms that other composers then followed. Charlie Parker was a truly radical, original musical artist - someone who completely changed the was music was thought about and played.
But Parker wasn’t just a revolutionary - he was a genius, and very, very great musician. The idea that he could conceive so much beautiful and complex relationships is extraordinary. But the fact that he could play it on his horn - at that speed - and make sound that good is simply mind-blowing.
When I listen to a Charlie Parker recording, I like to play it all the way through, then play it back again several more times, one after the other. Parker was recording in the 78 rpm shellac era, and those old records would only hold 3 minutes a side, so everybody has to get out what they’re going to say really quickly. Charlie Parker puts so much into one of his solos that it’s really difficult to grasp what he’s saying the first time through. That’s why it’s so wonderful with a CD or a computer recording, where you can sit and just listen to his solos over and over until they finally start to sink in. I can’t recommend this method enough. Short of learning music theory and copying down his notes, there’s no better way to appreciate and enjoy what he’s doing.
Well, back to "Shaw ‘Nuff". Like I said, it is a 32-bar AABA structure, but someone - probably Dizzy - has added a little introductory and ending material that wraps around it like an extra outer layer on a cake.
Anyway, the structure of the piece, as recorded, is this:
Drum & piano intro: 8 bars
Introductory theme: 16 bars, ensemble (AB)
Main theme: 32 bars, ensemble (AABA)
Parker solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AABA)
Gillespie solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AABA)
Haig solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AABA)
Main theme repeat: 32 bars, ensemble (AABA)
Drum & piano intro: 8 bars
Introductory theme repeat: 16 bars, ensemble (AB)
"Shaw ‘Nuff" starts out with Sid Catlett playing an asymmetrical little pattern on his drums for 8 bars of four, with Al Haig quietly doubling the rhythm on the lower keys of his piano. It’s a kind of start-and-stop thing that’s designed to throw you off guard a bit in a typically bebop way.
Immediately following this "intro" the horns come in and play what we will at first believe to be the main theme of the piece. (I have to believe that this part of the piece was Gillespie’s contribution.) Gillespie and Parker pop off a quick 8-note series in minor-key harmony, then play a figure that tails up and stops. They repeat the 8 notes, then tail back down. Suddenly, everybody stops (with the exception of Catlett, who keeps lightly drumming). The horn re-enter, in unison now, and play a confused little figure, then stop in mid air. (This is Diz fooling with us again.)
A quick piano run takes us directly to the beginning of the real theme, which is wild and crazy enough. The theme is probably from Parker, who will be using these sorts of twisted contrafact that’s usually based on one of his own solo lines layered over a simple and familiar chord pattern. The theme is incredibly fast, and Bird and Diz play it together in unison at breakneck speed, never breaking a sweat, though. In 1945, this "tune" would have been enough to knock most listeners (and especially musicians) out of their chairs, but it’s the solos that we’re hear for, and we get three great ones.
Parker and Gillespie are the stars of this show, though - and they don’t disappoint. Parker takes the first solo - a full 32-bar chorus that defies gravity and description. He jump-starts himself with a quick little 6-note phrase that he uses as a launching pad to take him across the rest of the first eight bars. After a pause, he lights into another phrase that will cover the entire second bar without any set-up. On the bridge, he goes into this ridiculously complex little rhythmic motif and rides it down the scale, expanding and contracting it until it straightens out and plays all the way halfway through the eight bars of the final A section. One more phrase rounds everything off.
Where Parker is cool, Gillespie is hot, and he announces his presence with a typical upward scream on his trumpet. He pauses until four full bars have passed - Diz always has a great sense for the dramatic - and then jumps in, matching Parker note for note. At the beginning of the bridge, Gillespie announces an enormously powerful phrase that hangs in the air. Then he jumps back on and rides the full 12 remaining bars out to the end of his solo.
Why didn’t Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie play together more? I really don’t know the answer to that question, but it seems strange that they didn’t. When you picture them from this time, you invariably picture them together, and lord knows they are the only two of the "modernists" who could really stand toe-to-toe together. While it seems obvious to us today that they should have formed a working band together, they did not, and each man went his own separate way (though they would continue coming back together occasionally over the years). Perhaps Parker and his erratic life habits were simply too much for Gillespie to deal with. Maybe there were ego clashes. Who knows? But history happened as it did, and at least we have these priceless recordings to display all the mind-boggling sparks that each one set off in the playing of the other.
Al Haig follows Dizzy with a thoroughly modern solo of lightning-fast runs on the high keys of the piano. He’s excellent, but he can’t help but be something of a let-down after Parker and Gillespie (who woldn’t be besides Bud Powell or Thelonious Monk?).
It doesn’t matter as the crazy-fast reckless theme returns and is fully restated, followed by the complete minor-key intro. The group leaves the last chord an unanswered question, hanging in space. Once again, these two visitors from mars have landed, bedazzled, and taken off again.
"Lover Man"
Sarah Vaughan was born in 1924, and grew up in Newark, New Jersey. In 1942, at the age of 18, Vaughan (whose nickname was "Sassy") began regularly crossing the river to listen to the big bands and participating in amateur nights at Harlem theaters. A victory for singing "Body and Soul" at the famous Apollo got her $10 and the chance as an opening act for Ella Fitzgerald. By 1943 to 1944, Vaughan was singing regularly with Billy Eckstine’s band - which also featured Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Just exactly how and why she wound up at this Gillespie recording session is unknown, but probably Dizzy suggested it himself. At any rate, her classic performance of "Lover Man" was released as the A-side of the 78 record that featured "Shaw ‘Nuff" on the other, thus launching her long solo career.
Once again, "Lover Man" appears on Parker’s Complete Savoy and Dial Studio Recordings 1944-1948 and Gillespie’s Odyssey 1945-52, but not on Groovin’ High or any of the shorter compilations. Nor can it easily be found on any of Vaughan’s collections, though later versions are ubiquitous. Plus, the divine Billie Holiday would have a hit with this classic song later the same year.
You can decide for yourself, but I think the young, but seasoned 21-year-old’s performance her is definitive. Her silky voice and sensuous intonation is absolutely intoxicating, and her (very) unobtrusive musical support is top-notch. Personally, I rank this recording as one of the greatest vocal records I’ve ever heard. So listen to it, already.
There’s not much in the arrangement, but the structure is this:
God, that’s seductive! Vaughan has found the perfect vehicle here for her silky-smooth voice at an age that combines youthful beauty with a budding sensuality. Dizzy’s short solo is respectfully sedate. And when you’ve got Charlie Parker quietly playing little glissandos next to you, how can you go wrong? A classic!
"Hot House"
The last number to be recorded that day was written by a young man named Tadd Dameron (1917-1965):
Dameron was a fine pianist, but he is best known as a composer and an arranger of extraordinary delicacy and taste. He was (and still is) considered the foremost arranger of the bebop period, who later wrote the scores for Gillespie’s big band, and is the composer of dozens of modern jazz standards. "Hot House" was one of his first to be recorded, and it has an interesting structure and feel.
The chords are based on a Cole Porter song called "What Is This Thing Called Love?", but Dameron changes the melody around to give it a spooky, "mysterious" feel. The structure is a little different as well. Although the tune has the usual 32-bar structure, the sections vary from the norm, coming up with a pattern that I would designate as:
AB1B2A
The first and last eight bars are identical, but the middle sixteen are different, though they are designed to mirror each other to a large degree. While melodically similar, the harmony is different (and the melody more ornate) in the second 8-bar B section, resolving what was stated in the first. The resultant effect is that we get the feel of a long 16-bar bridge separating two bookended statements that stand apart like towers on either side of a river.
The rhythm, as Dameron conceives it is a snakey, little piece of what might even be called "funk", even at so early a date. All in all, it’s a compelling vehicle that invites Parker and Gillespie to explore with interesting harmonic excursions without breaking into wild antics. In short, "Hot House," despite its title, demonstrated that bebop could be "cool."
I see the structure as this:
Intro - 4 bars, drums
Main theme: 32 bars, ensemble (AB1B2A)
Parker solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AB1B2A)
Gillespie solo: 1 chorus, 32 bars (AB1B2A)
Main theme: 16 bars, ensembe (AB1)
Haig solo: 8 bars (B2)
Main theme conclusion: 8 bars, ensemble (A)
Listen to the statement of the theme closely and you can hear how Dameron carefully uses the bebop flourishes as carefully delineated elements in the harmonic construction, keeping them clean and separate and balancing them off each other. It’s truly a skillful, tasteful feat. Notice also in the second B section how Bird’s and Diz’s horns separate just at the right place for a harmony to hit a maximum effect before blending back together just before returning to the final A section.
Parker takes a very clever strategy on this (relatively) unusual structure. He plays straight, pure bebop on the opening A section, in two phrases: a short one, which he immediately answers by a longer one. During the first four bars of the first B section, however, he plays the beginning of a completely different and straight, slower melody. He does nor immediately complete this phrase, however, but instead answers himself with a four-bar flurry of lightning-fast notes that seem to fly in every direction simultaneously. At the beginning of the second B, he returns to his little theme and repeats it at a different pitch, as it now falls naturally on a different chord structure. The effect is perfect - and knowing Bird, he no doubt conceived the entire structure just before he played it. He finishes the second half of the section with more fast notes, but a tad more restrained. For the final A section, he returns to the bebop mode he began with, playing two even phrases of four bars each - the last one being a winking little structure that rounds everything out, as if to say (laughingly) to his listeners, "Yeah, I’m bad!"
Most mortals would be daunted at following this little performance, but Gillespie is fearless. He begins with his own jaunty melodic line over the first four bars, pauses then explodes with a rapid-fire series of notes in answer. Then he shows off those incredible chops, jumping way up in the high register where he can just soar, which he does - on one descending passage that goes a full four bars. He then outdoes himself, playing the entire eight bars of the second B section in one phrase composed of quick and complex rhythms. He stretches out for the final A and takes that all in one gulp as well, but almost with a shrug.
These guys! I mean, there are few greater musicians in history, I know. But the way they push each other to new heights is just astounding.
The horns return to play the main theme again, but they drop out after the firs B section to give Al Haig eight bars to solo. This is a better construction, given the fact that there’s no way Haig can compete on this level, and he wisely chooses to play lightly and elegantly, adding a touch of class rather than attempt any acrobatics. The horns join back in for the final A, and bam! - "Hot House" is history. It’s slapped on the B-side of "Salt Peanuts," and I do believe the record turned some more heads.
All in all, I have to say that this session is superior to the first one that Gillespie and Parker put down back in February. For whatever reason, these two giants would not record as a duet in a studio together again for five more years - each musician would follow his own distinct path. But luckily for us, they got back to play together live in June of this same year (1945), and somebody was smart enough to have a tape recorder going. That tape went undiscovered for some sixty years, but somebody finally found it, cleaned in up and released in on CD in 2005. Oh, yeah, we’re gonna listen to it!
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