Album review: Bird – Charlie Parker In Kansas City (Verve)

In July 1951, having lost the cabaret card (because of various misdemeanours) which allowed him to work in New York City’s clubs, a frustrated Charlie Parker returned to Kansas City, the town of his birth. He would live with his mother and spend time gigging around the area with friends, making money wherever he could.

Bird – Charlie Parker In Kansas City includes seven previously unknown tracks from around this time recorded at the home of a friend, Phil Baxter, on a wire magnetic recorder in a relaxed environment with colleagues and fellow musicians. The material has come from the collection of renowned Bird authority Norman Saks some sixty nine years after Parker's death in 1955.

In these seven pieces, Parker is accompanied by an indefatigable unknown bassist playing a straight 4-to-a-bar and a drummer whose contribution is lost in the hiss of the tapes and the wear and tear they have suffered over the years. On Bird Song 1, (a blues), Bird Song 2, (based on I Got Rhythm changes) and Bird Song 3 (based on Lady Be Good changes), Parker’s ideas pour out unrestrained with all his favourite licks, runs, humour, quotes and improvisations played with his immediately identifiable bright tone.

A fast Cherokee Is followed by Body and Soul, Honeysuckle Rose and Perdido enabling him to stretch out freed from the confines of the 78 rpm discs of that period. From then on, and for the rest of his life, Parker toured as a solo artist playing with pick-up rhythm sections. He was unable to form and sustain his own working band as his health, motivation, personal circumstances and career declined.

The four tracks which follow have long been available on CD and LP on the Stash label  where Bird is accompanied by the legendary guitarist Efferge Ware and drummer Little Phil Phillips. 

Another version of Cherokee precedes My Heart Tells Me, I Found a New Baby, and Body and Soul. Charlie plays in a “Swing to Bop” style typical of his playing at that time. The final two tracks feature the Jay McShann Band from 1941 in rather undistinguished performances. From aural evidence, in Margie it seems that John Jackson plays the brief alto sax solo and not Bird. However, on I’m Getting Sentimental Over You it is clearly Parker who plays the 8 bar solo.

One has the feeling that he was not only frustrated by his difficult personal life and circumstances but by music itself. This bebop, this Jazz, was not enough for him - being limited by the structures, the chord changes and the songs he chose to play. We know of his love of Stravinsky’s music and all the classics. We know from his interview with Paul Desmond of his wish to study in Paris and learn of other forms of music.

This CD then, is a valuable, historic addition to the Parker Discography and should be of interest to bop/modern jazz enthusiasts, Bird completists and those interested in the career of Charlie Parker.

It is available now from all the usual outlets on Verve 00602468047353.  Dave Brownlow