Illegal Foreign Object

I queued up a bunch of Charlie Parker’s Dial Records sessions earlier today. Those sessions, recorded between 1946-47 with names like Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach, reminded me of a story I once read about this era of Parker’s life.

In December of ’45, Bird and Dizzy were playing a show in Los Angeles. After the gig, most of the quintet traveled home. Parker cashed in his ticket and stayed behind. What followed can only be described as a man coming apart at the seams. With money in hand, Bird went looking for trouble. It found him. Soaking his pain in an unholy amount of alcohol, Parker lost all control, exposed himself to several patrons, then set fire to his hotel room bed. The cherry on top of this shit sundae was when he resisted arrest.

The overnight party led to a six-month stay at the Camarillo State Mental Hospital. There, Parker dried out, played in the hospital jazz band, and tended to the facility’s vegetable garden. You’d have to figure that a salad grown by the King of Be-bop was sure to be funky!

It wasn’t all gardening and jam sessions in the hospital for Parker. Miles Davis has said that Bird also underwent shock therapy while there. Bird left Camarillo “clean and happy” (he even wrote an upbeat little number called “Relaxin’ In Camarillo”). By the summer of ’47, Charlie was back to leading bands at the New York City club Three Deuces. Right next door, Dizzy Gillespie was leading his band at the Downbeat. Proximity and a genuine affinity for each other led to a reunion, culminating in a 15-song live album called Diz ‘N Bird At Carnegie Hall. Parker performs with Dizzy, Joe Harris (drums), Al McKibbon (bass), and John Lewis (piano) on the first five tracks. Once Bird leaves the stage, he’s replaced on the last ten tracks by tenor sax James Moody, Milt Jackson on vibes, and percussion player Chano Pozo. An interesting aside: Ella Fitzgerald also performed on this night, singing six songs. Oddly, none of them made it onto the album.

The orchestra put together for the final ten songs on Diz ‘N Bird At Carnegie Hall represents a shift in the jazz game. The label “Third Stream” wouldn’t be coined for another ten years, but it represented a subgenre of music wherein jazz mixed with classical music. By 1949 (and with the help of producer Norman Granz), Charlie Parker had put together his own big band project, a recording session with jazz players and chamber orchestra musicians that became Charlie Parker With Strings. With improvisation being one of the more essential components of the subgenre, it turned Bird’s creative fire into an inferno. The gigs that resulted in Diz ‘N Bird At Carnegie Hall gave birth to the flame.

I once read an NPR article on Charlie that described his sax playing as sounding like an all-out brawl. There’s some truth in that. Listen to him attack “Dizzy Atmosphere” on Diz ‘N Bird At Carnegie Hall. Hell, listen to the way Bird and Dizzy go toe-to-toe, back-to-back, and shoulder-to-shoulder for the first five tracks of Diz ‘N Bird At Carnegie Hall. For all of Charlie Parker’s demons, the man played like he lived: all-fuckin’-out.

Track List:

1. A Night In Tunisia 9/10
2. Dizzy Atmosphere 10/10
3. Groovin’ High 10/10
4. Confirmation 10/10
5. Ko-Ko 9/10
6. Cool Breeze 8/10
7. Relaxin’ At Camarillo 7/10
8. One Bass Hit 7/10
9. Nearness 9/10
10. Salt Peanuts 7/10
11. Cubano-Be, Cubano-Bop 7/10
12. Hot House 8/10
13. Toccata For Trumpet 7/10
14. Oop-Pop-A-Da 7/10
15. Things To Come 7/10

Grade: 81