Charlie Parker: The Levin/Wilson Controversy part 1. 

Everybody talks about Bird getting laughed off stage like it made him go home and turn his life around that night, but no one really ever discusses how he quit playing because of it for almost a year. That's a powerful piece of knowledge that more young cats, like myself, should have.

An excellent review on Charlie Parker's genius in Jazz and without discussion the first man ever playing the real Bebop music. He was real great !!!

"Music is your own experience." -- Bird

I just watched this video and was blown away. Then I read the comments. I give the producers all the credit in the world. They poured their heart and soul into this. Now that we have several weighing in, just maybe they can go back, do some further research and clean up some of the inaccuracies. Give these guys respect and give them a chance to improve on their work. I am just appreciative to have more insight into Bird's brilliant career and the monumental influence he had over American jazz. What we preserve as history is important to get it as accurate as possible. The music speaks for itself and Bird is a national treasure. Would love to know when/if there is a Part 2.

Excellent and insightful analysis! I look forward to more.

When you practice Charlie's music, you can feel him standing there teaching you how to reach your own potential

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting to hear Parker’s own views on Bop. Keep up the good work Andy.

Bird, Dizz, Trane, Miles...all master of Jazz. Thank you for making this!

Filled with great info, I can see the amount work you put in it. Thanks!

Very interesting piece. In the short clip we have of Bird speaking to other musicians (approx 13 mins) he seems so vague to be either off his head or disingenuous. This piece sheds light on that. I’m a great fan of Lee Konitz (a friend and peer of Bird who had to effectively recreate the alto sound and rhythmic approach in order not to simply get sucked into Bird’s orbit like Sonny Stitt or James Moody). I’ve spoken to Lee and read stuff about him and he reminds me of Bird in that he shuns talk of technique, of notes, of chords. Bird remains an enigma. I can’t imagine Bird going the hard bop line (eg. early Coltrane, the Messengers). Rather, and there’s such irony here, I see him being more attracted to where Lennie Tristano was going from 1949 onwards. By 1949 Tristano, Konitz, Warne Marsh and Billy Bauer - part of the Tristano sextet - had experimented with atonality: 4 tracks on Capitol. Exasperated recording engineers who Lennie had asked to let the tapes keep rolling destroyed two performances but ‘Intuition’ and ‘Digression’ survived. They were actually pushed hard by DJ Symphony Sid. Miles Davis, not a natural bopper, is on record as digging where Tristano was at. Lennie, who loved Bird, is reported to have said if Bird could kick the dope he could play with Lennie’s set-up (a set up not unlike Charlie Mingus’). Lennie could have got Bird up to speed theoretically to the point that I think Bird’s hazy ideas about studying with Edgar Varese in Paris could have materialised quickly. Speculation. Tristano wrote two influential articles for Downbeat: ‘What’s Good About Bebop’ and ‘What’s Bad About Bebop’.

Charlie Yardbird Parker was the GREATEST JAZZ, SAX PLAYER, EVER! TO THIS, VERY DAY, NOBODY'S BETTER!

This is wonderful and informative. Thank you.

Very good...one quibble - when you mention Budd Johnson, the photo is of Illinois Jacquet.

This complexity happened a few years later, from the harmony of Monk's tunes, to Bill Evans, to the Miles Davis Quintet with Shorter, Hanckocks and friends. Jazz has become harmonically complex and extremely sophisticated, in a way tha a small combo can sound like an orchestra, in terms of voices that coexist in the flow, with finely selected intervals in a very articulated counterpoint. Charlie Parker has put the foundation of this development, when he showed all musicians that they could play whatever note in whatever key. Yes, he made it in a Bop style, but the talented musicians that heard him play understood what Parker had realized in his freedom to improvise as he did. His lesson - although spontaneous and non intellectual - became a very prolific seed.

Charlie was definitely a genius man I love his personality.

Thanks for the vid. I was unaware of Charlie's early influences. Quite the genius he was. I still can't play like him.

Very interesting. Thank you.

imagine inventing a language no one else speaks fluently nor even knows its alphabet but a very few understand syllables. that's what parker was to this universe.

Hi Bebop Review, - just discovered your site, and it's a breath of fresh air, - just subbed and looking forward to digging in to your content, thanks for the work you've put in! From a fellow Brit, Manchester in fact, - small world, I saw you joined YT or started the site on Sept the 18th, that's my birthday, - serendipity at work me thinks LOL, Cheers, Gus ;)

Good analysis. Great work. Thankyou.

thank you very much for the reading . well read and good article . cheers from belgium

Charles Mingus kind of brought back the big band. He did some really cool stuff with a jazz orchestra.

Very well put together I definitely learned/saw some things I hadn’t before which is saying a lot lol. Best wishes from DC

They referred to him as "chubby little alto man" in that newspaper. 5'11" is not little.

Mary Lou Williams is a somewhat unheralded figure in the development of the harmony of Bebop, particularly her influence on Monk

To me (poor amateur jazz player), be-bop is a radical evolution of swing jazz, but still strongly related to it. For instance Coleman Hawkins already played sophisticated chord extensions in his solos (#11, b9, #9, 13, tritonic substitutions...) way back before be-bop. Rhytmical evolutions, accentuations, ... along with faster flows of notes have emerged in be-bop themes and solos this is true. But I do not hear any opposition between traditional jazz and bop. Generations of musicians respect older and younger ones. Parker heard Hawkins, Hawkins listened to Parker for instance, both respected each other !

Thanks for making this video. 10:36 is not Bud Johnson. Its the one and only Illinois Jacquet

Lester Young, Mary Lou Williams, Efferge Ware, Gene Ramey...many people contributed to Parker's harmonic concept and helped him work it out either directly or by listening to their music.

Very interesting. I never read that interview before; I didn't know that he had said that about bop and jazz. From what I have read of him, I never got the impression that Bird was a pompous person.

great job making this video!

This is cool but Thelonious Monk deserves credit for moving the music to Bebop too

Bird is a genius musician but let’s not take everything he said/claimed as gospel truth just because he quoted it to a magazine. He claimed he liked Lester’s playing but wasn’t influenced by it? Other accounts have him spending an entire summer in the Ozarks learning Lester solos note for note. I would say that indicates you are “influenced” by Lester.

Shawnuff was written by Bird but Diz put his stamp on it. My favorite trumpet player that worked with Bird was Fast Navarro, with Max on drums

imo charlie parker was the best saxophonist of all time in jazz history period he stood out from the rest you can hear it in his music

Well done!

Very well done

Jazz has two periods.....before Parker and after Parker.

One note from Bird , beautiful. The brightest stars burn out the fastest. Thanks for the intro.

Wow! The man was a musical god genius and he didn't even know it.

When I listen to Art Tatum solo recordings, I feel like the roots of bebop are in tatum’s musical ideas

This makes clear Bird was a genius with an immense and still unexplored vision for music. I think we may have seen only the tip of the iceberg he would've ultimately created, wasn't he taken from us by his drug abuse.

The video description at the top is slightly confusing, based on the comments I'm seeing. This entire video 25 minute video is a verbatim reading of the 1949 Downbeat story on Parker mentioned in the video description. The description also mentions the fact that this is part of a series, with new analysis by the video creator, etc. That's all fine and good, but none of the new analysis is here in "episode 1", in case you are confused about who's words you are hearing. Michael Levin and John S. Wilson wrote the piece read here 70 years ago.

AWESOME!

Are there additional parts to this? Thanks for posting this.

Nice! Thank you

Love the photo with Red Rodney!

Does Part 2 Exist?

Excellent!!!! 😎👍👍

Interesting that Bird and Bruce Lee shared the same opinions on forms and traditions.

Excellent !!

Thank you. More detail than Bird lives but less of formative influence of guitar player in Ozarks Mo. Was the Eldon Mo.???? Name of guitar player ?

Amazing video

Bought my first Bird album in 1973. First thought. All Blues

Loved watching & listening to this considered, heartfelt documentary. Thank you. Bird was a Cat!

Legendary pianist and pedagogue Lennie Tristano (whose student Lee Konitz, friendly with Bird, created an alto alternative rooted in Prez) also said outright that there was only Charlie Parker at the heart of bop.

In my experience it seems that non-musicians like to label musical "types". I've found that one note suggests another, one phrase invents another, one rhythm "mistake" invents another rhythm and/or phrase. It's just music.

Nice narrative. Northern English jazz insights are inherently dependable. Bop was born on guitar. I suspected the parallel 4th and repeating minor thirds and augmented patterns on some axe-man's ES-150 had fomented those ideas. Now I see why Miles went back to the guitar in 1970. And whoa ! Basie has got to be jazz'z most significant figure, he was already leading top NY bands whose players were buying 18y-old bird his own horn, lol ! wow. And those early pictures of miles show what a similar man to bird he is. Pity about the 'H'. Thanks for posting, our kid. Peace

What song is played in the beginning?

Love it when the Parker quotes are talked in a Yorkshire accent😂

It's fascinating hearing this kind of thing from Parker because bebop to me is very much the zenith of jazz music. I wonder would be have gotten into the whole fusion thing if he lived longer? I don't really like any fusion I've heard, certainly not to the same degree I adore bop and classical jazz

Rudy Vallee is from my hometown! We have a Rudy Vallee Square in Westbrook ME commemorating him! Crazy to think that someone from where I’m from inspired Bird to be Bird

His solos with McShann are hardly "rudimentary". Are you kidding? Listen to "Honeysuckle Rose" for heaven's sake! Dazzling technique, lyricism, beauty of sound and mastery of his horn are already in place.

What was the name of that guy who was the first inspiration to Parker? Rudy something?

Fantastic. What a man.

Part 2?

Interesting video. I am a great fan of Parker's music. Much as I admire Parker, I don't agree with his statement that Bop is not jazz. I feel that I can see a relationship with the Be Bop style which he developed, and other forms of jazz Perhaps it's just semantics. Most importantly, we can still hear lots of recordings of Bird's wonderful music.

The beauty of Bop is that it left all the senseless riffs and pre-practiced fills in the dust. melodic innovation, rhythmic innovation, an artist had to think in realtime, dragging the harmonic structure with him, on the way to the top again . . . where it must both make sense and be topical. As a rocker, I am surrounded by an ocean of pointless riffs and fills. I find myself glad that the boppers exceeded that "brain on autopilot" level of creativity. Certainly, new riffs were developed, so derivative players could stay current. But the thrust of the Bop movement was exploration of harmony, while trying to trick folks trying to count, rather than feel, the beat.

Bird and Bud, and first disciples like Newk, really changed music in a revolutionary way.Once you've absorbed their sounds you hear music in a different way

Narrating over the few film extracts of Parker playing, is not recommended.

So true.

Great story.

BE-BOP- SKIDDLEY- BOP!!

I do not agree with the comments that he was not influenced by the rhythms of the early swing dance bands he played with, reflected in the Latin rhythm of his composition of Little Suede Shoes, listen too to his playing of slow, romantic ballads , with little be bop phrasing and the celebrated concert with strings.

Where is Part 2?

Check out the movie ‘Bird.’ It was produced and directed by a pianist and sincere jazz man. Knowing the movie would not be a ‘smash,’ Clint Eastwood made it as a labor of love, and I thank him for the time and effort he put into the film. No one else would be brave enough to undertake such a project. Eastwood took what was pretty new to do in the 1980s-remastering the rhythm section and keeping the actual Charlie Parker improvisations. ‘Bird’ was portrayed by Forest Whitaker. He looked like he was really playing the saxophone-if you’re not a horn player. To play the lightning speeds of CP, you cannot have your fingers flying all over the place as the actor did to make it look ‘real.’ There are only two videos of Charlie Parker. The one with Dizzy that was on live TV, and the other with Coleman Hawkins, which is dubbed because the studio lost the sound track - most probably, stolen by a selfish admirer. Parker’s fingers seem to hardly move. To play fast, your fingers need to be close to the keys. Another point away from the subject of fingers: Bird said in an interview that he did not pick up the horn for three months after the symbol was tossed to the floor. When he was a kid, he said he just knew parts of ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ and ‘Up the Lazy River.’ He also had no idea of the different keys. Being the young, determined genius that he was, it’s highly unlikely that he did not play for three months, after that. ‘Bird’ couldn’t keep the saxophone too far from his mouth. Although it makes good press to say, ‘three months,’ I’ll bet he didn’t play, maybe, for three days - if that long. There are many myths about the ‘Great One.’ Don’t believe anything you read, once, about the man-unless you read more and have different sources verifying the same story. It’s unfortunate that few know his name. But it’s most fortunate that we do.

Nothing about Buster Smith's mentoring?

Best thing about this is it put Jan Horne in my feed.

❤️

Interesting, and while Parker may never have heard the "greats" as you say, and it's possible he wasn't influenced by and had no interest in Jazz...he was born and raised in Kansas City

Bird’s genius included the ability to mess with critics and journalists to incite controversy and coverage. This video, loaded with good stuff and some egg headed theorizing swallowed it all hook line and sinker.

I would like to see a direct quote from bird that he was unaware of Louis and Hawk. Really? Pls provide the evidence. He idolized prez- and didn’t know of Hawk?Ty.

The greatest of the great. The king. The Pharoah. The messiah.

Bird Lives !

Brilliant!

The origin of the scales is Art Tatum

thanks sean bean

RIP! BIRD LIVES EVERY DAY!!!

We don’t like being confined to a category.

This guy's accent reminds me of the first time I heard Bird or Clifford Brown. I didn't get it all.

what type of accent is that?

why no subtitles???

Bird was the best. He lived, breathed, ate, dreamed and slept the alto sax 12 to 14 hours a day.

Bird, Dizzy, Monk... giants

Life is eternal. We spirits/souls all incarnate on this earth to experience the physical three (four?) dimensions and the resulting dualism. Some of us have such concentrated talent, we can make change at the root level, instead of in the branches and leaves. If you research the lives of Bird and Mozart, you will find myriad similarities. There was pre Mozart and post Mozart, just like pre Bird and post Bird!

RU-vid is so much better than TV nowadays !

Parker was born in 1920, not '21.

Can anyone recommend a good book on C Parker ?

Charlie was the original shredder. his double time and machine gun phrasing influenced heavy metal

At 8:30: "...born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1921..." Charlie Parker was born Aug 29, 1920. This amateur mistake is as egregious as engraving a tenor sax on CP's gravestone...

It's a Hinden Myth.