On Thu Jan 18 2001, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Call me a philistine but I'd rather listen to Madonna than Charlie
> Parker, whose genius has always eluded me.
That's true of many people, including me for many years. The problem was that until recently, most of the recordings of Parker sucked -- 9 out of 10 were just aural garbage with lots of hype on the cover. Now that's kind of fixed, except that the great recordings are mainly issued on huge collections that someone just sampling wouldn't want to shell out for.
On a good recording his instrumental genius is obvious. He makes harmonic and melodic substitutions at unbelievable speed and unending variety and beautiful tone. You don't need to know much to feel intuitively how hard that is to do. It's like watching a juggler. And, contrary to the image of bebop, he doesn't play without a net. Which is suprising when you first hear him. Unlike many that came after, even his most out there runs are always in sync with the original melody, which you can always hear in the background as a counterpoint, and which he can resume at any time.
But of course, as for liking it, you have to like jazz first. And if you don't, well you won't like Charlie either. I mean if you don't like wine, there no reason to think you'll like musty old rare wine. De gustibus.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com