Here is an unconventional blues from Miles Davis called Sippin’ at Bells. It comes from his very first session as a leader in 1947 and the band featured Charlie Parker (on tenor!) John Lewis – piano, Nelson Boyd – bass, and Max Roach on drums.
The other tracks are the original Milestones, (Miles would write a second Milestones ten years later – a modal tune based on two chords) Little Willie Leaps (based on the chords of Bronislaw Kaper’s All Gods Children Got Rhythm), and Half Nelson. All four of the tunes on this date ended up becoming jazz standards. Jazz musicians throughout the world know them and continue to play them.
Sippin’ at Bells, a 12 bar blues, is notable for it’s unique, substitute chord laden progression. Miles begins the song with an F major 7 (instead of a dominant 7) and if that is not radical enough, he immediately diverts to the key of Eb in measure two, using Fm7-Bb7. In the fifth measure, instead of using the usual IV dominant 7, Davis employs a IV major 7, a striking diversion from the norm.
In 1949 the pianist Bud Powell would record his original, Dance of the Infidels. Its chord progression is almost identical to that of ‘Bells,’ although its melody is completely different. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Art Tatum was, arguably, not only the greatest jazz pianist of all time, but the greatest pianist period. He is responsible for influencing Charlie Parker, who took a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant that Tatum was appearing at merely to be close to the man. Tatum also had a profound effect on Bud Powell, hence every single subsequent jazz pianist.
Tatum, born October 13th 1909 in Toledo, Ohio, came of age in the swing era, a good ten years before the be-bop revolution. Though he emerged in an earlier era, his harmonic sense – his voicings, as well as re-harmonization of songs – is as modern, if not more so than that of anyone who proceeded him. His technique is flawless and he sounds just as comfortable at breakneck tempos (see Liza) as he does when he plays a ballad.
There are two facets of his playing that have always astounded me. One is his impeccable time. No matter how complicated and ornate a run he plays he never drops a beat. His sense of pulse is a thing of wonder.
Then there is his gift of harmony. It’s easy to be hypnotized by his Olympian technique, but listen a little closer and you will hear intricate re-harmonizations – chords that flow into one another with deft ease, sometimes on every beat. They are beautiful to behold, but difficult for the laymen (read 99.99 % of us) to grasp, and hence nearly impossible to assimilate.
Listen to Moon Song. At 3:11 you’ll hear Tatum launch into one of his impossible runs, his right hand a whirling dervish, while his left hand stride solidly holds down the time. He doesn’t complete the run until 3:18 at which point the audience breaks into spontaneous laughter. They can’t believe he has stuck the landing!
Last night I played a gig at a bar in the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco called Club Deluxe. The band, which plays at Deluxe every Tuesday, is led by a great saxophonist named Smith Dobson and includes Eric Markowitz on bass and Jimmy Gallagher on drums. These are some of my favorite musicians.
Last night we paid tribute to Charlie Parker on the 97th anniversary of his birth. I went live on Periscope for one song – Scrapple From the Apple. Unfortunately there was no ideal placement for the phone so the only band member you’ll see will be me. But you can hear everyone and I feel it’s a great representation of what we do.
Today should be a holiday. It is the birthday of one of the most important musicians of all time — Charlie Parker. He was born on this date in 1920 which means had he lived, he would have been 97. As it was he died at the tragically young age of 34.
He left us, however, with an ample discography, as well as this snippet of video footage of him playing live with Dizzy Gillespie. They perform Tadd Dameron’s Hot House.
I would strongly recommend to anyone who has not heard of Charlie Parker, to Youtube him. Your mind will be blown.
The New York radio station WKCR, as they do every year, is broadcasting a marathon Bird broadcast until tonight at midnight. I highly recommend this.
In this dismal age of dangerous politicians and natural disasters why not take a few minutes to explore the beauty that exists in this world. Happy Charlie Parker day.
It took me almost half a year but I finally finished it – a piano transcription of Bud Powell’s Glass Enclosure. It was such painstaking work that two to four bars would take 40 minutes at which point I’d either be out of time or exhausted. The middle section, in which many of the measures contain a different chord for every beat, was particularly thorny. I’m confident I have accurate melody and harmony, but with the lower fidelity of 50s recordings I can’t be certain of the voicings. They are very close, though, and the genius of the piece is evident.
Glass Enclosure was written in 1953 shortly after Powell had been released from Creedmore State Hospital in Queens. According to a 1996 article in Atlantic Monthly written by Francis Davis, Bud, who had an ongoing engagement at Birdland, was kept locked in his apartment during the day by his manager, who was also his legal guardian. One day producer Alfred Lion, the co-founder of Blue Note records, came to Bud’s apartment and heard him working on new material. Glass Enclosure was the most striking of the songs he heard.
After living with this piece for 6 months my level of awe for Bud Powell has increased, if this is possible. The way I see it Bud’s repertoire can be divided into four distinct categories. There are compositions such as Dance of the Infidels, Wail, and Bouncing With Bud which are brilliant, as well as accessible to mortals.
Then there are the through composed pieces that are somewhat inaccessible, such as Glass Enclosure, Sure Thing, and Un Poco Loco. There’s also Tempus Fugit, which you can blow on, but is ultimately a giant pain in the ass. The thing is, even if you learn these tunes, what are you going to do with them other than attempt to play them as much like the original as possible?
In addition there are Powell’s reworking of standards such as I Should Care, Over the Rainbow, and Polka Dots and Moonbeans. These are so personal to him he may as well have composed them.
Then there is late Bud which still contains some gems such as John’s Abbey, Time Waits and Cleopatra’s Dream.
I believe that there is a legitimate case to be made that because of his compositions and the debt that every subsequent pianist owes him, Bud may have been deeper than Bird. At the very least they’re on par. See for yourself.
If you’ve never heard a live recording of bebop music when it was in its prime in the mid 40s then you’ve never really heard it. There is an immediacy and an electricity about it that does not fully emerge in the studio recordings. Don’t get me wrong; anything that Bird ever recorded is nothing short of outstanding, but to get the complete picture you must check him out live.
This is top of mind because as I write this I’m listening to a compilation of live radio broadcasts of Bird on a disc entitled, The Complete Live Performances. The host of the broadcasts is the New York disc jockey, Symphony Sid. Sid had a hipster way of speaking (“Blow Bird, blow!“) which I’ve always gotten a kick out of. It sounds to my ears, however, that he got under the skin of the musicians whom he revered.
On one of the tracks Sid says to Bird, “Can I get a few words about the sides you did with Machito? [In the late 40s Parker recorded The Afro Cuban Suite with Cuban percussionist, Machito] It sounds like you’re trying to bring bop to a larger audience – make it more commercial.” Bird responds in an affable, yet slightly condescending tone, “Well, if you say so, Sid, it’s all just music to me.”
Birds response – it’s all music – is revealing in that it implies that he was more interested in making great music than leading a bebop revolution. The modern musicians of the 40s knew they were onto something special and that they had made breakthroughs, both harmonically and rhythmically. We know that Bird was influenced by Lester Young and Art Tatum, but he also loved classical music and was influenced by Igor Stravinsky. There were a myriad of influences that effected modern jazz music, among them the Cuban music that Bird had played with Machito, and later on his own Verve date.
I’ve always distrusted fellow musicians who blithely announce that they’re going to play a bebop song. It’s a diminutive term – as if you’re choosing from categories on a menu. Sure, it is useful for describing a brief jazz epoch, but in the end, if you are going to become a jazz musician, you are going to have to grapple with the genius of Bird, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, and all those that came before and after them.
Lately I’ve been fascinated with how Bud Powell deals with the 1st, 2nd, 7th, 8th, 11th, & 12th bar of the blues. He goes out of his way to find the major 7th. It’s almost like a giant ‘fuck you’ to the blues but it works, and some levels it’s bluesier than what we’re used to hearing. It’s a personal and striking statement.
I believe that generation – Bird, Monk, Dizzy et al – thought of those bars more as major chords (or 6th chords) than dominant 7ths. The next generation – Horace, Wynton Kelly, Mobley, D Byrd – played over dominant changes, but not the be boppers. (at least to my ears) The exception would be the slow blues, which Bird was a master at. I don’t know how much the Kansas City influence v Bud’s New York upbringing plays into that.
I recently transcribed this solo — it’s amazing as all of Bud’s solos were, but this one I found to be unusually quirky and great. After all these years of listening to him I still can’t believe how effortlessly he stays in the center of the beat even with all of that double time.
Sometimes the most strenuous part of gigging is getting to the venue. The playing of the gig is often times the easiest thing we do. Of course there are tens of thousands of hours of practice that we draw on, but for the most part when good musicians play together ideas tend to flow easily.
On Saturday I played at the San Jose jazz festival with local Bay Area legend, saxophonist Noel Jewkes. San Jose is an hour south of where I live in the East Bay (Albany, which is next to Berkeley) but with traffic it’s usually at least a 90 minute trip. (Our gig was only slightly longer than 90 minutes!) At the conclusion of the gig we were interviewed by some jocks from the local jazz station, KCSM, one of whom is an outstanding sax player in his own right, Patrick Wolff.
On Sunday I drove down to San Luis Obispo to play with my former teacher, vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake, and my former band mate, trumpeter Joe Magnarelli. I studied with Charlie when I was in high school – from 1975-78. Before that I had studied classical piano for 8 years. I had become disenchanted and wanted to quit the piano when my mother heard of a teacher who specialized in jazz improvisation. I agreed to give it a try almost instantly I was hooked. The fact that I had a classical background, had good technique, and knew my scales was a boon to me. It gave me a leg up on learning how to negotiate chord changes. Charlie was a great teacher and just the right person for me at that time in my life. He introduced me to the music of Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, and Miles Davis among others. These are people I never would have been exposed to in my suburban California upbringing. Perhaps I would have discovered them in college or as an adult, but I just as likely could have stuck with Jethro Tull and Yes. I dodged a bullet there.
The record, Sonny Stitt, Bud Powell, JJ Johnson was recorded in 1949 and 1950 and features some jaw droppingly brilliant playing from my idol, Bud Powell. Check out his two-chorus gem of a solo on Bluebird starting at 6:55. Better yet, check out his playing on the entire record. (Full disclosure, John Lewis plays on the latter tracks but their playing is so different that it’s easy to tell them apart.)
Back when I was studying with Charlie Shoemake (1975-’78) this record was always on display in his studio – I know he transcribed several Powell and Stitt solos from it. Funny thing, though, I never really checked out the cover until yesterday. It’s a bizarre image that is simultaneously humorous and frightening. I admit that bebop was a revolution but this looks more like an out an out revolt! It’s Hitchcockian.
Miles Davis had one of the most fascinating careers in jazz. He came to New York in 1945 to study at Julliard but soon connected with Charlie Parker and joined his quintet. The first few recordings Miles made with Bird are the only ones on which he sounds a little tentative. He would soon find his voice and by the time he recorded Birth of the Cool in 1949 he was on his way to becoming one the most influential jazz musicians of all time.
Davis is the antithesis of John Coltrane, whose playing was in a constant state of flux. Miles playing in 1950 – his choice of notes, his warm, personal sound, and his attack – is not all that different than in 1990. it was the bands around him — the sidemen he chose – who evolved, keeping Davis’s sound fresh. That’s why hardly any Miles record sounds like the other, yet all are instantly identifiable.
Last week I listened to a box set of all the recordings Davis did on the Prestige label; these took place between 1951-56. Miles sounds great throughout and there are sessions with Milt Jackson, Horace Silver, a quirky (even for him) Thelonious Monk, and Sonny Rollins.
In 1955 Miles, at the urging of George Avakian, an executive at Columbia records, put together his first great quintet. This consisted of John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. Miles first choice for tenor was Sonny Rollins who was busy with other projects.
Before he could sign with Columbia records Miles had to fulfill his obligations to Prestige which he did in the form of marathon recording sessions in 1955 and 56. These sessions yielded some of the greatest sides known to jazz: Workin,’ Cookin,’ Steamin,’ and Relaxin.’
I spent the better part of the week listening to the earlier Miles Prestige sides but when I got to the ’56 recordings the difference was stark and immediate. The quintet has a kinetic energy that is missing from the earlier recordings. As good as the pre-1956 musicians were they didn’t have the infectious chemistry that Garland, Chambers, and Philly Joe did. Coltrane is not yet the master improviser he would become a mere couple of years later, but it’s fun to listen to him trying new ideas, stumbling, getting up, and succeeding. He swings his ass off even though he’s not fully formed.
Check it out!
Serpent’s Tooth 1953 w Sonny Rollins and Bird on tenor!
The World According to Keitho 