JAZZ REVIEW : Bishop Stays True to Rhythms of Bebop
About halfway through his set at the Jazz Bakery Thursday night, pianist Walter Bishop Jr. stepped away from his piano and delivered an original poem about Charlie Parker.
“In the beginning,” Bishop said, “there was the word, and the word was Bird.”
The poem, with its clever rhyming of titles from Charlie “Bird” Parker’s classic repertoire, also provided perfect context for Bishop’s playing. A member of Parker’s backup group in the early ‘50s, he has remained true--at least in his selection of pieces--to the complex harmonies, labyrinthine melodies and surging rhythms of bebop. His program, brimming with Parker-written and associated works such as “Yardbird Suite,” “Star Eyes” and “Scrapple From the Apple,” emphasized his continuing fascination with the music of the period.
Curiously, however, Bishop’s soloing had less to do with bebop than it did with musical pastiche. Unlike contemporaries such as Hank Jones and Tommy Flanagan, whose playing maintained powerful connections to the fountainhead bebop piano style of Bud Powell, Bishop’s improvising relies heavily upon rhythmic riffing and an extensive use of quotes from other tunes. In almost every number, slow or fast, his solos rarely proceeded for more than a chorus without the insertion of a few notes from Thelonious Monk, a phrase from a popular song or an allusion to yet another Parker theme.
The result was a kind of Andy Warhol jazz in which familiar cultural references took precedence over melodic and harmonic variation and invention. It is an approach to soloing that can produce a choppy unevenness. Fortunately, Bishop’s playing was high-spirited and enthusiastic enough to at least partially overcome the absence of a persistent thread of ideas in his improvisations.
He was backed--initially with some confusion, later with solid support--by bassist John Heard and drummer Sherman Ferguson. The program, which drew a moderate crowd, was the first in a series titled “East Coast Ivory.” Produced by Ferguson, the performances will bring a continuing lineup of well-known East Coast pianists to the Jazz Bakery.
--DON HECKMAN
* The Walter Bishop Jr. Trio at the Jazz Bakery through tonight. 3233 Helms Ave. (310) 271-9039. $20 admission. Davis performs one show, at 8:30 p.m.
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