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July 24, 2008 · 8 comments
Is Bird Dead? (Part Two)
In the first part of this article, I described my surprise at how seldom I discern the influence of Charlie Parker in the work of the younger generation of jazz musicians. I called attention to the changes in how phrases are shaped by improvisers today, as well as to the different techniques employed in incorporating chromatic "color tones" into their melodic lines. In these, and other improvisational elements, we can hear a dramatic loosening of the almost mesmerizing hold that Bird once exerted on aspiring jazz artists.
Also, it is hard not to notice a pervasive modal mind-set today, even when (and this is the surprising part) the songs themselves aren't modal. The distinctive interval leaps and patterns that came out of modal playing now impose themselves on chord-based improvisation. When I listen to the CDs of up-and-coming performers -- and so far this year I have already checked out several hundred -- I hear more Brecker than Bird in the solos, certainly more 'Trane and Wayne; more hard bop than bebop. I hear more Metheny and Monk and Mingus in the overall conception of the performance; also more Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett. Bird appears, now and again, in a cameo role, but what a come-down for an artist who once put his stamp on every aspect of modern jazz.
'Tain't nothin' wrong with any of this. But it is a dramatic departure from the mindset of the previous generation. And one that has hardly been discussed by critics. Bebop was once the language of modern jazz. Now it is more like Latin or ancient Greek, a language that may survive and even have adherents. But it is no longer the vernacular tongue.
Of course, there are other aspects of Parker's legacy that are disappearing. I find that many improvisers today have a tendency to play their notes with perfect evenness, hitting each one dead center in the middle, almost as if a jazz solo were a scale or technical exercise. I have even started calling this (for want of a better name) the "new way of phrasing." If one wants to measure its dissemination on a map, one might find a tell-tale pattern that traces its major lines of influence back to a hypothesized epicenter in Boston, at a place called Berklee. (But that is a story for a different day.)
Needless to say, this absolutely clean-&-even-&-precise way of soloing has little to do with Bird's legacy. Everything he played had an ebb and flow, and articulation points within the phrase that made them more supple, more organic. This aspect of Parker's style was part of his inheritance from Kansas City jazz and Lester Young. (Of course, Kansas City jazz is even more passé than bebop, although I daresay many younger players might be surprised by how much they could learn from a summer immersion program in Basic Basie-ology.)
A metaphor I find useful here is the contrast between digital and analog. When I was growing up, my house—in fact, all houses— had very few on-off buttons. Except for the light switch and the power button on a few (very few) appliances, everything was controlled by dials, by gradations, by infinitely divisible continuums. Today my house must have hundreds of buttons. Everything is either on or off, with no gradations or gray areas. This is what I hear in the "new way of phrasing." The note is either on or off, and don't mess with "Mister In-Between."
We have come a long way from "analog-type" improvisers, such as Ben Webster and King Oliver, who would have rejected an even, clearly defined, on-or-off style of note production. They probably would have seen it as antithetical to the essence of jazz. And you didn't just find this approach in Kansas City or New Orleans. One of the great joys of avant garde players of a post-Ayler bent was this assertion of the primacy of sound over notes, analog over digital. But the influence of Ayler and his followers also seems to be on the wane. Instead, the new, digital manner of solo construction is in the ascendancy. (Interesting exception from the current jazz scene . . . Wynton Marsalis, who started out as a young man in the digital camp -- listen to his note-perfect work with Blakey and on the early Columbia albums -- has now completely embraced the analog, hundred-ways-to-play-a-single-note philosophy.)
One dramatic result of this shift is the 'Death' of Bird. Finally, more than a half-century after his passing, the influence of the legendary altoist is winding down. When I hear a CD by younger players who explicitly draw on Parker's sax vocabulary (such as the recent release by the Stein Brothers), it stands out from the crowd. Whereas only a few years ago, this type of approach would hardly have been noteworthy.
Of course, the question remains: Why? My answer may surprise many. I tend to think that technology is the key driver here. And not just the analog-to-digital switch in our households. Parker, like so many jazz artists who recorded before the rise of high-fidelity stereo sound, is losing out because of the poor sonic quality of his legacy.
You are skeptical? So was I, until recently. I have always loved the old jazz recordings, and never let poor sound quality prevent me from appreciating the grandeur of the music. But I find increasingly, when talking to jazz fans, that there is dividing line in their knowledge of the history of the music—and it comes somewhere around 1956 when the sound quality of recordings began to match that of live music. Jazz fans today are very aware of the music from the late 1950s onward, but have nowhere the same familiarity with jazz recordings from the 1930s and 1940s.
I cannot avoid concluding that a huge number of jazz fans are influenced by sound quality when they choose CDs for listening and study. Even the younger generation of jazz critics seem to be following the same pattern. Once you get to the late 1950s, everybody is on familiar, comfortable ground, but only a small number of people in Generations X and Y have more than the most superficial knowledge of earlier jazz.
In a situation such as this, Charlie Parker is bound to lose out. He died in 1955 right before the next leap forward in recording technology. I suspect that, if he had lived another decade, he would be much more influential now. Not because Bird's playing would have improved — I find that hard to believe — but simply because the recordings would be more pleasing to modern ears. Audiences in the new millennium want their CDs to sound as good as a live concert.
These issues may help explain why I have been so interested in technologies, such as the work of Zenph Studios, that promise to restore this pristine sound quality to old performances. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need technological breakthroughs in order to preserve interest in the early jazz tradition. But we do not live in a perfect world, and based on what I see on the jazz scene, we run a risk of forgetting much of our music's heritage. Bird loses out in this equation, as do a host of others who passed away right before the big leap forward in recording technology -- towering figures such as Clifford Brown and Art Tatum and Fats Navarro, whose music is nowhere near as well known as even second-tier artists from later decades.
Stay tuned for future commentary on this subject. Also look for a series of blog articles, starting next week, on one exception to the pattern noted above . . . an old jazz tradition that seems to attracting large numbers of young fans.
This blog entry posted by Ted Gioia.
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one of my favorite solos, is from this tune milestones the old one from the 40s, i think he plays, a different sax on that tune, and i really dig, the live album, from canada, where hes listed as charlie chan, i dig that tune segment, too one thing i hear from those guys from that period, is a deep empathy or a certain kind of listening that one doesn't hear too much, today, except from the real communicators out there.
Can anyone recommend a good Fats Navarro record? It's hard to sort through all the compilations that you can find on Amazon.
Check out the August 9, 1949 session under Bud Powell's leadership, with Navarro on trumpet and a very young Sonny Rollins on tenor. Unfortunately, Navarro doesn't get the chance to stretch out, but his solos are exceptional. There is also an impressive amateur recording of Charlie Parker and Navarro at Birdland made shortly before the trumpeter's death. But the sound quality is quite poor - as a result (as I mention above) not many jazz fans today are familiar with it. I am convinced that Navarro would have been one of the leading jazz musicians of the 1950s and 1960s if he had survived.
Compelling essay! Thanks for that. I think the bebop vocabulary is still influential, though it may be considered clutch licks today. Nevertheless, bebop today is Jazz 101, just like how Bill Evans is Jazz Voicings 101. I think your observations here are a normal case of macro-artistic development, of how the bebop vocabulary has been slowly subsumed by later approaches. In other words, though much of Bird's signature approaches have been supplanted by his predecessor's, his sensibility remains firmly as a foundation. I know you know this, but I personally wouldn't consider bebop in the same dust bin as Latin or ancient Greek just yet! But your suggestion that sound quality affects attention is very interesting. There's certainly a bias today for better sounding recordings, but I think it's more that the sound quality of old recordings makes it difficult to even track the rhythm section well enough to perceive the nuances Bird injects into his phrasing, at least not beyond what is dictated in his transcriptions (Omnibook.. Jazz Saxophone Bible 101!). You also suggest the notion that if Bird's nuances can be better heard, it would be much more influential. I agree with this, albeit with caveats. Certainly, being able to actually hear his greatness would implant at least a subconscious benchmark in a young musician's mind. But for most musicians, the real question is not whether Charlie Parker's phrasing is influential (it IS if they can hear it), but rather that it represents a lofty stage of development that only the few will reach. In other words, that "ebb and flow" approach to phrasing and time you speak of is probably an emergent trait in master jazzmen who have somehow transcended their technical makeup, that which seem to trap the lesser "second-tier" musicians. It probably takes a force like Michael Brecker to really find and forge his own path. If that's true, then it's less a matter of whether a musician would choose to embrace Bird's nuances (if they can hear it) but rather if he has gotten to that level yet! And that's just plain rare. For most listeners, to grasp what you are pointing out here is already really hard. I feel that it's really up to today's musicians to "get it" and then help bridge the "analog-digital" divide through their playing. But failing that, there are other jazz masters with that coveted liquid feel of time and phrasing who are recorded with much greater clarity, maybe as early as Sonny Rollins (his balladry) and as progressive as Miles Davis' second quintet (his fiery lines), and even from underrated gems such as Stanley Cowell. There are many potential starting points other than Bird, but if a listener (or musician) embarked on that listening journey, I think they could be led right back to Charlie Parker. Anyway, this is how I rediscovered Bird again. Phew.. sorry for the long post heh
Miles, thanks for these smart comments! I tend to agree with the points you raise, and your comments have given me some things to think about.
The praise of the praise-worthy is above all rewards ^_^ Anyway a thoughtful article demands a thoughtful response you know? I need to learn how to be concise though.. Hey can you recommend me some good jazz blogs?
You will find links to some of the more interesting recent jazz blog articles on the jazz.com links page.
A very interesting pair of articles, Ted, which chime in very nicely with something I often think about. I write, not as a musician, but as a listener with over fifty years of jazz listening behind me. I discovered Bird in 1958 at the age of 18 and took to him immediately. After all, what he was playing was the language in which virtually all modern jazz was being expressed. If I went to hear live jazz, the musician I heard most often (here in England) was Tubby Hayes, clearly a Bird worshipper. Another reason for the ease with which I assimilated Bird's music was bop's influence on the background popular music of my childhood. Constant repetitions in the the second half of the forties of "Open the Door, Richard" and "The Woody Woodpecker's Song" had prepared the way! All this, of course, being quite different to the background of a more contemporary listener. These factors helped overcome what otherwise might have been an insuperable barrier: what Michael C called Parker's "sheer monolithic technicality". And there were modern jazz fans, even in those days, who didn't dig Bird, preferring the simpler or more obvious sounds of the current funk, soul or hard bop movements. I think for them the recording quality issues you write of were also a barrier and I notice that musicians of the era who you see as retaining influence today - Monk, Mingus, Miles, Coltrane and Bill Evans - all benefitted from late-fifties' recording techniques. Musician friends of mine at the time raised a further objection: the lack of contemporary skills in some of Parker's sidemen, particularly bassists. This is still probably a barrier: certainly, Lennie Niehaus felt he had to graft a modern rhythm section onto Bird's solos for the eponymous movie! Finally, your use of the words "strict" or "mathematical" about Bird are very apt - as they were about many aspects of the age, from social mores to the visual arts. Bird was a man of those times, not of today.