[Rackety Sax]

I'm curious to hear opnion's on Charlie Parker's 1942 rendition of Cherokee.

This discography gives the recording date as "September 1941 and 1942" https://www.jazzdisco.org/charlie-parker/discography/.

In any case, Parker was in his early 20s and just a couple of years away from his first Savoy recordings.

 

[Nefertiti]

Work of genius!!


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[milnak]

Transcription here:

So much brilliance here, it would time awhile to type up all of it. Just look at each time the || A-7 | D7 || comes up and check out what he does. Incredible.

 

[chilehed]

You know, I hate to admit that unadulterated bebop doesn't really do much for me, but I can recognise genious and, holy crap, THAT guy was a friggin' genious.

 

[10mfan]

Amazing.... as usual.

 

[Nefertiti]

Transcription here:

So much brilliance here, it would time awhile to type up all of it. Just look at each time the || A-7 | D7 || comes up and check out what he does. Incredible.

It's in the Charlie Parker Omnibook Vol. 2 as well as at saxsolos.com.

 

[cliveyx]

Fabulous dance music. Close your eyes and you can be back there with them youngster's.

 

[Rackety Sax]

His "remake", Koko, was something like 4 years in the future, and the two versions are as different as night and day - the feel of this is almost quaint in relation to the runaway train feeling of Koko, two really different listening experiences. It might just be that my brain can't keep up with Koko, but this version may actually be my favorite of the two. At this age he had, to my ears, a somewhat simpler but also somewhat funkier approach, and at this tempo the subtleties of phrasing and the sheer melodic creativity come through more, at least as my mind is able to process them. His tone is sweeter and "prettier" here, which he would come back to later on the Bird with Strings recordings. It is really fascinating to hear him killing it at such a young age.

I'm sure we all agree... Bird Lives!

 

[turf3]

I notice a couple things.

First of all, the recording quality is unusually good and having only the guitar backing really lets you hear what he's doing.

Secondly, it's interesting to hear him still retaining some of that 30s feel (especially some of the arpeggiated long strings of eighths - there are a couple patterns there on arpeggios, up four down four up four down four kind of thing - that could have been played by Lester Young in 1935) and at the same time you can so clearly hear the beginnings of the developed bebop style that would be fully in evidence by 1945 or so. Phrase endings especially, as well as the way he starts his pickup notes leading into a line which are so different from the swing style of just 5 years earlier.

Thirdly, I don't remember ever hearing Parker growl/shout as much as he does here. I've read comments from other musicians who said Bird was a stone blues player at base, and you can really hear it almost every time he holds a note for a couple beats here.

 

[Keith Ridenhour]

I heard quite a few quotes which i think he thought were cute. Hes a master player of the horn. I have no real charge from this recording. He sounds good but I'd have no desire to play that music now or even play those lines. I know thats blasphemy to many but we all like what we like. What he played however was the basis for much of what I do like and for that I appreciate him and his talent.

 

[dctwells]

I notice a couple things.

First of all, the recording quality is unusually good and having only the guitar backing really lets you hear what he's doing.

Secondly, it's interesting to hear him still retaining some of that 30s feel (especially some of the arpeggiated long strings of eighths - there are a couple patterns there on arpeggios, up four down four up four down four kind of thing - that could have been played by Lester Young in 1935) and at the same time you can so clearly hear the beginnings of the developed bebop style that would be fully in evidence by 1945 or so. Phrase endings especially, as well as the way he starts his pickup notes leading into a line which are so different from the swing style of just 5 years earlier.

Thirdly, I don't remember ever hearing Parker growl/shout as much as he does here. I've read comments from other musicians who said Bird was a stone blues player at base, and you can really hear it almost every time he holds a note for a couple beats here.

+1

I had similar observations ..... it's awesome to hear such a clean recording of a very young Bird! It obviously still sounds like Charlie Parker and you can hear the genius in every phrase. I do notice some rhythmic things in this that seem different than late 40s/early 50s Bird:

- his rhythmic concept is less varied and unpredictable. He is less likely here to start and end phrases in unpredictable places, and he is playing way more long lines of eighth notes here at a medium tempo where later he would be double timing like crazy at this tempo.

- his eighth note feel is less "straight" than it was in later years, and he's got much more of a "bouncing in the pocket" kind of thing going on which is different but really nice to listen to. Anybody else think his playing here has an almost Cannonball-like quality?

 

[connorspaul]

That was amazing. I really liked hearing Bird in this stripped down arrangement.

 

[pdxdoug]

His "remake", Koko, was something like 4 years in the future, and the two versions are as different as night and day - the feel of this is almost quaint in relation to the runaway train feeling of Koko, two really different listening experiences. It might just be that my brain can't keep up with Koko, but this version may actually be my favorite of the two. At this age he had, to my ears, a somewhat simpler but also somewhat funkier approach, and at this tempo the subtleties of phrasing and the sheer melodic creativity come through more, at least as my mind is able to process them. His tone is sweeter and "prettier" here, which he would come back to later on the Bird with Strings recordings. It is really fascinating to hear him killing it at such a young age.

I'm sure we all agree... Bird Lives!

Yes. It's the exuberant aggression In both his rhythmic and melodic choices that is so compelling. To me at least.

 

[rcpayne]

The seeds of a musical revolution! I love Parker, for a few years I wouldn't listen to anyone else. LOL. His music is timeless.

 

[whaler]

I heard quite a few quotes which i think he thought were cute. Hes a master player of the horn. I have no real charge from this recording. He sounds good but I'd have no desire to play that music now or even play those lines. I know thats blasphemy to many but we all like what we like. What he played however was the basis for much of what I do like and for that I appreciate him and his talent.

Quotes and hints of quotes. Popeye, Tea for Two, littles pieces of melodies of tunes.
You can really hear how practiced out this was. His immaculate time feel shows this was very thought out.
The very first recording I heard of Charlie Parker I was hooked. It's a pinnacle of musicianship, imagination, virtuosity and uniqueness nobody will ever reach again.
He could make anything a blues and I think that's what first grabbed my attention. His sound alone is the blues. Then add in the genius.
His recordings sound fresh every time you hear them.

 

[Aquarian]

There's a lot of Lester Young influence still audible, in a way isn't obvious in his later style. It's well known that Bird was very deeply influenced by Pres, but it's not the most obvious influence in later recordings (unlike a lot of people influenced by Bird). I think on this one you can hear how Lester Young led to Charlie Parker.

This helps me understand that link better, I have known about it but this recording is the most clear musical tie to me. I always found it somewhat counter-intuitive that Parker followed Young, when Coleman Hawkins had a more sophisticated harmonic approach (which I think is why he could slot in with bebop guys without changing his style much later on). Yet this and some other early recordings show that Parker really imitated Lester Young pretty closely at times. It's clearly more than halfway to being bebop, but some of the lines and the flow of phrases owes a lot to Pres.

It reminds me of Ornette saying that he was actually continuing what Charlie Parker started. Only a few can achieve that sort of absorbing and subsuming influence into a new synthesis. I think Coltrane is a better example, you can hear things from Bird and the Dexter Gordon influence in early Coltrane, but by "My Favorite Things" it's much harder to point to anything and say "wow, that sounds like X's lines".

 

[Rackety Sax]

If you go back to Ornette's live recordings at the Hillcrest Club with Paul Bley in the 50s, the connection to Bird seems pretty obvious.

And as Robert Palmer points out in his liner notes to the 3-LP "The Saxophone," Bird provided a partial roadmap to the future in some of his live recordings like Bird at St. Nicks.

 

[JL]

Absolute, unadulterated genius. The posts above have analyzed it far better than I could so I'll just leave it at that. Whenever I listen to Bird, my jaw drops to the point it almost comes unhinged. And he was already well on his way at this early age.

Thirdly, I don't remember ever hearing Parker growl/shout as much as he does here. I've read comments from other musicians who said Bird was a stone blues player at base, and you can really hear it almost every time he holds a note for a couple beats here.

+1. I'd be one of those commenters. His blues-drenched style is one of the things I've always loved. You can hear it plenty well in most of his recordings, but especially when he plays an actual blues. "Funky Blues" comes to mind, in addition to many others.

 

[Nefertiti]

Absolute, unadulterated genius. The posts above have analyzed it far better than I could so I'll just leave it at that. Whenever I listen to Bird, my jaw drops to the point it almost comes unhinged. And he was already well on his way at this early age.

+1. I'd be one of those commenters. His blues-drenched style is one of the things I've always loved. You can hear it plenty well in most of his recordings, but especially when he plays an actual blues. "Funky Blues" comes to mind, in addition to many others.

Holy cow! All these years and I don't think I have ever heard that Funky Blues cut. I should transcribe that!

 

[JL]

Just in case anyone is wondering, here's Funky Blues:

Bird comes swooping in at 2:05. Also nice solos by Johnny Hodges & Benny Carter. All around a showcase on how to play the blues (but Bird steals the show, imo).

This cut was on the first (vinyl) record of Charlie Parker I ever bought, way back around '69. It really got my attention because I was so into the blues at the time (still am, for that matter).