... a space for author interviews. Begged, borrowed, or ...

Charlie Parker has been idolized by generations of jazz musicians and fans. Indeed, his spectacular musical abilities -- his blinding speed and brilliant improvisational style -- made Parker a legend even before his tragic death at age thirty-four.




In Chasin' The Bird, Brian Priestley tells Parker's life story, from his Kansas City childhood to his final harrowing days in New York. Priestley offers new insight into Parker's career, beginning as a teenager single-mindedly devoted to mastering the saxophone, to his first trip to New York, where he washed dishes for $9.00 a week at Jimmy's Chicken Shack, a favorite hangout of the great pianist Art Tatum, whose stunning speed and ingenuity were an influence on the young musician.

Priestley sheds light on Parker's collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell, Mary Lou Williams, and Thelonious Monk, and he illuminates such classic recordings as "Salt Peanuts" and "A Night in Tunisia" and Parker's own compositions "Shaw 'Nuff" and "Yardbird Suite" -- music which defined an era.

Priestley also gives us an unflinching look at Parker's dark side -- the drug abuse, heavy drinking, and tangled relations with women and the law. He recounts the death of Parker's daughter Pree, who was only two-and-a-half years old, and Parker's own death at thirty-four, in such wretched condition that the doctor listed his age as fifty-three.

In a February, 2006 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Priestley discusses the life of Charlie Parker.



Interview ~

BP = author Brian Priestley; JJM = Jerry Jazz Musician (web host)

JJM You originally published this book in 1984 under the title Charlie Parker. In the preface to the 2005 edition, you wrote, "My own leanings toward composition and arrangement (and the consequent work of not wanting to throw away anything) led me to preserve virtually all of my first text -- except where it has since turned out to be inaccurate -- and add new layers, more akin to overdubbing than improvising." What was inaccurate in the 1984 edition?

BP It is probably the case of more details. For instance, there is some confusion concerning the chronology of some of Parker's movements during the forties. It is still not clear even now, to some extent, exactly when he left Jay McShann's band, and how long he had been back in Kansas City after stopping off in New York, or when it was that Billy Eckstine tried to reach him about joining his big band. Dates are a bit hard to come by in that particular period.

JJM So when you suggest that things may have been inaccurate in the book's first edition, you are saying these were fairly trivial issues...

BP I think so, yes. I don't remember having any major re-think about aspects of his career or achievements. There may be slight differences in emphasis, but I wasn't aware of any major inaccuracy.


Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker


JJM When did you first understand the importance of Charlie Parker's music?
BP I suppose that was a process that came to me during my late teenage years. As I also explain in the preface that you quote me from, I wasn't aware of Charlie Parker until his death, when I heard somebody play a track of his on BBC Radio. I am sure that was the first time I actually heard him. If I heard anything of his before, it had not gotten through to me. In the subsequent years, when I was a teenager, I got to know other musicians in the Manchester, England area -- where I grew up -- who tried to play the same sort of music Parker did. I knew someone who played the alto saxophone, and he had a lot of Charlie Parker records, so it gradually sank in that he was somebody who was not only good to listen to, but who had been significant in the development of jazz music to that point.

JJM Were you into Lester Young before Parker, or, were there others you recall having an interest in?

BP I was born in 1940, and I had some background in classical music, so the first things I could appreciate were post-bebop west coast jazz, as well as some of the New York groups of the mid-fifties like the Modern Jazz Quartet. I could get a handle on understanding this music rather than just feeling it or being drawn to it in some way. It was a slight step backwards chronologically to take on people like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and then finding out about people before them like Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins, and then again before them, Louis Armstrong. So, I was learning about jazz backwards.

JJM Parker's father, Charles Parker, Sr., was a railroad porter who Parker seldom saw. Consequently, his mother Addie raised him pretty much on her own, in a home he shared with John Parker, the son of his father and a white woman. What led to his interest in music?
BP That question is quite difficult to answer. In Ross Russell's book, Bird Lives!: The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, he implies there was a piano in the Parker household, but this is really just guesswork, so we don't know this for sure. So, it is likely that he found out about music in a fairly sidelong way. The absence of any statement about his getting some kind of musical input directly from his father in the few interviews he did tells a lot. I believe he heard music in school when he was still attending school, and met other people there who were into playing -- some of whom he continued to play with after he dropped out of school. Then he started hanging around the nightclubs, taking in a lot of music just by using his brilliant ear.

JJM As a young man, he often went to the clubs of Kansas City alone. He had a lot of freedom as a child...

BP Part of what we know about his childhood comes from one of the only interviews done with his mother after his death. In order to keep the family afloat financially during the early depression years, she worked late nights as a cleaner and even took on lodgers, so I suppose she either turned a blind eye to the fact that Charlie, in his very early teens, would be going out on the town, or she did know about it and almost condoned it in some way.

JJM He also apparently sang in the school choir as a young boy. Did he ever sing in public after that?
BP Not in public, and not apart from the three syllables on the vocal to "Salt Peanuts." I don't think singing ever really grabbed him, whereas playing music in the school marching band did. In an interview late in his life, he complained humorously that it wasn't very much fun playing certain horn parts in marching band arrangements, because he was just playing backing harmonies. But that probably cultivated his ear for music, and it gave him an idea about expressing himself. It isn't likely that he felt the same way about vocal parts.

JJM One of his heroes was Lester Young, and stories are told about how he would sneak into the Reno Club and hustle up the stairs into the balcony to hear him play with Count Basie's band. What sort of impact did Lester Young have on Parker?

BP He must have been impressed by the fact that Lester was all about music. He had a personality, but it was a deliberately reticent personality unless he was socializing around other musicians, whom we have learned he was more open with. But it seems Lester didn't make the time to relate to the general public -- even in the clubs where the early Basie band was playing, or even with people who would be from the same social background. That may have influenced Parker to some extent.

Regarding his musical influence, even as a very young man he must have realized that Lester Young was a key musician on the Kansas City scene at the time, and a key component of that early Basie band. He sounded different from any other saxophonists Parker was hearing through records and radio broadcasts. At one point in the late thirties he said that his favorite saxophonist was Leon "Chu" Berry, who was the star player in the Cab Calloway band, and in fact, Parker named his son after Berry. Because he was already listening to music widely, he must have realized how special and how different Lester Young was, and that may have inspired him to seek an equivalent level of individuality.

JJM In 1949, the journalists Michael Levin and John S. Wilson said that Charlie Parker, "...discovered jazz, heavily disguised as Rudy Vallee." What was that all about?
BP I have some reservations about how true that is. The story is that the first music Charlie admitted to noticing on radio broadcasts was that of Vallee, the white singer and saxophonist who was very big in the late twenties and early thirties. I suppose it figures that he would have heard him on the radio because he was one of the mainstream, popular artists of the day. But it did strike me that in some other later interview segments, Parker talked about having heard the saxophone playing of the twenties by another white musician named Rudy Wiedoeft -- who it is said Vallee changed his first name from Hubert to Rudy in his honor -- and I wonder if Levin and Wilson may have possibly gotten those guys mixed up.




JJM Of a famous jam session Parker participated in during the summer of 1936 that ultimately changed his life, you wrote, "He went so far as to sit in with the major-league men of the Basie band, doubtless with some nodded encouragement from Lester Young. But Basie's recently returned drummer, Jo Jones, knew of Parker at least by reputation and, waiting till Charlie had just taken off on his solo flight, gunned him down in no uncertain manner, with a make-believe weapon reminiscent of the famous amateur-night verdicts at Harlem's Apollo Theatre. Lost in concentration on the music, Charlie was abruptly halted by the resounding crash of the drummer's cymbal thrown at his feet. 'It fell with a deafening sound,' said Charlie's future colleague Gene Ramey, a fellow participant at this sesson, 'and Bird, in humiliation, packed up his instrument and left.'" The ridicule he felt ultimately led to a self-imposed exile for three months. What do you know about this three month period, during which time he lived in Eldon, Missouri?
BP It is something that he talked about specifically in a 1950 interview with Marshall Stearns and John Maher, and it was also mentioned in Inside Bebop, a late-forties book by Leonard Feather that featured some biographical information about musicians he was writing about. The interview Parker did with Stearns and Maher seems to take a lot of its cues from Feather's book because when they asked Parker about his time in Missouri, one of the interviewers said, to paraphrase, that Leonard Feather said you spent a summer season of three months playing in the Ozarks.

As far as we know, this time was spent with the Kansas City bandleader George E. Lee, who was very popular in the early twenties. Lee's sister Julia played in his original band, but I believe she had gone out as a solo by then, and her brother was picking up local musicians for a particular engagement -- or in this case for a summer season. So, Charlie was working with other comparative youngsters who knew what they were doing harmonically, particularly the piano player and the guitar player. Up to that point he was probably doing everything by ear, and because he had such a good ear had progressed a long way, but, he may have run up against a brick wall if he didn't have input from people who could actually show him how things worked on the piano. At this time, apparently, Parker picked up some ability to work out his ideas on the piano. While not much has been made of this, it has been confirmed by people like Dizzy Gillespie and Max Roach that Charlie knew his way around the piano keyboard by this time in his life.

JJM He must have done a lot of work in Eldon, because when he came back to Kansas City, he was a much improved player -- good enough to eventually join Jay McShann's band. Whose playing was even remotely close to Parker's in Kansas City at this time?
BP Dates are a bit hard to be absolutely specific about, but one of the people that Charlie Parker worked with in that period immediately following his return from the summer season in the Ozarks was Buster Smith, a local alto saxophonist and arranger who had been a member of the early Basie band. There are one or two short bits of Smith on record in the late thirties and in 1940, playing with other Kansas City-based musicians -- one of whom was the pianist Pete Johnson. Even though he only played three or four short solos, Buster Smith's playing sounds like an early version of what we associate with Charlie Parker.

JJM Did he face much criticism while he was a member of McShann's band?

BP Because he was a member of a band that played the popular big band style of the time, he was pretty well accepted by the other band members -- as well as everybody who heard him. If you mean criticism in the negative sense, I think that only came up later. The people who heard him in the context of the Jay McShann band were all very impressed, to the point where somebody compared him to what Lester Young had done for the Basie band. So, he felt he was the equivalent of Young, and that he was playing like Lester Young, but twice as fast.

JJM So, the criticism of his work didn't really come until after he returned to Kansas City from New York?

BP I think that is the case, yes.


JJM An influential Kansas City based Downbeat writer, Dave Dexter, was not particularly a fan of Parker's...
BP I wouldn't want to emphasize this too much, but from what I gather, Dexter didn't get along well personally with Parker, and he was an early example of the sort of person Parker himself didn't have much time for because he felt Dexter had too high of an opinion of himself. Parker made this clear to him and played practical jokes on him, and forever after, Dave Dexter's comments about Charlie Parker were fairly mean-spirited. But in the very early days, he wrote enthusiastically about the Jay McShann Band, and didn't exclude Parker from his praise in any way.

JJM Parker left McShann's band -- and Kansas City -- for New York, where he ended up working at a restaurant called Jimmy's Chicken Shack, where Art Tatum played piano...

BP His motivation was to see what it was like in New York. I don't think he was particularly dissatisfied about working in Kansas City with McShann, although if you read some of the interviews with McShann himself, he and some of those in his band were already having problems with Parker because of his unreliability. So, it may be that Parker felt it was time for a change of scenery, and New York and its music offered that. He didn't do much playing while he was there, partly because of the union restrictions for musicians who moved to New York, and partly because he may have underestimated how high the level of musicianship was there. As a result, on that very first New York trip of several months, he didn't do very much playing.

JJM As you say, there weren't many work opportunities for a new musician in New York City...
BP Well, that depends. If he had come to New York with a bigger reputation, he would have had more opportunities, but I suppose he just went there on "speculation," and without having laid any groundwork except having made sure that he could stay for free for awhile at Buster Smith's apartment.

JJM When did he begin playing at Monroe's Uptown House?

BP He did most of his sitting-in at Monroe's and Minton's during his second visit, when he was in New York with McShann's band, although he may have played at Monroe's a bit the first trip since it was already active. But if he did so, he didn't make much of an impression except on a couple of people, Bobby Moore, the former Basie trumpeter who had somewhat of a drug problem, and the guitarist Biddy Fleet, who he worked out with on occasion.

JJM He worked as a dishwasher at Jimmy's Chicken Shack, where Art Tatum played. Tatum had a huge influence on Parker, didnt he?.

BP I think so, yes. Tatum was already will established, especially among the circle of musicians, so they obviously never played together -- and Tatum preferred to play solo anyway. If he did play with other people, it is likely it would have been in an after-hours session, and Charlie Parker wouldn't have been encouraged to sit in at that early stage. What Tatum actually did on the keyboard during that period in terms of harmonic changes and harmonic extensions must have come to Parker at just the right time -- after he had learned his instrument, and after he had input from people who could talk with him about the standard harmonic methods. To hear what Tatum was doing above and beyond that must have been quite a revelation.

JJM Parker returned to Kansas City in late 1939 to attend his father's funeral, and remained there for a while.
BP Yes, and the timing turned out to be quite fortunate. McShann had been leading a seven piece band -- including during the time Parker played with him before leaving for New York -- and he was being encouraged to enlarge his band. Since Parker had just recently come back to town, he had a place for him. Parker spent about two years, more or less continuously -- from quite early in 1940 to the summer of 1942 -- as a regular member of the McShann band, not only as a key soloist, but also as a contributor to the arrangements. One in particular I am thinking about was "The Jumping Blues," that includes some riffs in the arrangement that, according to the bassist Gene Ramey, were actually put together for the band by Charlie Parker in rehearsal.

JJM How did McShann and Parker coexist this second time around, particularly in light of his drug use?

BP This became the theme of the remaining years of Charlie Parker's life -- until 1955, when he died. Musicians working regularly with him couldn't help but be aware of his heavy drug use, or of the times he was trying to get off heroin, or of his alcohol abuse, which probably had an even more adverse affect on him. They took as much as they could from Charlie, and encouraged him as much as they could to be on the job on time. People like Jay McShann and, a few years later Earl Hines and Dizzy Gillespie, all had situations where they either found Parker not physically present, or found him present and correct in terms of being in attendance, but unable to play.

McShann complained sufficiently a couple of times and fired Parker from the band. Gillespie did that as well around 1947, after Parker had been in the hospital for six months -- he had come out drug free and healthy, but that lasted only a period of days. By the time Parker was back in New York and played a week with Gillespie's big band in early 1947, Dizzy decided that he didn't want to keep Parker in the band.

the interview continues here... with lots of nice pics:
http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=priestley.html#First understanding the importance of Parker's music

Flowers of the Nation
Sandile Memela
2004, UKZN Press
104 pages

Reviewed by Irene Madonko

South African writer Sandile Memela must be applauded for carefully orchestrating debate on critical issues (black economic empowerment, the African Renaissance and the government's stance on HIV and Aids) in the context of a seemingly simple read.

At the onset, this book tells the story of two black sisters, 16 year-old Zenzele and 10 year-old Mpumelelo, who leave their small home in the township to search for their well-off uncle Vusi in the leafy part of the city of Pretoria. Their father Sizwe is dying of Aids at home and the girls are optimistic that their well-off uncle will help when they speak to him. However, the two brothers have not spoken to each other for a while and the girls soon discover the reason why when they arrive in Pretoria.

Memela uses the challenges the family faces as opportunities to highlight sensitive topics in contemporary South Africa. For example, Sizwe is poor and does not have access to the necessary medication for Aids. He charges that the government is seemingly doing little to raise awareness and provide medicine. Scientists and activists recently echoed this view when they called on the South African minister of health, Manto Tshabala-Msimang to resign, accusing her of being obtuse.

Memela's strength is that he is able to unearth the feelings of ordinary South Africans. His characters are bursting with dreams and raw emotions. The fact that they are situated in a concoction of serious contemporary issues challenging South Africans helps the reader appreciate the challenges the country faces.

However, regarding black economic empowerment, one may question Memela's redemption of the oft-criticised lifestyle of the new black middle class of South Africa. The latter have emerged from areas such as the townships to occupy jobs and enterprise in white-dominated industries and live in mansions in former white suburbs. They drive the latest cars and send their children to former white-only schools, shunning the townships. His character Vusi is of this breed, arguing that black people have every right to leave the township and live in former white-only suburbs because ˜the townships are not ideal places for anyone to live. They were built to house slaves, to labour reserves'.

African Review of Books recently caught up with Memela:

Irene Madonko: Which character in the book says the most of what's on your heart?

Sandile Memela: I love the traits in Zenzele. She is no whinger but takes responsibility for everything that happens to her. It is time that Africans threw away the victim mentality that paralyses them, making them to blame everybody else for what happens to them. We need to accept that what ever happens to us is a direct result of the choices that we make, be they good or bad. Zenzele represents a paradigm shift in that she confronts situations, becomes an agent of the change she wants to see and is a profound thinker and philosopher who ponders about the meaning of life and why things turn out the way they do.

IM: Are black South Africans finding it easier to publish their thoughts now, 12 years in a democratic South Africa?

SM: Yes, opportunities have opened up for people to ˜publish their thoughts now.' However, the challenge remains to not be afraid of speaking up. People continue to exercise self-censorship because they 1) are afraid that they may be identified as ˜ultra-leftists,' 2) kow tow because they do not want to lose out on any material benefits 3) think that there are some cops who will come knocking down their doors. But the dominant white minority group continues to hold a tight grip on the publishing industry and tends to publish writers who promote an ethos they love and promote. We need more black-owned publishing houses so that Africans can, without fear or favour, truly begin to articulate that which stirs in their own souls. At the moment there is too much of a two-faced attitude where people exercise self-censorship because they want to please bosses who own the means of production.

IM: Like other critics, you slam Mbeki's attitude towards the treatment of HIV/Aids. Do you think the next South African president will do it differently?

SM: I think it is not entirely correct to say I ˜slam President Mbeki's attitude'. The idea was to, through literature 1) ride the crestwave in terms of the hottest contemporary issue in the country today and 2) give a true reflection of the sentiments on the ground. Personally, I think the President has done well to encourage critical engagement on the Aids issue. Again, our government has come up with an effective programme to deal with the issue. The problem is implementation due to shortage of skills. You will be aware that many professionals in the health sector, for instance, have opted to migrate to the UK for better money. What is important to stress here is that the government cannot be held responsible for what people choose to do when they are between the sheets. We have to take responsibility for everything that happens to us.
As for the ˜next president doing differently,' everything has been put into place. The challenge is implementation. If only they can speed that up, it will one of the greatest achievements of the 21st century.

IM: You have previously said you wrote this book to encourage debate and criticism on issues such as Aids. Is the government hearing you (and similar voices)?

SM: The government is open-minded and receptive. After all, this is a democracy. The government is willing to engage and share views. I have witnessed its efforts to engage the citizens and bring on board, for instance, African medicine men and women. This reveals that it is consultative. However, there are other people who wish to prescribe how government should conduct its business. Now that is totally unacceptable. They should win the election before they dare tell government what to do simply because it is black and African.

IM: Little Mpumelelo wishes Mandela was still the president of South Africa. Is Mbeki that unpopular?

SM: I would never say Thabo Mbeki is NOT popular. Of course, there will always be people who disagree with him, or anyone who was president, on some issues. But from what I have observed on the ground, he is quite well-liked by many people who are inspired and proud that their president is a thinker, philosopher and pragmatist who shows a willingness to find a solution to their problems. As for Mpumelelo's wish, that is all it is: a child's wish. Realists know that Mandela can never be president again. Not in the next 100 years, unfortunately!

IM: Sizwe goes to a witchdoctor to seek treatment for Aids, while the beauty queen ascribes her illness to witchcraft and not Aids. Will Africans ever ditch their superstitions?

SM: Voodoo logic is something that is part of every culture. Africans are like everyone else in the world, like Christians for instance. No-one knows for sure if heaven exists, but people will not let go of that belief. I do not imagine them ditching what you flippantly call ˜superstition'. It is part of their being and they should be left alone to worship whoever they want in whatever way that brings sanity and hope to their lives.

IM: The taxi drivers, school children and even grandmothers in the village are talking excitedly about the African Renaissance. Are ordinary South Africans really this optimistic about it?

SM: Yes, those who are able to read and write are quite excited. It has ignited an ˜age of hope' where they realise and celebrate the fact that their dignity and self-respect has been restored and African leadership is beginning to assert its role and responsibility in a manner that will result in self determination and control. But yes, the message is slow trickling down to ordinary folks and they love what they hear. Now, they are waiting for action and I do want to believe that they will not be disappointed.

IM: Steve and wealthy Vusi clearly belong to South Africa 's black middle class, which has snubbed living in the townships in favour of former white-only suburbs. Are they justified to claim it is because the townships are not ideal places for anyone to live and they should not be guilty over their achievements as individuals?

SM: This is the crux of the matter, an issue that will be debated until the cows home. The world will always be divided on this one. However, we must remember that township, much as Africans have rehabilitated them and turned them into liveable spaces, were never meant to house decent human beings. They were part of a strategy to dehumanise black people. There will always be those who love them for sentimental reasons while some will always hate them because of what they subjected black people to.

IM: With South Africa's black middle class clamouring for the Western lifestyle/culture, is Vusi kidding us when he says they need to get back to the days of traditional family values and ubuntu?

SM: There is an increasing call for African people to change their ways and embrace the ways of their ancestors. It is not a pipe dream. In fact, giving the world a ˜human face' is what Africans will do and achieve. The middle class is just a phenomenon. At some point, they will realise that money cannot buy happiness or define one's true identity and heritage.

IM: That said, are you part of the black middle class - yet?

SM: Yes, I am part of the ˜patriotic bourgeoisie', if there is such a middle class. However, this does not desensitise me to the reality of inequality, oppression, neglect and exploitation that continues to run rampant in our beautiful land. That awareness of being middle class keeps me awake at night, pushing me to be less part of the problem by being smug simply because I own a BMW, a house in the suburbs and can afford a meal at a western restaurant at any time of day. The responsibility of the middle class, at least in our situation, is to improve upon the past and make sure that we are active agents in the struggle to satisfy everyone's material aspirations. Otherwise, we are headed for ˜run, baby, run times'. That would be too ghastly to contemplate.


Irene Madonko is a Zimbabwean journalist working in London