Bird’s Brief Flight Lives Long in History

Tuesday is the 80th anniversary of the birth of Charlie Parker. The legendary alto saxophonist, whose impact upon jazz is matched only by Louis Armstrong’s, has now been gone for more than 45 years. He died in 1955, nearly six months short of his 35th birthday, reportedly of heart failure, pneumonia and cirrhosis of the liver.

Remarkably, his entire career--that portion of it, at least, that influenced the jazz world--was encompassed in a brief decade and a half. Like Mozart, his incandescent creative fire burned brightly and was extinguished quickly.

Universally known by his nicknames--”Yardbird” first, then, more permanently, “Bird”--Parker transformed jazz so effectively that elements of his invention continue to be an essential part of the music today. Bop in general, and his playing in particular, represented the dividing point in the jazz century, a historical moment at which each of the elements of improvisation--melody, rhythm, harmony, swing and the blues--were recast.

Armstrong’s great stroke of musical genius was the creation of solo improvisation, built upon harmonic rather than melodic variation, as the central act of jazz. Parker expanded upon those two elements, further solidifying the role of the soloist by altering harmonies via chordal extensions and substitutions to create far more complex improvisational opportunities, and redefining rhythm to produce an even flow of notes and a floating, propulsive drive freed from the more rooted beat of the New Orleans and swing styles.

How does one measure the value of such an act? From a financial perspective, if Mozart were alive today, collecting royalties for the albums and the performances of his music that have taken place over the past century, he would probably have a fiscal worth rivaling Bill Gates’. If Bird was around, adding up payments for the times that elements from his music have been sampled, so to speak, by other players for use in their own improvisations and compositions, he’d doubtless be pretty well off too.

Or, as Charles Mingus put it, in the title of one of his pieces, “If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats.”

In the ultimate sense, the answer is simply that the value of what Parker, or Mozart--or, for that matter, Picasso--brought to their art, and to the world, is beyond measure. Their creativity is so pervasive that it is taken for granted, implicit to the dialect of contemporary culture.

In the case of Parker, for example, few boomers and even fewer Gen-Xers realize that the music of the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane and Michael Jackson, for example, would not be quite the same without his existence.

That’s not especially surprising, given the fact that it’s unlikely that anyone under age 60 ever heard him perform live. And, with a very minimal amount of video material, Parker is experienced primarily through his recordings. (Ironically, that’s fairly consistent with his career. Down Beat, for example, at the time the virtual bible of the music, never ran an issue with Parker’s picture on the cover.)

Why haven’t Parker’s contributions received greater acknowledgment? Good question, but one with no real answer.

Yes, Kansas City, Mo., has a small Parker museum (and a large sculpture by Robert Graham); Clint Eastwood made a film that concentrated on the darker aspects of Bird’s life; Birdland clubs have been in existence since his lifetime, and it’s a fair bet that every note he ever recorded has been issued--often many times--in a continuing flow of recordings.

But there is no Charlie Parker Institute of Jazz (as there is for Thelonious Monk), probably because Parker gave up control of most of his music along the way to support his deadly addictions. There is no major concert hall named after him, and there has been no national acknowledgment of the importance of his role in 20th century American culture. Bird recognition, it would seem, is long overdue.

Most of Charlie Parker’s recordings are included in several collections (which include many overlapping individual records):

* “Bird: The Complete Charlie Parker on Verve.” Ten CDs. Starts with a Jazz at the Philharmonic concert recording in 1946 and continues with all of the Verve recordings that followed, ending with his final studio session in 1954.

* “The Complete Dial Sessions.” Four CDs encompassing his pivotal 1946-47 outings.

* “The Complete Savoy Masters.” A three-CD set that includes all his Savoy dates from 1944 to 1948.

* “Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker.” Rhino. Two CDs. A quick overview collection, covering many of the high points, from “Dizzy Atmosphere” with Dizzy Gillespie to “Donna Lee” with Miles Davis.

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Kenton Cache: Bandleader-pianist-composer Stan Kenton may also be long gone, but he continues to captivate some of the most dedicated fans in jazz, more than two decades after his death (21 years ago today). The orchestras he led from 1940 to 1979 have been chronicled in dozens of albums, collections, retrospectives and bootlegs. Since the Kenton estate does not allow a “ghost band”--a Kenton ensemble under someone else’s leadership--die-hard fans have been obliged to seek out and uncover every piece of Kentonia they can find.

Bill Lichtenauer, who describes himself as a Kenton follower for 47 years, has released a number of unusual Kenton collections on his Tantara Productions label. His magnum opus, however, has just appeared in “Revelations” (Tantara Productions), a boxed, four-CD collection of Kenton performances stretching from the leader’s first rehearsal band recordings in 1940 to a final rendering of his “Artistry in Rhythm” theme in 1978.

While much of the material, recorded at concerts and dances, emphasizes the Kenton dance music arrangements, there are many fascinating individual items. Among them: “Lonely Woman,” a feature for vocalist June Christy, is heard here in its original Pete Rugolo instrumentation as a solo vehicle for trombonist Milt Bernhart; and “Three Mothers,” a 1948 variation on Jimmy Giuffre’s “Four Brothers,” features Art Pepper, Bob Cooper and Conte Candoli; the piece eventually resurfaced as “Overtime,” recorded by both the Metronome All Stars and the Charlie Barnet orchestra.

There is also a hard-swinging 1953 solo romp through “It Had to Be You” by Zoot Sims, with only rhythm section accompaniment and a stinging orchestral chord at the end; a Gerry Mulligan arrangement of “All the Things You Are” (1955); a Bill Holman chart on “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (1956); an instrumental rendering of “All About Ronnie” (arranged by the little-known Joe Coccia for the 1956 Kenton orchestra with French horns); and a number of fascinating tracks from the Kenton Mellophonium band of the early ‘60s.

Information: Tantara Productions Inc., 3533 Lake Shore Drive, Joliet, Ill. 60431. E-mail: tanprod@aol.com.

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Rollins at Work: Sonny Rollins has just completed mixing his first new album since 1998. Recorded in New York City in May and June, it includes three new originals (“Salvador,” “Charles M” and “Did You See Harold Vick”) and three old standards (“Sweet Leilani,” “The Moon of Manakoora” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”). Titled “This Is What I Do,” it features Stephen Scott, piano; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Clifton Anderson, trombone; and Perry Wilson, drums (with Jack DeJohnette replacing Wilson on a few tracks). The album is scheduled to be released in the fall.

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Don Heckman is The Times’ jazz writer. He can be reached by e-mail at djh@earthlink.net.