Jan 20 2007
Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie - Hot House
If you've never heard of either Charlie Parker or Dizzie Gillespie, then I would suggest you go back to listening to Nickelback and forget you'd ever heard those names.
If you have heard of them, you may not know much about their music, their backgrounds, or how they used "bebop" to usher jazz from the classic "big band" aesthetics of the 40's into the "modern jazz" standards everyone is familiar with today. That's okay, I guess, but you should listen to at least a sampling of their talents, and learn about the impact they had on contemporary jazz. Here's some background:
A saxophonist and composer, Charles "The Bird" Parker, is commonly considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time, alongside Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis. As aptly noted by Jazz critic Scott Yanow, "Parker was arguably the greatest saxophonist of all time." A founding father of bebop, Parker's innovative approach to melody, rhythm and harmony was enormously influential on his contemporaries, and remains an inspiration for musicians still. Parker's harmonic ideas were revolutionary, introducing a new tonal vocabulary employing 9ths, 11ths and 13ths of chords, rapidly implied passing chords, and new variants of altered chords and chord substitutions. If you listen with a critical ear (which is how my father taught me to listen to his work) you can also tell just how clean and penetrating the tone is for each of his notes, no matter how rapid or passingly played.
Dizzy Gillespie was also a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. Gillespie was a trumpet virtuoso and gifted improviser, building on the styles of Roy Eldridge and other greats but also adding layers of harmonic complexity previously unused in jazz. In addition to his instrumental skills, Dizzy's beret and horn-rimmed glasses, his scat singing, puffed cheeks, and light-hearted personality were essential in popularizing bebop, which was originally regarded as threatening music by many listeners. In essence, Dizzy made bebop "safe for the white audiences." He had an enormous impact on virtually every subsequent trumpeter, both by the example of his playing and as a mentor to younger musicians.
Listen and learn. Or if you'd prefer not to, no worries, I hear "Creed" is back in the studio remaking their last album.
Charlie Parker & Dizzy Gillespie - Hot House
Can’t go wrong with a clip like that.
I find I’ve reached the point where I can no longer listen to a pop music radio station for more than two minutes. Thank goodness for jazz on the web, particularly KKJZ and WBGO. I also have the good luck of living in Virginia Beach, where drummer and band leader Jae Sinnett hosts jazz programing six days a week on WHRV.
Jeff Huber