After apprenticeship with big bands (including Earl Hines'), Parker
settled
in New York. From 1944 on, he began to attract attention on
Manhattan's
52nd Street, a midtown block known as "Swing Street" which featured a
concentration of Jazz clubs and Jazz talent not equaled before or
since.
BIRD
Bird, as Parker was called by his fans, was a fantastic improviser
whose
imagination was matched by his technique. His way of playing (though
influenced by Lester Young and guitarist Charlie Christian (1916-
1942), a
remarkable musician who was featured with Benny Goodman's sextet
between 1939-41), was something new in the world of Jazz. His
influence
on musicians can be compared in scope only to that of Louis Armstrong.
Parker's principal early companions were Dizzy Gillespie, a trumpeter
of
abilities that almost matched Bird's, and drummer Kenny Clarke
(1914-1985). Dizzy and Bird worked together in Hines' band and then in
the one formed by Hines vocalist Billy Eckstine (1914-1993), the key
developer of bop talent. Among those who passed through the Eckstine
ranks were trumpeters Miles Davis (1927-1991), Fats Navarro
(1923-1950), and Kenny Dorham (1924-1972); saxophonists Sonny Stitt
(1924-1982), Dexter Gordon (1923-1990), and Gene Ammons
(1925-1974); and pianist-arranger-bandleader Tadd Dameron (1917-1965).
Bop, of course, was basically small-group music, meant for listening,
not
dancing. Still, there were big bands featuring bop--among them those
led
by Dizzy Gillespie, who had several good crews in the late `40s and
early
to mid-50's; and Woody Herman's so-called Second Herd, which included
the cream of white bop--trumpeter Red Rodney (b. 1927), and
saxophonists Stan Getz (1927-1993), Al Cohn (1925-1988) and Zoot Sims
(1925-1985), and Serge Chaloff (1923-1957).
BOP VS. NEW ORLEANS
Ironically, the coming of bop coincided with a revival of interest in
New
Orleans and other traditional Jazz. This served to polarize audiences
and
musicians and point up differences rather than common ground. The
needless harm done by partisan journalists and critics on both sides
lingered on for years.
Parker's greatest disciples were not alto saxophonists, except for
Sonny
Stitt. Parker dominated on that instrument. Pianist Bud Powell
(1924-1966) translated Bird's mode to the keyboard; drummers Max
Roach and Art Blakey (1919-1990) adapted it to the percussion
instruments. A unique figure was pianist-composer Thelonious Monk,
(1917-1982). With roots in the stride piano tradition, Monk was a
forerunner of bop--in it but not of it.
JAZZ-ROCK FUSION
In the wake of Miles Davis' successful experiments, rock had an
increasing impact on Jazz. The notable Davis alumni Herbie
Hancock (b. 1940) and Chick Corea (b.1941) explored what soon
became known as fusion style in various ways, though neither cut
himself off from the jazz tradition. Thus Hancock's V.S.O.P., made
up of `60s Davis alumni plus trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, pursued
Miles’ pre-electronic style, while Corea continued to play acoustic
jazz in various settings. Keith Jarrett(b. 1945), who also briefly
played with Davis, never adopted the electronic keyboards but flirted
with rock rhythms before embarking on lengthy, spontaneously
conceived piano recitals. The most successful fusion band was
Weather Report, co-founded in 1970 by the Austrian-born pianist
Joe Zawinul (b. 1932) and Wayne Shorter; the partnership lasted
until 1986. The commercial orientation of much fusion Jazz offers
little incentive to creative players, but it has served to introduce
new young listeners to Jazz, and electronic instruments have been
absorbed into the Jazz mainstream.
New York - The Jazz Mecca
New York City is the Jazz capital of the world. Jazz musicians can
be found playing at jam sessions, smoky bistros, stately concert halls,
on street corners and crowded subway platforms. Although the music was
born in New Orleans and nurtured in Kansas City, the Big Apple has long
been a Mecca for great Jazz. From the big band romps of Duke Ellington
and Count Basie at The Savoy Ballroom in Harlem to the Acid Jazz jam
sessions downtown at Giant Step, New York continues to serve as the
proving grounds for each major Jazz innovator.
52nd Street - The Street That Never Slept
Between 1934 and 1950, 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues was
the place for music. The block was jam-packed with monochromatic five-
story brownstone buildings in whose drab and cramped street-level
interiors there were more clubs, bars and bistros than crates in an
overstocked warehouse. 52nd Street started as a showcase for the small-
combo Dixieland Jazz of the speakeasy era then added the big-band swing
of the New Deal 30s. Before its untimely demise, hastened by changing
real estate values, The Street adopted the innovations of bop and cool.
So in just a few hours of club hopping, a listener could walk through the
history of Jazz on 52nd Street. Favorites included pianist Art Tatum,
singer Billie Holiday, tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, Count Basie and
his Big Band, trumpeter Roy Eldridge, pianist Errol Garner, trumpeter
Dizzy Gillespie and alto saxophonist Charlie Parker.
Minton's Playhouse - Birthplace of Bebop
In the early 1940s, a group of Jazz revolutionaries gathered at an
uptown club called Minton's Playhouse. Through a series of small group
jam sessions frequented by musicians in their teens and early twenties,
a new music called Bebop was born, sired by alto saxophonist Charlie
"Bird" Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Thelonious Monk.
Bird was generally regarded as the intuitive genius and improviser of the
group, his magic sound and awesome technique changing the face of Jazz.
Diz was the conscious thinker and showman, a man who spent a lifetime
charming audiences worldwide. Monk was the creative clearinghouse and
refiner, a musical iconoclast whose compositions became legendary.
At first, Bebop's eccentric starts and stops, and torrents of notes
played at machine-gun tempos jarred listeners and proved devilishly
difficult to play. But by the late 1940s, when big-band swing had
declined, bop matured and became the Jazz standard.
Birdland - Jazz Corner of the World
Miraculously, just as 52nd caved in, Birdland opened on Broadway. For
more than a decade, from 1949-1962, the survival formula was memorable
double and triple bills, commencing at 9pm and sometimes lasting untill
dawn. Descending the stairs to the jammed basement nitery, a listener
would encounter a racially mixed throng, primed for an evening of high
octane musical invigoration. To add to the excitement, Birdland's
colorful host was Pee Wee Marquette, a uniformed midget. Riding the final
crest of the Bebop wave, Birdland was a musical oasis for accomplished
improvisors where the finest jazz on planet earth was presented with a
minimum of pretense. The club has let it all hang out ambiance encouraged
musicians to stretch the boundaries with spirited audience
encouragement. Live radio broadcasts from the club, hosted by Symphony
Sid, compounded the excitement.
JAZZ TODAY
Diversity is the word for today's Jazz. Various aspects of freedom
have
been pursued by the many gifted musicians connected with the AACM
(American Association for Creative Musicians), a collective formed in
1965 under the guidance of the pianist-composer Richard Muhal Abrams
(b. 1930). Among the groups that have emerged, directly and
indirectly,
from the AACM are the Art Ensemble of Chicago and The World
Saxophone Quartet, and notable musicians of this lineage include
trumpeter Lester Bowie (b. 1941), reedmen Anthony Braxton (b.1945),
Joseph Jarman, Julius Hemphill, Roscoe Mitchell and David Murray,
and violinist Leroy Jenkins, Ornette Coleman has continued to go his
own
way, introducing a unique fusion band, Prime Time, collaborating with
guitarist Pat Metheny (b. 1954), and celebrating occasional reunions
with
his original quartet.
Quite unexpectedly, but with neat historical symmetry, a new wave of
gifted young jazz players has emerged from New Orleans, spearheaded by
the brilliant trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (b. 1961), who joined Art
Blakey's
Jazz Messengers--a bastion of the bebop tradition--in 1979. Also an
accomplished classical virtuoso, Marsalis was soon signed by Columbia
Records and became the most visible new Jazz artist in many years.
Articulate and outspoken, he has rejected fusion and stressed the
continuity of the Jazz tradition. His slightly older brother, Branford
Marsalis (b. 1960), who plays tenor and soprano sax, was a member of
Wynton's quintet until he joined with rock icon Sting's band for a
year. He
has since led his own straight-ahead jazz quartet. As his replacement
with
Blakey, Wynton recommended fellow New Orleanian Terence Blanchard
(b. 1962), who later formed a group with altoist Donald Harrison also
from New Orleans, as co-leader.
Many other gifted players have emerged during the present decade --
too
many to list here. Many have affirmed their roots in bebop, and some
have
reached even further back to mainstream swing (such as tenorist Scott
