Charlie Parker and Bud Powell: Birdland

Few of today's musicians have met Charlie Parker. His short life (1920-55) has become a myth of grand proportions, where every note is mummified for future generations. Perhaps a short life like the one of Parker imparts that special human reaction "what if", and therefore his post-35 imaginary life is what the reconstruction and minute-by-minute analysis by historians and younger musicians stands for. When the story contains tragic aspects of his life itself, a legend is born.

In spite of this less-than-glamourous introduction, unrelated to Parker himself (only describing how his legacy has been treated), Charlie Parker was a great alto saxophonist and a talented composer. Together with pianist Bud Powell, he is responsible for steering jazz off the popular music radar, and why not. Shortly thereafter the world got Elvis, and only the dedicated listening audience was left with jazz. Bebop was perfect for the demanding ears, and let's not forget Thelonious Monk, whose values are still very much the news of the day among young musicians.

It is a little bit tiresome, though, to hear about new discoveries of Charlie Parker live tapes. First of all, who cares at this point? As a devoted jazz fan with thousands of records, Groovin' High and Ornithology are represented in dozens of versions on my shelf, including various alternate takes and alike by Parker himself. Would we care about all these tapes if he had lived fifty years longer? Probably not. The infinite amounts of legendary stories surrounding the Dean Benedetti tapes, recording bans, illegal and bootleg this and that... whatever, malnourished my interest in jazz politics for several decades.

Birdland from 1951, was apparently recorded the night before or after the previously known Symphony Sid radio recording (this one also partly features Symphony Sid). The program is the core repertoire: Cool Blues, Cheryl, Moose the Mooche, Ornithology, Anthropology, Night in Tunisia, Oop Bop Sh'Bam and Jumpin' with Symphony Sid, and offers little new. It is still Parker and Powell, and their innovative playing, let's not forget that, but unless one is an anthologist or any other kind of collection maniac, this release is just repetition from the earlier released scratchy narrow-bandwidth sounding hasty live captures.

So, why even have one of these represented and available? Why more of the same? If Parker's life after 35 is to be artificially constructed by historians, at this point, his life would most likely approach the end. It may be symbolically a perfect chance to end the otherwise never-ending hype about what kind of gloria shone above Charlie Parker when he was walking on water. If Parker and his albums one day will be limited to those released during his lifetime, without saturation, chances are his real recorded productions will sound the way they were meant to sound. Wouldn't that be wonderful?