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What was the name of the band that was the Hep-Sations of 1945 revue?

southern tour with the Hep-Sations of 1945 revue, the band and new music were well received—thanks to Ella Fitzgerald. Her popularity and strong draw at the box office validated Gillespie and the bebop movement. In turn, she received a new musical language, bebop.1 The next week, Charlie confirmed Gillespie’s worst fears by showing up high for the band’s opening night at the McKinley Theater in the Bronx. Miles Davis recalled how Charlie’s debut with the band ended on a sour note. “On the night we opened at the McKinley, Bird was up on stage nodding out and playing nothing but his own solos. He wouldn’t play behind nobody else. Even the people in the audience were making fun of Bird while he was nod- ding up there on stage. So Dizzy, who was fed up with Bird anyway, fired him after that first gig.”2 Arranger Gil Fuller and Davis urged Gillespie to give Charlie another chance, but Gillespie remained adamant. For the next couple of weeks, Charlie made the rounds, sitting in on late- night jam sessions in Harlem and on 52nd Street. Word of Charlie’s return spread swiftly throughout the hipster community. Metronome heralded Char- lie’s triumphal return and renewed vigor: The Bird came back to New York in April, after more than a year on the West Coast, came back to a musician’s community wildly eager to see and hear him again. The night he arrived in town the word went around from one club to another, from one bar to another. “Bird’s back in town!” whispered in sepulchral tones, usually reserved for religious leaders and revolutionaries. Every session he appeared at for the next few weeks was ballyhooed days in advance among the beboppers as another Bird-letter day and attendance was compulsory for those who wished to continue in the bebop school. Happily, in spite of strong reports to the contrary, the Bird showed up in New York in good health. Forty pounds heavier than usual, still a brilliant musical thinker, still the most influential bebopper of them all if not yet in full possession of his technique, tone and taste.3 Tales of Charlie’s exploits passed from hipster to hipster. Embellished with each retelling, his legends assumed mythic proportions. Charlie handpicked the group for the Three Deuces. He chose Miles Da- vis as his foil in the front line. Unlike Gillespie, who challenged Charlie at every turn, Davis played under his flowing solos. Charlie built the rhythm Dewey Square  • 

What was the name of the band that was a former bassist with?<sep> What was

section around Max Roach, a melodic percussionist who set a steady pulse on the ride cymbal, creating a flowing carpet of sound. This freed Roach to create a polyrhythmic texture with the high hat and bass drum.4 Meeting the demands of Charlie’s abrupt rhythmic shifts fully realized Roach’s tex- tured approach. Charlie rounded out the rhythm section with Tommy Potter, former bassist with the Billy Eckstine band, and Duke Jordan, the pianist in the house band at the Three Deuces. Charlie called for daily rehearsals and then failed to show up, leaving Davis to rehearse the group at Teddy Reig’s apartment or the Nola Studios. Charlie’s charisma and celebrity created a demand for the quintet. Fifty- Second Street, after declining during the war years, underwent a renais- sance, sparked by the popularity of bebop. Miles Davis explained, “The two records Bird had recorded for Dial out in Los Angeles had been released. . . . They had been released in late 1946 and were now big jazz hits. So, with 52nd Street open again and Bird back in town, the club owners wanted Bird. Everybody was after him. They wanted small bands again and they felt Bird would pack them in. They offered him $800 a week for four weeks at the Three Deuces. . . . He paid me and Max $135 a week and Tommy and Duke $125. Bird made the most he had ever made in his life, $280 a week. ”5 For the first time, Charlie and Doris enjoyed a degree of financial security. Doris put money in the bank and bought Charlie a new wardrobe of Broadway pinstripe suits, shoes, shirts, and silk ties. In late April, the quintet opened at the Three Deuces opposite the Lennie Tristano trio to overflow crowds. Charlie, glad to be back on Fifty-Second Street, graciously worked the room, charming patrons and musicians alike. Pianist Tristano, who had been blind since infancy, fondly recalled Charlie’s professional courtesy and thoughtfulness. “I can say that [Charlie] has been nicer to me than anybody in the business,” Tristano judged. “My group was opposite his at the Three Deuces. He sat through my entire first set listening intently. When it was all over, the two fellows I was playing with left the stand, leaving me alone. They knew I could get around all right, but Bird didn’t know that; he thought I was hung up for the moment. He rushed up to the stand, told me how much he liked my playing, and subtly escorted me off the bandstand.”6 Crowds packed the Three Deuces, cementing Charlie’s reputation as the “High Priest” of bebop.7

What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie

After closing at the Three Deuces, Charlie signed with the Moe Gale Agency, which also represented Gillespie. Billy Shaw, the agency’s vice presi- dent, personally represented Charlie, giving his career a boost. He booked Charlie into six Monday night performances of Jazz at the Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall starting on May 5. Charlie’s participation in the Jazz at the Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall concerts initiated an association with Nor- man Granz, a relationship that later paid off handsomely for both men. Charlie wasted no time getting back into the recording studio for the Sa- voy label. Bud Powell, Charlie’s pianist of choice, replaced Duke Jordan for the session. Before hiring Jordan, Charlie had offered Powell the job at the Three Deuces. Powell, who was mentally unstable and personally disliked Charlie, refused the offer. Charlie repeatedly pleaded with Powell to work with him, only to be turned down. The inscrutable Powell finally relented and agreed to sit in for the Savoy session. On May 8, the band recorded four selections: “Donna Lee,” “Chasing the Bird,” “Cheryl,” and “Buzzy.” As usual, Charlie composed out of necessity rather than by design. He sketched out the first section of each selection in the studio then worked through the changes with the band until arriving at a final take. Miles Davis contributed “Donna Lee,” a new composition. “Donna Lee” captures Charlie at the top of his game, effortlessly spinning inventive solos with unexpected twists and turns of phrasing. The band rises to the occasion, matching his imaginative phrases note for note. Kicking off “Donna Lee” at a bright tempo, Charlie and Davis introduce the intricate theme, peppered with eighth notes, in unison, giving way to two master- fully conceived and executed choruses by Charlie. Davis confidently jumps in with a fiery first-half chorus middle-register turn, revealing a new mas- tery of technique and wealth of ideas. Bud Powell then takes charge of the second half of the chorus, artfully accenting clustered notes with space. Charlie and Davis revisit the theme in the out chorus, taking things home to a photo-finish ending. When the records were released, Ross Russell notified Savoy of Dial’s exclusive contract with Charlie. Herman Lubinsky, the owner of Savoy, coun- tered by producing a handwritten agreement with Charlie for a total of twelve sides, predating the contract with Dial.8 The flustered Russell, feeling like a “mere babe in the woods” surrounded by “a jungle of larceny,” complained, Dewey Square  • 

What was the name of the lawyer who advised Savoy that Parker had signed a contract with

“Charlie had been silent on the matter. Savoy claimed no prior knowledge of the exclusive Dial contract and was legally blameless,” he explained. “The musicians Union refused to intervene. The Moe Gale agency took a dim view of Charlie’s recording for either label. ”9 Russell hired attorney Alan J. Berlan to take Savoy to court—to no avail. After researching the case, Berlan informed Russell: The attorney for Savoy advised the N. J. attorney that Parker had signed a contract with Savoy on November 19, 1945, in which Parker gave an option for eight additional recordings. As they predate you, they claim no respon- sibility. They claim same is in writing and that they have a written state- ment from Parker. I checked with Mr. Ricardi of AFM, to ascertain whether the contract was filed. To date I have not heard. You have to write and wait. The implication I received was that if it was not filed, it is still legal, but if the parties got in trouble, then they are on the spot with the AFM. If Savoy’s contention is correct and he has a prior contract, we feel that you may be out of luck on the eight recordings.10 Russell, who was in no position financially to call Lubinsky’s bluff, let the matter ride. The legal dispute between Savoy and Dial became a moot point when Billy Shaw suspended all recording sessions for either label to clear the way for a deal with Mercury, a leading independent label. Shaw’s intervention came at an inopportune time for Russell, who was in the midst of moving Dial’s operation to New York. A few months earlier, Russell had bought out Marvin Freeman and incorporated Dial, leaving the label strapped for cash. Russell desperately needed new recordings by Charlie to build Dial’s catalog and generate a profit. For his part, Charlie wanted as little as possible to do with Russell. Rumors of Charlie’s renewed drug and alcohol abuse began circulating in the jazz community. He countered the allegations by publicly acknowledging his past drug use in an interview with jazz critic Leonard Feather published in Metronome. Imploring Feather not to make him out to be a “moralizer or reformer,” Charlie candidly addressed his drug addiction. “It all came from being introduced too early to nightlife,” Charlie divulged. “When you’re not mature enough to know what’s happening—well you goof. ” Describing his

What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie

addiction, Charlie explained, “I didn’t know what hit me . . . it was so sudden. I was a victim of circumstance. . . . High school kids don’t know any better. That way, you can miss the most important years of your life, the years of possible creation. I don’t know how I made it through those years. ” Charlie added how the rejection of his music contributed to his breakdown. “I be- came bitter, hard, cold. I was always on a panic—couldn’t buy clothes or a good place to live. Finally out on the Coast last year I didn’t have any place to stay, until somebody put me up in a converted garage. The mental strain was getting worse all the time. What made it worst of all was that nobody understood our kind of music out on the Coast. They hated it. ” Expressing his great admiration for classical music, Charlie compared his lack of acceptance to the rejection of Beethoven. “They say that when Beethoven was on his deathbed he shook his fist at the world: they just didn’t understand. Nobody in his own time really dug anything he wrote. But that’s music. ” Weighing in on the continued controversy swirling around bebop, Charlie dismissed the label and modestly downplayed his contribution. “Let’s not call it be bop. Let’s call it music. People get so used to hearing jazz for so many years, finally somebody said ‘Let’s have something different and some new ideas began to evolve. Then people brand it ‘bebop’ and try to crush it. If it should ever become completely accepted, people should remember it’s in just the same position jazz was. It’s just another style. I don’t think any one person invented it. I was playing the same style years before I came to New York. I never consciously changed my style. ” Charlie wrapped up the interview on an up beat, declaring, “Let’s get straight and make some music!”11 Charlie played a July engagement at the New Bali Restaurant in Wash- ington, D.C., and then returned to the Three Deuces on a double bill with Coleman Hawkins. While playing at the Three Deuces, Charlie participated in two battles of the bands broadcast over the Mutual Broadcasting System. The battles pitted modernists against traditionalists and were broadcast as part of the Bands for Bonds program sponsored by the Treasury Department. Metronome columnist and reviewer Barrry Ulanov fielded the modernists led by Charlie and Gillespie. Rudi Blesh, the host of the radio series This is Jazz, assembled an all-star New Orleans band featuring Baby Dodds drums, Edmond Hall clarinet, Pops Foster bass, and Danny Barker guitar. Like the Dewey Square  • 

What was the name of the band that was rehears- als?<sep> What

jazz camps they respectively represented, modernists and moldy figs, Ulanov and Blesh were at odds over the merits of bebop versus traditional jazz. The two bands faced off in the studio of radio station WOR. Ironically, WOR did not carry the program, so listeners in New York had to listen over WICC, Bridgeport, Connecticut. During the first broadcast the all-star New Orleans group led off with “Sensation Rag,” “Save It Pretty Mama,” and “That’s-a-Plenty. ” The modernists countered with “Hot House” and “Fine and Dandy. ” For the next broadcast, the two bands shared the same set list of standards: “On the Sunnyside of the Street,” “How Deep Is the Ocean,” and “Tiger Rag.” While the traditionalists stuck closely to the melody, the modernists played off the changes. In the end, the broadcasts helped heal the rift between two jazz communities. Ulanov, covering the battles in Met- ronome observed, “Notes are still better than words to settle differences of musical opinion. When they are blown by the greatest representatives of the warring sides, the schisms of the jazz community assume a dignity, of which all of us are jealous, for which we intend to fight hard. ”12 The rehears- als and broadcasts briefly reunited Charlie and Gillespie. On September 29, Charlie and Gillespie played a concert at Carnegie Hall. Gillespie and Leonard Feather, taking a cue from Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic series, staged a concert at Carnegie Hall showcasing Gillespie’s big band, Charlie and Gillespie with a small combo, and Ella Fitzgerald accompanied by the big band. Kicking things off with the big band, Gillespie unveiled a chamber work by pianist John Lewis, “Toccata for Trumpet,” and “Cubano Be, Cubano Bop,” a new Latin composition he composed with pianist George Russell, to mixed reviews. Barry Ulanov, usually supportive of new directions in jazz, gave the band and the two new compositions a lukewarm review in Metronome: “Dizzy’s band was generally clean in its Carnegie performance, remarkably adroit in its negotiation of a new little nothing called the Afro-Cubano Drums Suite, a little less at home with the improperly named but most provocative piece of the evening, John Lewis’s Toccata for solo trumpet and orchestra. ”13 Charlie joined Gillespie during the second half of the program and stole the show. He outplayed Gillespie at every turn, egged on by his fans on the front row of the packed house. The long-simmering rivalry between the two

What was the name of the show that Charlie was featured with?<sep> What was the name of

erupted into a musical free for all, running through a set of bebop standards including “A Night in Tunisia,” “Dizzy Atmosphere,” “Groovin’ High,” “Con- firmation,” and “Ko Ko. ” At one point, Charlie teased Gillespie by quoting “Be Bop,” the title of Gillespie’s early recording which critics used to define the new music.14 Reviewing the concert, Down Beat hailed Charlie’s brilliant onstage victory. “In the quintet numbers with Charlie, Gillespie was appre- ciably bested. Charlie’s constant flow of ideas, his dramatic entrances and his perky use of musical punctuation was a revelation to an audience too often satiated by tenors. ”15 Ross Russell, who was in the audience that eve- ning, confirmed Down Beat’s account: “At the Carnegie Hall concert where he [Charlie] was featured guest artist with Dizzy Gillespie he gave an incredible exhibition of altosaxology deliberately designed to cut Dizzy to pieces and prove himself the greatest jazz musician living. . . . The town is still talk- ing. ”16 A hard act to follow, Charlie exited to thunderous applause, leaving Gillespie on stage to clown and dance through Ella Fitzgerald’s set. Impressed by the concert overall, but put off by Gillespie’s antics dur- ing Fitzgerald’s performance, a reviewer in Down Beat groused, “One thing throughout the concert was completely inexcusable. Dizzy demands con- sideration from musicians and writers as a serious leader of a good mu- sical band. No one, not even in Carnegie Hall, would want him to work without the showmanship so necessary to appeal to large crowds. But this doesn’t mean that he has license to stand on the platform doing bumps and grinds and in general often acting like a darn fool. . . . Gillespie is too fine a musician to have to indulge in shoddy tricks like this to garner at- tention. Showmanship is one thing. Acting like a bawdy house doorman is another.”17 While Gillespie took a critical beating for his distracting antics, Charlie received musical honors for his virtuoso performance, establishing his credentials as a concert artist, leading the way for his future participa- tion in Jazz at the Philharmonic. Economic necessity compelled Charlie to record again for the Savoy and Dial labels. On October 17, James Petrillo, the president of the American Federation of Musicians, announced a ban on recording by union mem- bers effective December 31, 1947, declaring, “I know of no other industry that makes the instruments that will destroy that industry and believe me when I say that records sooner or later will destroy musicians. ”18 Billy Shaw, Dewey Square  • 

What was the name of the recording ban that Russell negotiated with Dial?<sep> What was

judging that recordings for small, independent labels were preferable to no recordings at all, reversed course and directed Charlie to fulfill his contracts with Dial and Savoy before the ban took effect. Shaw then renegotiated Charlie’s deal with Dial. Russell recalled that Shaw “called me into the Gale office and in a masterful mix of brag and con worked out a new deal for Bird with Dial. The deal was: one hundred dollars a side, cash in front, three sessions to be done that fall. The royalty matter was now a forgotten matter. Nobody seemed to give a damn about royalties, least of all Bird. In fact, the royalty situation was so messed up that a copyright attorney couldn’t have set it straight.”19 Russell, still short of capital, invested his life savings, borrowed against his car, and wrote his mother pleading for a loan to finance the sessions. Charlie recorded twenty-four new selections for Dial before the ban took effect. Just before the first session, Billy Shaw reconsidered and upped Char- lie’s price per side to include royalties. Russell readily accepted Shaw’s offer. “Naturally I went along with Shaw’s proposal and Bird produced the Three Deuces quintet, more or less in residency there by this time, and the ses- sions were made,” Russell explained. “These sessions went like clockwork. The musicians were playing together every night, had all of the originals in hand and all the useful ballads run down. Six sides were made at each ses- sion and no session ran more than about 2½ hours. The time would have been less than that except for Miles’s frequent fluffs.”20 The sessions gave Russell two years’ worth of releases, enough to carry Dial through the recording ban. At the end of 1947, Russell quit paying Charlie royalties, alleging he breached his contract with Dial by recording for Savoy and Mercury. Russell wrote a note to himself based on a conversation with his legal counsel Morris B. Rauscher: “Do not pay further royalties. At the end of each quarter send C. P. [Charlie Parker] a registered letter with statement of royalties due him for that quarter and deducting total of same from the sum C. P. owes Dial records from advance royalties. When the debt is repayed [sic], Dial Records should contend that C. P. broke his contract by recording for other companies, etc., and thereby is not entitled to further royalties, in- asmuch as the contract is no longer in force. If he sues, it will take about eight to ten months for the case to come up in court, during which time it is most probable that C. P. ’s lawyer would attempt a settlement. ”21 In a royalty state-

What was the name of the magazine that aired on January 25, 1948?<sep> What was

ment issued on January 25, 1948, Russell claimed cash advances to Charlie totaling $1,689.50. Russell then deducted the advances from Charlie’s sub- sequent royalty statements. By 1950, Russell quit issuing royalty statements to Charlie altogether. Charlie never forgave Russell for not paying royalties and for releasing “Lover Man,” from the July 1946 session, chronicling his break down in the studio. The disputes ended their association. The 1947 annual Metronome readers’ poll marked a changing of the guard, with Charlie and Gillespie leading the way. Across the board, modernists, including Leo Parker, Howard McGhee, Kai Winding, J. J. Johnson, Lennie Tristano, Ray Brown, Max Roach, and Milt Jackson successfully challenged entrenched traditionalists. Metronome noted that “throughout, with rare exception, the votes are to the young, the modern, the progressive voices in jazz. ”22 Dizzy won top trumpet honors. Charlie edged out Johnny Hodges for the top alto slot and won the coveted Influence of the Year Award, remark- able accomplishments considering his hasty return from exile just seven months earlier. After noting Charlie’s fall from grace, Metronome praised his amazing comeback: But Charlie wasn’t through. He came back to New York and showed us. He played better than ever before. He elicited more enthusiasm and more imita- tion than ever before. He took over as the major influence of the year in jazz. Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid this imposing musician is an accurate description of his talent. Where other purveyors of bebop, more and more a formularized expression, stick closely to the cadence, changes and rhythmic devices which identify their form, Charlie goes further and further afield. If any man can be said to have originated bop, Charlie Parker did it.” Concluding by predicting further breakthroughs by Charlie, Metro- nome added, “If any be bopper can break away from the strictures of his style, utilizing its advances and advancing beyond them, the Influence of the Year, Charlie Parker, will do it.23 In January 1948, Charlie embarked on a two-month tour of the Midwest, playing clubs and ballrooms in Chicago and Detroit. The quintet returned to New York in late March for a two-week stand at the Three Deuces. On the second night of the engagement, Dean Benedetti, equipped with a new pa- per-based, open-reel tape recorder, recorded two sets before being thrown Dewey Square  • 

What was Charlie's favorite name?<sep> What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was

out by the management for not buying drinks. On a number of occasions, Benedetti helped carry Charlie, who had gotten too high on heroin and li- quor, out the back door of the club. In early April, the narcotic squad cracked down on residents of the Dewey Square Hotel, singling out Charlie as a person of interest. Charlie and Doris promptly moved to the Marden Hotel, located at 142 West Forty-Fourth near Times Square, conveniently located between WOR studios and Fifty- Second Street, where Charlie recorded and worked. Charlie was pleasantly surprised to find that his hero, Lester Young, also lived in the Marden. Charlie spent the spring through early summer on the road. On April 18, Charlie and Sarah Vaughan joined the Jazz at the Philharmonic tour. Since Jazz at the Philharmonic’s inception in Los Angeles four years earlier, it had grown from a freewheeling jam session into an institution, playing stately halls and auditoriums across the country. Norman Granz, relying on a proven formula, presented top jazz soloists accompanied by all-star rhythm sections in concert settings. Giving jazz the same dignity afforded to classical music, Granz paid musicians well and insisted they be respected as artists and individuals, regardless of the color of their skin. Uncompromis- ing, Granz bypassed municipalities and venues unwilling to relax Jim Crow practice.24 Finding few venues below the Mason-Dixon Line agreeable to his terms, Granz usually passed over the South. Granz, impressed by Charlie’s meteoric rise in the reader’s polls and stunning performance at Carnegie Hall, recruited him, along with Sarah Vaughan, to headline the spring 1948 Jazz at the Philharmonic tour. The twenty-six-day tour featured Vaughan, her pianist Jimmy Jones, guitar- ist Barney Kessell, along with tenor saxophonists Flip Phillips and Dexter Gordon. Charlie wanted to take the quintet from the Three Deuces on the road, but Miles Davis and Max Roach declined to join the tour. “Soon af- ter,” Davis recalled, “When Norman Granz came and offered me and Max fifty dollars a night to go with Jazz at the Philharmonic with Bird, I said no. . . . Max was mad because Norman didn’t like or take the kind of music we normally played seriously, and the money wasn’t right.”25 Unlike Davis and Roach, Tommy Potter and Duke Jordan enthusiastically joined the tour. Charlie hired Red Rodney and Stan Levey to replace Davis and Roach. Rodney, trim with wavy red hair, launched his career during the waning days

What was the name of the band that influenced the big band era?<sep> What was

of the big band era, passing, in quick succession, through the bands of Tony Pastor, Jimmy Dorsey, Les Brown, Gene Krupa, Georgie Auld, and Woody Herman. Originally inspired by Harry James’s sweet style, Rodney became a devotee of bop after hearing Gillespie and Charlie on Fifty-Second Street and at Billy Berg’s in Los Angeles. Jazz at the Philharmonic played two dates in Kansas City, a concert in the art deco Music Hall on Tuesday, April 27, followed by a date the next night at the Municipal Auditorium for a racially mixed audience. Sarah Vaughan enchanted the audiences with her cool, sinuous vocals on ballads. As a coun- terpoint, Charlie heated up the hometown audience with fiery solos. The Kansas City Call reported that “Charley [sic] ‘Yardbird’ Parker, a Kansas City, Kas., [sic] born alto saxist, was terrific and won resounding applause for his Be-bop mastery. He heated up the house to the boiling point every time he appeared on stage. The guy actually crowded so many eighth and sixteenth notes into a measure that it seemed his horn would burst.”26 While in Kansas City, Charlie and Rodney stayed at Addie’s home. After the show, they sat in with Bud Calvert and His Headliners at the Playhouse, a popular nightclub located “out in the county” at 2240 Blue Ridge. The nightly floorshow at the Playhouse featured a band, dancers, and singers. The Calvert band played from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. Tenor saxophonist Charlie White and other white musicians who jammed with Charlie years earlier when he was a member of the Buster Smith band stopped by to renew old acquaintances. Charlie White, who was a professional pilot, flew Charlie and Rodney in his private plane to the next Jazz at the Philharmonic stop in Saint Louis. Dur- ing the trip, Rodney found that White, like Charlie, delighted in living close to the edge. “We were with Norman Granz [and Jazz at the Philharmonic] and had played K.C. and stayed over night at Bird’s mother’s home,” Rod- ney recalled. “The fellow named Charlie White was an airline pilot (T.W.A.) and also had his own plane—with which he offered to fly us to St. Louis for the next concert. During the very rough and bumpy flight in the small air- craft Bird decided he would like to operate the plane and Mr. White allowed [Charlie to take the controls] over my screaming protests. ”27 During the Jazz at the Philharmonic tour, Charlie and Rodney became fast friends. Charlie affectionately referred to Rodney, who was born Robert Chudnick, as Chood. Dewey Square  • 

What was the name of Charlie's obituary?<sep> What was the name

Back in New York in early July, Charlie opened at the Onyx Club, one of the few clubs on Fifty-Second Street still booking jazz combos. Since the beginning of the year, Fifty-Second Street had declined dramatically, taking on a tawdry atmosphere. Strippers and drag queens replaced small com- bos in the clubs lining the street until only the Three Deuces and the Onyx featured jazz. The owners of the Spotlite abandoned its well-established music policy in favor of snake dancer Zorita and her Python and Camille’s Six Foot Sex, the King Size Glamour Girl. Following the skin trade, prosti- tutes worked the street. Pushers, back on the street after the cleanup a few years earlier, openly peddled their wares. Leonard Feather wrote Fifty-Second Street’s obituary in the April 1948 is- sue of Metronome. “Fifty Second Street, which all over the world is recognized as a symbol of jazz—Fifty Second Street, which has provided musicians with more great kicks and more good jobs than any other block of buildings in the world in the past fifteen years, now seems to be headed for oblivion.” After running down a litany of club changes and closings, Feather pinned the blame on indifferent management, prostitution, and narcotics: There can be no doubt that the average non-musician who might be inter- ested in an act or band at one of these places is repelled by the poor value, poor service and watered liquor, and is even more depressed by the unsavory atmosphere created by the characters that hang around. . . . What was once a healthy meeting place for musicians and fans, a street on which racial bar- riers were broken down, by 1945 had turned into something that parallels the notorious Barbary Coast of San Francisco. . . . The truth is that today marijuana is kid stuff compared with what’s been going on along The Street. Marijuana, though illegal, is not a dangerous habit–dangerous drug, in the opinion of most doctors. But heroin, morphine and cocaine are other and far graver matters. Their use has spread like a vile disease among an increasing clique of musicians, involving, alas a number of Streeters. Feather concluded with an oblique reference to Charlie’s renewed drug use. “It’s not a pretty sight when your favorite horn man, after taking a terrific chorus, sneaks off to a secluded spot, hypodermic needle in pocket, and returns twenty minutes later glassy-eyed, completely out of the world.”28 Taking up the slack from the decline of Fifty-Second Street, a string of clubs on Broadway between Forty-Seventh and Forty-Ninth Streets began

What was the name of the roomy club and restaurant in Brooklyn?<sep> What was the name

featuring jazz. Shortly after the publication of Feather’s article, the Royal Roost, a roomy club and restaurant located on Broadway at Forty-Seventh Street, right across from the Strand Theater, initiated a weekend bebop policy at the urging of Symphony Sid Torin, a popular disc jockey and impresario. Originally from Newport News, Torin’s family moved to Brooklyn when he was a child. As a teenager, Torin worked in record shops in Manhattan. He set up the famed record department at the Commodore Music Shop, which then mainly sold radios. Milt Gabler, a teenager who would later own Com- modore, worked side by side with Torin. He received his nickname Symphony Sid while hosting a popular music show over a classical radio station. Three years later, Torin moved to WHOM, where he hosted an all-night jazz show starting at 11:00. Torin’s show, which prominently featured Af- rican American musicians and bands, became a hit with listeners in Har- lem. During his off hours, Torin hung around Clark Monroe’s Uptown and Jimmy’s Chicken Shack, befriending Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, and other jazz greats. A tireless self-promoter, Torin emceed concerts and hosted dances, where he played his favorite 78 discs for thousands of dancers. Torin broadcast live from the Roost opening night, inviting listeners up and down the east coast to stop by the “metropolitan bopera house.” Crowds of fans accepted Torin’s invitation. The Roost quickly became a popular gathering spot for celebrities, visiting bandleaders, and Café Soci- ety. Jazz fans of lesser means huddled at the bar. Younger fans perched on the bleacher seats in the milk bar or peanut gallery on one side of the spa- cious room. Lucky Thompson, Allen Eager, Tadd Dameron, Miles Davis, and other top modernists attended the late-night sessions at the Roost. Charlie directly moved his headquarters around the corner to the Roost, holding court between tours across the Midwest for the Moe Gale Agency. According to Ross Russell, “Billy Shaw promised Charlie a Cadillac, home and bank account by Christmas if he stays straight.”29 That fall, Charlie toured with Jazz at the Philharmonic. After opening at Carnegie Hall on November 6, Jazz at the Philharmonic, featuring Char- lie along with Howard McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, up-and-coming alto saxophonist Sonny Criss, tenor saxophonist Flip Phillips, and trombonist Tommy Turk, embarked on a thirty-five-city tour stretching to the West Coast and back to New York. Doris accompanied Charlie on the tour. Dewey Square  • 

What was the name of the band that was a member of the Jazz at the Philharmonic

The morning before the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert at the Municipal Auditorium in Long Beach on Saturday, November 20, Charlie and Doris drove to Tijuana, where they were married. According to Doris, she “had no strong desire for marriage, but Charlie was going through a jealousy period, a romantically insecure stage with me; so I said yes.”30 Charlie and Doris returned to Long Beach in time for the concert that evening. Two days later the Jazz at the Philharmonic tour arrived in Los Angeles for a concert at the Shrine Auditorium. During the tour Norman Granz did his best to shield Charlie from drug dealers. Concerned about the Los Angeles concert, Granz hired an off-duty African American detective with the police department to chauffer Charlie around and keep an eye on him. The detec- tive checked Charlie into a motel on the outskirts of the city. Charlie gave the detective the slip and disappeared into Central Avenue. “Apparently,” Granz explained, “Charlie said he was going to go to sleep, and I think the young detective thought he could sack out, too. When he woke up, Charlie had taken the keys to the car and gone. ”31 Granz learned of Charlie’s disappearance a few hours before the concert. If Charlie failed to show, the program would have to go on without him, and Granz would have to refund some ticket holders’ money—a financially di- sastrous situation. Jazz at the Philharmonic made enough money in larger metropolitan areas like Los Angeles to cover for less profitable dates at smaller locations like Salt Lake City. Tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, who knew the Los Angeles scene, located Charlie, who was passed out. Edwards managed to get Charlie to the Shrine Auditorium while Jazz at the Philharmonic was in full swing. Granz sobered Charlie up and shoved him onstage for the last two numbers, satisfying his obligation to ticket holders. “He was really out of it,” Granz confided. “There was no way for Charlie to go on effectively. Coleman was playing, and I kept signaling when Coleman would finish a number that finished his set. I’d say, ‘One more, one more.’ Poor Hawk was out there interminably, it seemed.” Granz stuck Charlie’s head under a cold running faucet and told him, “‘Charlie, I’m gonna kill you if you don’t get yourself together.’ . . . He got himself together, and went onstage. I think he played one or two numbers, and I brought the curtain down. They had seen Charlie Parker, so technically I was okay. I didn’t blame him for that. If you’re taking someone out on tour, you know whom

What was the name of the band Granz recorded with?<sep> What was the name of the

you are taking. I mean, there were a lot of musicians I knew who were not straight. As long as they did their show, it wasn’t up to me to tell them what to do and what not to do offstage.”32 An anonymous critic reviewing the concert for Down Beat roundly panned Charlie’s performance. “Complete disappointment of the evening was the performance—or nonperformance—of Charlie Parker, who came on late in the session to a screaming stomping ovation and then blew virtually noth- ing but clinkers and meaningless, disconnected passages that sounded as though they had tumbled from a dream—almost completely alien to the architectural structure of the compositions attempted.” The reviewer, who was quite familiar with Charlie’s career, added, “It was hardly the talents of the Charlie Parker of Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines or Jay McShann days.”33 Ironically, despite Charlie’s transgressions and irresponsible ways, he got along famously with the no-nonsense Granz. Like Howard McGhee and Gene Ramey earlier, Granz looked out for the unreliable Charlie, taking more than a passing interest in his career. Mercury records sponsored the fall Jazz at the Philharmonic season, re- quiring the tour to stop in every city with a Mercury distributorship. Antici- pating an end to the recording ban by the end of 1948, Mercury hired Granz to build a roster of top bebop musicians. James Petrillo finally relented and lifted the nearly year-old ban on recording effective in mid-December 1948. Granz swung into action, lining up stars from his Jazz at the Philharmonic not already signed to other labels. On the heels of the fall Jazz at the Philharmonic tour, Granz recorded Charlie and Flip Phillips with Machito’s Afro-Cuban orchestra. By no means a bop purist, he opted to record “danceable bop,” pairing bop soloists with Latin groups.34 Granz had become enamored of Afro-Cuban jazz after see- ing Chano Pozo, the great conga player, with the Dizzy Gillespie orchestra at Carnegie Hall in 1947. Critics referred to the hybrid as Cubop. Granz featured Charlie’s soaring solos against the backdrop of the highly rhythmic Machito band, creating a striking contrast of styles. Once released, “No Noise part 2” and “Mango Mangue” were well received. Granz signed Charlie to a long-term contract with Mercury, enabling him to exert con- siderable influence over Charlie’s recording career. Dewey Square  • 

What was Charlie Parker's name?<sep> What was Charlie Parker's name?<sep> What

In early December 1948, Charlie reformed the quintet and opened at the Royal Roost. Miles Davis and Max Roach rejoined the band, and Al Haig replaced Duke Jordan. An irresponsible bandleader, Charlie consistently failed to pay band members on time. Later that month, long-simmering tensions between Davis and Charlie exploded at the Royal Roost. Davis, feeling slighted after asking for two weeks’ back pay, lost his temper and threatened to kill Charlie. Quickly exiting, Charlie returned with half of Davis’s money. The next week Charlie came up short again. “About a week later . . . we were playing at the Royal Roost. Bird and I had an argument about the rest of the money he owed me before we went on stage to play,” Davis disclosed. “So now Bird is up on the stage acting a fool, shooting a cap gun at Al Haig, letting air out of a balloon into the microphone. People were laughing and he was, too, because he thinks it’s funny. I just walked off the bandstand. ”35 Davis left the quintet for good, complaining that “Bird makes you feel like you are one foot high.”36 He recommended Kenny Dorham, a capable soloist with a lyrical style, as his replacement. Having come into his own, Davis moved in a different musical direction, joining arranger Gil Evans, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, and pianist John Lewis in founding what soon became known as the cool school, a new orchestral expression of jazz emphasizing space and lyricism, the extension yet antithesis of bebop. Davis defined the new style with a series of record- ings for the Capitol label, later reissued as Birth of the Cool. Charlie began 1949 on an up note, again winning the number-one alto slot in the Metronome readers’ poll, outpolling Johnny Hodges 1,058 to 393. Metronome noted Charlie’s contribution to the bebop tradition and influence on subsequent generations of jazz musicians: Charlie Parker won his position in this year’s poll with the greatest of ease. His pre-eminence as one of the founding fathers of bop, as the definitive exemplar of the medium on alto, and as a fount of new jazz ideas, in or out of the idiom associated with him and Dizzy Gillespie, has, at this point, carried him to the very top of his profession. Today, very few jazz instrumentalists born since the first World War play without a decisive Parker influence. . . . His work can be heard, in some small measure at least, in almost all the alto

What was the name of the group that accompanied the audience?<sep> What was the name of

men who placed near him except those trained in an earlier music: listen to Art Pepper, George Weidler, Sonny Stitt, Charlie Kennedy, Lee Konitz [and] you will hear at least a warble of Bird music.37 At the first of the year, Billy Shaw left the Moe Gale Agency to form his own agency. Located in the RCA building, the Shaw agency represented Charlie, Miles Davis, clarinetist Buddy DeFranco, organist Milt Buckner, and Lionel Hampton. Charlie became Shaw’s most important client. Shaw celebrated their new affiliation by buying Charlie a new black Cadillac se- dan. On Max Roach’s wedding day, Charlie showed up with his Cadillac and a driver to chauffer the happy couple around town. Charlie spent the late winter and early spring alternating between the Royal Roost and tours of the Midwest. In early May, he made his interna- tional debut, headlining the eight-day Jazz Festival International 1949, pro- duced by writer Charles Delaunay and the Hot Clubs of France at the Salle Pleyel, the main concert hall in Paris. The twenty-five thousand jazz fans passing through the concert hall over the course of the festival divided into two camps: traditionalists following Hugues Panassie and modernists led by Delaunay.38 One-time allies, the two bitterly split over bebop. On stage, Sidney Bechet, Jimmy McPartland, along with Lips Page and Don Byas, led the traditional charge. Charlie and the quintet with Tadd Dameron’s group featuring Miles Davis, James Moody, and Kenny Clarke championed the modern style. British, French, and Swedish groups rounded out the bill, making it a truly international event. The Tadd Dameron group featuring Davis and Moody opened the festi- val, confounding the audience with its fiery bebop style, judged by Marian McPartland in Down Beat as “some of the most controversial music of the day. ” Traditionalists then took over, dazzling the audience with their show- manship and artistry. Lips Page, always a crowd pleaser, brought down the house with his onstage antics and spirited Kansas City–style solos. Soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet, representing the New Orleans tradi- tion, charmed the audience with his dazzling performance of “Summertime. ” Cornetist Jimmy McPartland, who was accompanied by a pickup band, paid tribute to Bix Beiderbecke and the Chicago school. Hitting the stage for the finale, Charlie astonished the audience, modern- ists and traditionalists alike, with his endless fountain of ideas and precise Dewey Square  • 

What was the name of the first book that was published by Leonard Feather?<sep> What

execution. Marian McPartland breathlessly reported how Charlie’s bril- liance brought the audience to the front of their seats, then to their feet for a standing ovation. “The band had a tremendous beat, and Charlie, dis- playing his prodigious technique and originality of ideas, wove in and out of the rhythmic patterns laid down by Max Roach to the accompaniment of ecstatic cries of ‘Formidable!’ from the fanatics.”39 Charlie created a sensation in Paris. “The reception in France was lavish,” Tommy Potter recalled. “Autograph-signing parties in record shops and lots of press coverage topped by a press party in Bird’s hotel room. Charlie ordered a bottle of champagne, and he tipped the waiter generously; and well he might, because he had that waiter make five trips for five buckets of champagne. ”40 Throngs of admirers mobbed Charlie in clubs. At Club Saint Germain, Charlie met existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. Introduced to Sartre by the writer Simone de Beauvoir, Charlie quipped, “I’m very glad to have met you, Mr. Sartre. I like your playing very much. ”41 While in Paris, Charlie attended a concert by guitarist Andres Segovia and met his hero, classical saxophonist Marcel Mule. The toast of the town, Charlie dined at the estates of aristocrats. Like Charlie at the Paris jazz festival, bebop gained acclaim with main- stream jazz fans. Club owners, musicians, and critics quickly capitalized on bebop’s popularity. In mid-April, the owners of the Royal Roost opened Bop City, a smart, eight-hundred-seat nightclub a few blocks north on Broadway. Bop City, a bebop venue in name only, opened with Artie Shaw’s forty-piece symphony orchestra with strings, Ella Fitzgerald, and trombonist Kai Wind- ing’s sextet. Billie Holiday and other celebrities seated in the reserved sec- tion gave the club a cachet. Fans of more modest means lined up for several blocks, eagerly waiting to pay the five-dollar admission fee to mill around the bar or huddle in the bleacher section, sipping milkshakes. In the lobby, management set up tables with signs offering to explain to the uninitiated, “What is bop?” At one of the tables, Leonard Feather hawked his first book, Inside Be-Bop. An early champion of the new music, Feather chronicled the history of bebop, profiled those responsible for its development, and analyzed bebop’s contribution to the jazz tradition, citing key recordings. Concluding his his- tory section, Feather expressed the need to break free of bebop’s stylistic limitations and create a fresh movement:

What is the major question that remains that remains that remains that has been absorbed into the mainstream

Now that bebop has been absorbed into the mainstream of jazz, the major question that remains is how it will expand, escape its limitations and cli- chés, lead the way into something still richer in musical texture and finer in artistic concept. If jazz is to remain a separate entity at all, the element of swing, the implied steady beat and tempo, will still be a vital part of every jazz performance, as will the art of improvisation on a given set of chord patterns. With these confines it may still be possible to develop fertile new ground, as the incorporation of Cuban rhythms has shown. A wider range of instrumentation, with full use of strings and woodwinds, may be one solu- tion; greater variety in thematic bases, and in the tone colors of orchestra- tion, are bound to come. In a direct reference to Charlie’s penchant of conjuring new melodies based on the chord changes of popular standards, Feather predicted the need to transcend the limitations of the technique. “It seems doubtful that jazzmen will be satisfied, a few years from now, to base half their melodies on the chords of ‘I Got Rhythm,’ ‘How High the Moon’ or the blues.”42 Writing in Metronome later that year, Barry Ulanov echoed Feather’s as- sessment of the state of bebop and jazz, concluding with the hope Charlie would, by example, lead the way to a new breakthrough. “I have a sneaking suspicion that Bird has been aware of all these things for some years, no matter what he says in his interviews. Certain it is that he began the prun- ing process and the building activity a long time ago. If change in jazz must come now through imitation of the present-day Charlie Parker, a musician of great talent, a man with a beat, one of the founders of bop, but today much too big to be called a bopper.”43 For his part, Charlie felt creatively exhausted. Lennie Tristano confided that in 1949, “Bird told me that he had said as much as he could in this par- ticular idiom. He wanted to develop something else in the way of playing or another style. He was tired of playing the same ideas. I imagine it was brought to his attention strongly by the repetitious copying of his style by everybody he met. His music had become stylized. He, of course, played it better than anyone else. In his great moments, it was still fresh. It had to be inspired. I don’t think he had this inspiration often after a time. It was a question of saying what had been already said.”44 Charlie, having reached a creative plateau, rested on his hard-won laurels. Dewey Square  • 

What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie

Charlie spent the summer touring the Midwest, then joined the fall Jazz at the Philharmonic tour. In October, Charlie re-formed the quintet and opened for a six-week run at the Three Deuces. Before opening night, Char- lie replaced Kenny Dorham with Red Rodney. Like Miles Davis, Rodney initially felt overwhelmed by the thought of playing alongside Charlie. “Bird came over to me and offered me the job,” recalled Rodney. “And, naturally, I wanted it, but I said, ‘My God, man, there’s so many people who are much more deserving than me.’ And I mentioned Kenny Dorham, for one, who had worked with him for a while. And Bird said, ‘Hey let me be the judge of that. I want you. I think that you’re the player that I want in my band.’ And I still thought that, ‘Well gee this is really nice and all, but he likes me personally, that’s why he’s doing it. I’m not worthy.’ . . . I was really fright- ened, I didn’t think I belonged.”45 Just as he had with Miles Davis, Charlie patiently brought his new protégé along, working out the rough spots on the bandstand of the Three Deuces. In late November, Norman Granz recorded Charlie with strings, realizing Feather’s idea of broadening bebop’s palette with orchestration. Charlie ex- citedly embraced the project, feeling that recording with strings legitimized his music. Sticking closely to the thirty-two-bar popular music form, Charlie recorded six of his favorite standards accompanied by a chamber ensemble and a jazz rhythm section. In a near complete musical turnaround, Charlie, with the exception of his solo on “Just Friends,” played the melody straight instead of improvising on the changes. His tone assumed a new lyricism. Granz, convinced the formula would introduce Charlie to a new audience, rushed the masters into production for release in early 1950. In mid-December, the quintet opened at Birdland, a new nightclub on Broadway at Fifty-Second Street, named in Charlie’s honor. Originally scheduled to open in September 1949, the club opened on December 15, 1949. Patrons entered under a canopy and descended a flight of stairs to a landing where they paid a seventy-five cents admission fee. Another flight of stairs down led to a dark, smoky “table-crowded” room that held just under five hundred fans. A long bar stretched along the left wall. To the right of the bar in the peanut gallery several lines of chairs faced the bandstand. Serious fans crowded this area, nursing drinks while listening intently to the music. A fence separated the peanut gallery from the main listening area

What was Charlie Parker's name on the ringing horn?<sep> What was Charlie

with tables and semi-circular booths lining the right wall. Murals of leading jazz artists adorned the walls. Initially, cages of finches lined the room, but the smoke and noise soon killed the birds. Charlie was flattered to have a regular gig at a club named in his honor. Birdland opened with A Journey through Jazz, a program chronicling the evo- lution of jazz from New Orleans to the still emerging cool movement. Riding high on the postwar Dixieland revival, Max Kaminsky’s band launched the program, satisfying the traditionalists in the audience. Covering the middle ground, Lester Young and Hot Lips Page presented a set of swing, Kansas City style. Charlie and company delivered a brilliant performance that de- fined the bop movement. The Lennie Tristano Quintet articulated the latest movement in jazz, which later became known as the third stream. Gathering for a group picture, Kaminsky, Young, Page, Charlie, and Tristano picked up their instruments for what John S. Wilson in Down Beat considered “the most fantastic cacophony ever heard.”46 From his home base at Birdland, Charlie branched out, playing top clubs in New York and theaters across the country with his rhythm section and the string ensemble. Right before Christmas, Charlie received a new alto from the King Instru- ment Company in exchange for his endorsement. He picked up a new King Super-20 with a sterling silver bell at Manny’s Music Store, not far from Times Square. As if they knew of Charlie’s penchant for pawning his alto, workmen at King personalized the horn by engraving his name on the ring that attached the silver bell to the brass horn and attaching a nameplate to the case. Charlie gave the horn a ringing endorsement in Metronome, pro- claiming, “King really came up with THE horn.”47 In February 1950, Mercury released Charlie Parker with Strings, to strong sales but mixed reviews. Down Beat praised the recordings, but Metronome roundly panned the concept and Charlie’s performance. “Bird with strings may have seemed like a good idea, and Just Friends proves that it could have been. But the club labeled ‘Play the melody!’ that was evidently brandished over Charlie’s head is all too obvious, and we can’t take the emasculated alto sounds that are all too like Rudy Weidoft on a bad day. . . . ‘Just Friends,’ however, is Charlie’s bid for freedom of interpretation. Save for a tasteless interpolation of ‘My Man,’ it’s the usual deft Charlie performance of skill and inventiveness, for which it’s almost worth acquiring the other five sides.”48 Dewey Square  • 

What was the name of the band that sparked a new trend in jazz?<sep>

Ironically, the popularity of the 78-rpm album set, quickly issued on the new long play 331⁄3-rpm format, sparked a new trend in jazz by inspiring other musicians to record with strings. Red Rodney, finding himself the odd man out—often passed over in favor of the string section—left the quintet and joined tenor saxophonist Charlie Ventura’s group. Charlie and Rodney remained friends. A few months later, Charlie saved Rodney’s life. While working with Charlie, Rodney had picked up a heroin habit. Rodney, who was trying to kick cold-turkey, mistook the pain from an appendicitis attack for withdrawal symptoms. “I was attempt- ing to kick my first habit at the time—and not knowing the physiological reactions—thought that the terrible pain was due to this effort,” confessed Rodney. “Unable to bear the pain any longer I went to his [Charlie’s] home and told him my story—he quickly fixed me—and easily informed me that my pain was not due to withdrawal and we were going to the hospital. On the way I passed out and the doctors credited Bird with saving my life.”49 In early 1950, Charlie and Chan renewed their romance. Charlie began stopping by Chan’s apartment near Central Park on his way to score drugs in Spanish Harlem. Charlie courted Chan, who was initially coy, and they be- came lovers again. They first appeared together in public at the St. Nicholas Ballroom in mid-February. Over the next few months, Charlie spent more time with Chan than Doris. Doris, chagrined by Charlie’s affair with Chan and suffering from ill health, moved in with her mother in Rock Island, Illinois. “The parting was a combination of things,” revealed Doris. “I was in no physical condition to cope with the erratic life of a jazz musician. I was nervous and bothered by low blood pressure and anemia. I just couldn’t take the anxiety of wonder- ing where he was the nights he came home very late or not at all. Visions of him hospitalized or in jail would come into my mind.”50 In late-May, Chan and her daughter Kim moved into Charlie’s apartment at 422 East Eleventh on the Lower East Side. Charlie embraced Kim as his own, winning her over with his uncanny ability to relate to children. Charlie, who wanted more children, delighted in family life. Chan assumed Char- lie’s name, but they never married. Not one to stand on ceremony, Charlie remained married to Rebecca, Gerri, and Doris while living in a common law marriage with Chan.

What was Charlie Parker's first dance date?<sep> What was Charlie Parker's first dance

The next month, Charlie opened at Café Society. Charlie charmed the elite audience, tailoring sets to suit even the squarest dancers. Metronome noted the change in Charlie’s onstage demeanor and style: Charlie Parker played a dance date at Café Society in June and early July and added another shining gem to his already glittering diadem. In the show, which Bird emceed with great charm, he restricted himself to a couple of tunes from his recent album. . . . “Just Friends” and “April in Paris,” which to these ears at least sounded far more effective with rhythm section back- ing than with the tritely scored strings. Between shows the bright Charlie quartet . . . polished off dance sets, with Bird’s horn settling comfortably on show tunes and jazz standards, shuffling off rumbas and generally keeping a lovely sound and a bumptious beat going which were, to coin a phrase, the swinging end. In all, this engagement was a delightful reminder of what used to be an accepted fact, that a distinguished jazz band inevitably plays the best sort of dance music. ”51 While generally playing it straight, Charlie could not help giving the well- heeled audience a taste of pure bebop or spontaneously joining Art Tatum, who shared the bill, in a little “Tea for Two.” After closing at Café Society, Charlie spent the summer playing Birdland and the Apollo Theater. That fall he toured leading clubs and theaters across the country, accompanied by his trio and a string ensemble. In late November, Charlie returned to Europe, starting with a seven-day tour of Scandinavia, sponsored by the jazz journal Estrad. Before leaving on the tour, Charlie kicked his habit out of respect for Scandinavian audiences. Greeted as visiting jazz royalty by school children and jazz aficionados alike, Charlie played concert halls accompanied by trumpeter Rolf Ericson and Sweden’s top bop musicians. American expatriate Roy Eldridge, then liv- ing in France, joined in on four dates, relishing the opportunity to jam with Charlie. Truly treated like an artist, Charlie reciprocated by serenading his late-night audience with flowing solo improvisations, weaving popular standards and his own compositions. Charlie loved the easy ambience of Sweden. All-night jam sessions followed the concerts, laced with liberal amounts of schnapps. Dewey Square  • 

What was Charlie's condition after he was hausted by week's end?

The nonstop revelry took its toll on Charlie’s already fragile health, ex- hausting him by week’s end. After wrapping up the tour of Sweden, Charlie moved on to Paris for an appearance at Charles Delaunay’s upcoming First International Jazz Fair. While in Paris, Charlie stayed with drummer Kenny Clarke and his pregnant fiancée, vocalist Annie Ross. In the post–World War II period, Clarke and scores of other jazz musicians, who were fed up with racism in the United States, moved to Europe, where they were treated with dignity denied to them in their own country. Charlie considered joining the growing ranks of expatriate jazz musicians in Europe, but circumstances cut his trip short, bringing him back to the United States.52 Following three days of carousing in the jazz clubs in Montmartre with Clarke and Don Byas, Charlie fell ill, stricken by peptic ulcers. Sick and des- perate to get back home, Charlie hastily booked a flight to New York and quietly left Paris without making good on his obligation to play the festival or bothering to return Delaunay’s advance. Back in the states, Charlie appeared on Leonard Feather’s radio program and apologized to his French fans on air. Several days later, Charlie entered Medical Arts Hospital, in Manhattan. Alarmed by Charlie’s immediate condition and health in general, doctors put the thirty-year-old on a special diet under twenty-four-hour care. Feeling better after a week of rest, Charlie stole out of the hospital and caught a cab to Birdland, where he perched at the bar in his pajamas, downing scotch mixed with milk on the rocks, proclaiming the concoction his new health drink. Finally, management convinced the errant Charlie to return to the hospital, where he slipped back into his room by the fire escape, leaving the staff none the wiser. He convalesced for another week before being discharged with strict orders to stay away from alcohol and maintain a bland diet. Ignoring doctor’s orders, Charlie returned to his old ways, eating and drinking voraciously while dulling the pain of his ulcer with increasing quantities of heroin.53 “Although he was constantly told by doctors how sick he was, I don’t think even he believed it,” Chan judged. “Bird had such a huge appetite for life that it was impossible to believe he wasn’t immortal. ”54 Accolades and awards followed for the next few years, but they came fewer and further apart as Charlie’s prodigious alcohol and drug consumption strained his physical and mental health.

What was the name of Parker's 1951 Mood T?<sep> What was the name

Parker’s Mood T he year 1951 began with great promise for Charlie—professionally and personally. Billy Shaw lined up a series of engagements with the string group stretching through the spring, and Chan was pregnant with their first child. “Bird was joyous,” Chan recalled. “My having his baby assured him of my love. Before Pree was born we moved to a large apartment on Avenue B. For the first time in his life Bird had a stable family life. He played his role as husband and father to the hilt. He adored Kim and took his paternal duties seriously.”1 The three-story Gothic revival brownstone apartment building at 151 Avenue B was located across from Tompkins Square Park in an ethnically mixed neighborhood on New York’s lower eastside. Their spacious apartment spanned the ground floor. The back entrance opened onto a concrete courtyard with a swing set, where Kim played with other children who lived in the building. With a growing family to support, Charlie spent most of 1951 on the road, capitalizing on the popularity of his string recordings. In early February, he launched a tour of the Midwest with a ten-piece string section, headlining a mismatched bill featuring rhythm-and-blues pianist Ivory Joe Hunter

What was the name of the band Charlie was a bandleader?<sep> What was the name

and his band along with vaudeville veterans Butterbeans and Susie. Charlie rose to the occasion as a bandleader. Pianist Walter Bishop recalled, “Bird conducted himself beautifully on the tour. He fronted the band impressively and with dignity. ”2 Off the bandstand, Charlie reverted to his old ways. Caught short of marijuana on the tour, Charlie revisited neighborhoods where he had scored during earlier tours with the McShann band. As Walter Bishop explained, I remember one time we were in St. Paul, Minnesota, and looking for mari- juana. Bird and I got in a cab. We couldn’t find any in St. Paul. We went all the way to Minneapolis. We got out of the cab, walked a few blocks, and Bird stopped. He looked around and I said, “What’s the matter, Bird?” “God damn, Bish, you know one thing. I stood on this very same corner thirteen years ago, looking for the same thing. I guess a man never learns. ” Sure enough he found some old cronies, old numbers men, pimps, hustlers, old-time rack- eteers who were still on the scene since the time thirteen years ago when he came through with Jay McShann.3 While on tour, Charlie usually managed to find a source for marijuana, but he often had difficulty scoring quality heroin at a reasonable price, par- ticularly in smaller cities. An addict since the age of sixteen, Charlie needed heroin to maintain his habit and dull the pain of his chronic ulcer. “You know” he explained to Bishop, “there’s quite a number of things wrong with me. I go to this heart specialist, you know, give him a hundred dollars for the relief of my heart. He treats me, don’t do me no good; my heart is still messed up. I go to the ulcer man, give him seventy-five dollars to cool my ulcers out; it don’t do no good. There’s a little cat in a dark alley around the corner. I give him five dollars for a bag of shit; my ulcer’s done, my heart trouble gone, everything gone, all my ailments. ”4 In between tours, Charlie headlined shows at the Apollo Theater, Bird- land, and other nightclubs scattered across New York. Like other musicians working in New York nightclubs, Charlie carried a cabaret card permitting him to perform in the city’s cabarets and nightclubs. The city enacted the cabaret card system after the repeal of Prohibition to protect nightclub pa- trons from criminals and prostitutes. Musicians, entertainers, and dancers had to line up at the police station alongside bartenders, waitresses, and Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the city that Charlie lost his cabaret card?<sep> What was

busboys to register for their cards. The card system gave the police consid- erable control over musicians working in New York. Musicians whose cards were revoked for narcotics or other violations were barred from playing New York City clubs. Billie Holiday and other banned musicians who made their home in New York were forced to play out-of-town dates to earn a living, costing them both financially and creatively. In early July 1951, the police department revoked Charlie’s cabaret card. After years of playing cat and mouse, the narcotics squad finally snagged him. “Bird had taken a bust,” Chan explained. “At his trial, the judge said, ‘Three months, suspended sentence.’ And a lecture followed, ‘Mr. Parker, if you ever have the urge to stick a needle in your arm again, take your horn out into the woods somewhere and blow. ’”5 At the same time that Charlie lost his cabaret card, New York State launched an investigation into drug use at the Apollo Theater, Birdland, and other jazz clubs in New York City. Local tabloids picked up on the story, and radio station WNYC broadcast the lurid details of a woman musician who was forced into prostitution by her habit. According to Down Beat, “She mentioned Birdland specifically as a place where dope was sold, claiming that addicts and peddlers visited the spot, particularly when name musicians were there. ”6 Charlie abruptly left New York for Kansas City, ostensibly to spend time with Addie. Charlie seldom visited Addie, but he called her every Sunday evening without fail. When Addie had graduated from nursing school a few years earlier, Charlie sent her a watch and three hundred dollars for uniforms with a promise to visit soon. Finally making good on his pledge, Charlie spent most of July with Addie in Kansas City. Chan, who was nine months pregnant, stayed behind in New York with Kim. Shortly after arriving in Kansas City, Charlie became stranded by the great flood of 1951. Heavy rains across the Midwest in May and June swelled the Missouri and Kansas Rivers to record levels. A series of thunderstorms rolled across the area from July 9 to July 13, pushing the Kansas River out of its banks. Early in the morning of July 13, the river crested as it flowed into the Missouri River just west of Kansas City. The surge of water breeched the levies in the Armourdale district in Kansas City, Kansas, and the Central Industrial District in Kansas City, Missouri, wreaking havoc on the area. The

What was the name of the area that was formerly known as the West Bottoms?<sep>

flood washed away stockyards, meat-packing plants, railroad tracks, and nightclubs in the area known as the West Bottoms. Fortunately, the flood spared clubs located downtown and “out in the county.” Since Charlie’s last visit to Kansas City, the late-night jazz club scene “out in the county” had shifted from south Kansas City east to U.S. 40 Highway in unincorporated Jackson County. Tootie Clarkin moved the Mayfair Club from Seventy-Ninth and Wornall to 40 Highway just past the city limits. A roomy, stucco building with large, painted-over front windows, the New Mayfair served steaks, fried chicken, hamburgers, and other home-style favorites along with all the fixings. Operating outside the jurisdiction of Kansas City, Tootie’s featured music from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. As usual, Tootie hired Charlie on short notice for an engagement at the Mayfair Club. When in Kansas City, Charlie liked to work with Sleepy ­ Hickcox, a dreamy-eyed pianist who played in all the hard keys. Hickcox was unavailable, so Charlie had to settle for the pianist with the house band. Charlie, who was usually very supportive of fledging musicians, clashed with the pianist who dragged the time and played off key. Charlie complained about the pianist to Tootie. The next evening, Tootie, who loved playing practical jokes, placed an egg on the piano before the band arrived. The pianist assumed that Charlie left the symbol of disapproval. Outraged, he told Charlie, “You think you’re big stuff, but you ain’t so much Bird.” Charlie coolly looked at the pianist and replied, “I ought to go out, get my gun and shoot you in the mouth. ”7 On July 21, the Woody Herman band opened a weeklong engagement at the Pla-Mor Ballroom. Herman band members, excited to find Charlie in town, flocked to the Mayfair to jam all night long. While races mixed freely at Tootie’s, African Americans were denied access to the Pla-Mor and other white venues around Kansas City. However, African Americans could attend events at the Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City’s largest civic entertainment venue. When white bands came to town, they usually played an engagement at a white ballroom followed by a mixed-race dance at the Municipal Auditorium. That Sunday, the Herman band played a dance at the Municipal Auditorium with Charlie as the featured soloist for the evening. A few hours before show time, the promoter Francis M. Spencer died unexpectedly, casting a pall over the event. Woody Herman, who doubled as Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the band that sat in the cabin in the Berkshire

bandleader and emcee, raised the spirit of the crowd by introducing a suc- cession of soloists. When Charlie strolled out on the stage, band members stood up and gave him a rousing welcome. The Kansas City Call reported how Charlie wowed the audience. “Charley [sic] Parker, brilliant saxophonist, brought down the house when he appeared as guest artist. Playing a forceful sax, with brilliant execution, ‘Yardbird’ was terrific. The crowd swung into motion as Charley riffed off in masterful style some of the be-bop numbers for which he won wide acclaim as a member of the Norman Granz’ Jazz at the Philharmonic ensemble. The big Herman band fell in with Parker and turned out some really solid stuff, sending the crowd wild and arousing old Maestro Herman from his mood of thoughtfulness.”8 While Charlie was in Kansas City, Chan gave birth to a daughter they named Pree. Born with cystic fibrosis and a heart defect, Pree suffered from chronic ill health. With Charlie constantly on the road, Chan served as Pree’s main caregiver. She diligently tended to Pree’s health, taking her to the doc- tor and sitting with her during hospital stays. At the time very little was known about cystic fibrosis, causing doctors to misdiagnose her condition. While at home, Charlie paid little attention to Pree, preferring to lavish his affection on Kim. Chan, who felt a strong bond with Pree, resented Charlie’s absence during her difficult labor and lack of interest in their sick baby girl.9 A few months after Pree was born, Charlie and Chan rented a cabin in the Berkshire Mountains near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. After three idyllic days, Charlie started a row and escaped into the night to sit in with a band at a roadhouse. Chan recalled the scene: Bird and I rented a cabin on a mountain top at a typically American rustic place called Holiday Hills. Bird loved it. For the first few days, he was content to sleep or tell me how junkies dream their lives away, nodding and dreaming of this kind of life. But on the fourth day, he provoked a quarrel which would allow him to escape. After dinner, he jumped in the car, leaving me alone and terrified for several hours. When he returned, he was drunk. He had found a hick roadhouse and had sat in with the band playing a borrowed tenor. . . . Our last three days were less than ideal. On the way back to New York, when we stopped for gas, I ran into a bar and downed a defiant daiquiri. But for Bird the vacation had been a grand success and he told everyone about his flight into reality!10

What was Charlie's telegram about?<sep> What was Charlie's telegram

Charlie’s heavy use of heroin, hard drinking, and at-times boorish behavior increasingly alienated Chan. Unable to work in New York City, Charlie spent the late summer and fall of 1951 touring the Midwest with his quintet and string group. Unlike the spring tour, Charlie was unreliable, on and off the bandstand. He frequently missed jobs or showed up late and high. Club owners who complained about Charlie’s behavior to the Shaw Agency received little satisfaction. Since the first of the year, Charlie had been at odds with Billy Shaw. Seeking to get out of his contract, he ignored calls and telegrams from the agency, leaving Shaw little recourse but to refer club owner complaints to the American Federation of Musicians. On Charlie’s thirty-first birthday a telegram arrived from James C. Petrillo, threatening to end his membership with the American Federation of Musicians. The telegram read: FEDERATION IS INVESTIGATING YOUR ACTIVITIES. IT APPEARS THAT YOU HAVE ARBITRARILY FAILED TO APPEAR ON ENGAGEMENTS. I HAVE IN MY POSSESSION WIRE FROM CLEO ELDERS WHO BOOKED YOU THROUGH BILLY SHAW IN UNION PARK TEMPLE SEPTEMBER 3RD. YOUR AGENCY TELLS ME THEY CANNOT LOCATE YOU. YOU ARE DIRECTED TO CONTACT YOUR AGENCY IMMEDIATELY AND PLAY THE ENGAGEMENT MENTIONED ABOVE. YOUR FAILURE TO DO THIS WILL PLACE YOUR MEMBERSHIP IN JEOPARDY. JAMES C. PETRILLO.11 Several months later, Billy Shaw released Charlie from his contract. On November 7, Charlie and Shaw signed an agreement ending their associa- tion contingent on Charlie’s repaying the agency advances totaling $650.17. To help Charlie repay his debt, Shaw generously booked extended engage- ments at the Showboat in Philadelphia and Lindsay’s Skybar in Cleveland.12 After closing at the Skybar on December 9, Charlie returned to Kansas City to visit Addie, without sending a cent to the Shaw Agency. In early 1952, Charlie took a break from touring to record for the Mercury label. Norman Granz no longer booked the troublesome Charlie on the Jazz at the Philharmonic tours but continued recording him for Mercury. Granz generously paid Charlie a monthly retainer of fifty dollars to keep him on the Mercury roster. In turn, Charlie respected his contract with Mercury and Parker’s Mood  • 

What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie

turned down offers to record for other labels. Charlie’s recording projects for Norman Granz paid well but came at a creative cost. Granz exerted undue influence on Charlie’s choice of sidemen and mate- rial. Drummer Roy Haynes, a regular member of the quartet, later publicly protested being excluded from recording dates by Granz. “The reason I never made many records with Charlie all the time I was with him . . . was Norman Granz,” Haynes complained to Down Beat. “Bird was under record contract to Norman. Before a session, he’d show Norman the list of musicians he’d like to use. Everything would be all right until he got to my name. ‘You mean you’d like to use Roy instead of Buddy Rich?’ Norman would ask. The answer was on the paper, but Buddy always wound up on the date—except for one album I finally made. ”13 Granz took charge of the sessions, selecting the songs and groups that accompanied Charlie. The first session on January 23 featured Charlie with strings augmented by a big jazz band. The next week, Granz recorded Char- lie performing a set of Latin standards backed by a septet featuring conga and bongos players. The third session on March 25 featured Charlie with a big band playing standards. The recordings from the sessions met with mixed reviews. Critics praised the big band sessions but panned the string recordings. A reviewer in Down Beat noted Charlie’s creative stagnation. “The resplendent sheen of novelty and excitement that coated Bird’s string experiments, back in the days when they were experiments seems to have worn off. Whether because the fresh- ness has worn off or because the arrangements are logey and a little preten- tious, there’s no real excitement here. Charlie’s tone is loud and unsubtle and the only mild surprise is the insertion of a couple of solos by other horns, for the first time in this series—a trombone bit here, a trumpet there. Charlie should have made that first fine album with strings and then moved on to something new. He is too great a musician to get into a rut.”14 The string section became a musical albatross, overshadowing Charlie professionally and creatively. Charlie’s tours with strings, which paid hand- somely, undermined the already precarious stability of his quintet. Red Rodney explained, “Whenever Bird worked with strings I had to find other employment and usually did much better financially. But, he always talked

What was the name of the group Charlie toured with?<sep> What was the name of the

me into returning to the quintet after the strings finished their work. ”15 While Rodney always returned, other members drifted away. Unable to sustain a working quintet, Charlie toured as a soloist, playing with house bands and pickup groups. Tenor saxophonist Ray Turner recalled Charlie’s frustration at playing with less skilled musicians night after night: Bird was a star, and they sent him out as a single, throwing him in with dif- ferent outfits. It was like an actor appearing in a different play every night. Bird was under a strain. One night he appeared slightly alcoholic and in a vile mood. The band he was supposed to play with was not of a caliber he deserved, but it was to their credit that they tried hard. Bird just stood off to the side listening, and at one juncture, he tore off the neck of his horn and threw it into the bell. After a little while, due probably to Bird’s presence, the band came alive, and they really started to wail. Parker grabbed his horn to join in and for a few seconds he seemed disconcerted and puzzled, for it was a horn without a neck and mouthpiece—he had forgotten, but he quickly as- sembled it and himself musically.16 In the spring of 1952, Charlie toured the West Coast as a soloist. Billy Shaw booked the club dates on the tour and advanced Charlie money for airfare. In turn, Charlie signed an agreement to have a small percentage of the advance deducted from his weekly pay. Chan, who was pregnant again, stayed behind to care for Pree and Kim. Charlie traveled light, playing with local pick-up bands. Left to his own devices, he careened up the West Coast from one misadventure to another, alienating club owners along the way. He arrived in Los Angeles in early May for a two-and-a-half week engagement at the Tiffany Club, one of the leading jazz spots in Los Angeles. Since Charlie’s last visit to Los Angeles, the jazz scene in California had come into its own. California jazz musicians moved beyond bebop to cre- ate a new cool style, distinguished by restrained execution, orchestration with an emphasis on lyricism and melody. From San Francisco to Los An- geles young musicians championed the new mode pioneered by arrangers/ composers Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, pianist Dave Brubeck, trumpeter Shorty Rogers, and saxophonist Jimmy Guiffre. A freewheeling Sunday jam session at the Lighthouse at Hermosa Beach fostered the new Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the band that Charlie arranged for the engagement at the Tiffany Club?

West Coast style that reflected the casual beach culture in Los Angeles and other coastal cities. The Shaw agency hired pianist Donn Trenner to help Charlie assemble a band for the engagement at the Tiffany Club. Trenner rounded out the rhythm section with drummer Lawrence Marable and bassist Harry Baba- sin. Charlie auditioned a number of trumpet players before selecting Chet Baker during a jam session at the Trade Winds Club. Baker, a young white newcomer with boyish good looks, had grown up in Oklahoma. A restless youth, he dropped out of high school and joined the army. A naturally talented musician who played by ear, Baker faked his way into the Sixth Army Band stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco. On the weekends he jammed at the Black Hawk and other clubs in the Bay Area. An officer soon discovered that Baker could not read music and transferred him to the military band at Fort Huachuca near the Mexican border. Fighting off boredom, Baker and a group of kindred souls smuggled green marijuana across the border and stayed high all day long. Baker faked a psychological disorder to get out of the military and settled down in Los Angeles. Like Miles Davis and Red Rodney before, he was at first a little intimidated play- ing alongside Charlie. The hastily assembled quintet opened at the Tiffany Club on May 29, 1952. Charlie mentored Baker on and off the bandstand. “He treated me sorta like a son,” Baker judged. “I can see now how helpful and understand- ing he was. He stayed with the tunes I knew well, and he avoided the real fast tempos he used to like so much. ”17 Charlie enjoyed Baker’s clear tone, which reminded him of the Bix Beiderbecke records that he listened to as a youth in Kansas City. While Charlie coolly surveyed the audience while soloing, the less confident Baker pointed his horn toward the floor, avoiding eye contact.18 During the day, Baker chauffeured Charlie around town, showing him the sights. Charlie loved the cliffs at Palos Verde overlooking the South Bay of Los Angeles. He found a rare moment of peace, standing on the windswept cliffs gazing at the waves rolling onto the beach below.19 Before shows, Baker watched Charlie down fifths of Hennessy cognac and snort spoonfuls of heroin. Charlie no longer had to visit Central Avenue to score heroin; dealers followed him from club to club. He warned Baker

What was Charlie's appetite for?<sep> What was Charlie's appetite for?<sep> What

to stay away from heroin. When the dealers who shadowed Charlie made overtures to Baker, Charlie pulled the young trumpeter aside and told him, “You got nothin’ to say to him. Don’t fuck with these guys.”20 By the end of the engagement, Baker was scoring for Charlie. Charlie’s voracious appetite for alcohol, drugs, and food began compro- mising his already fragile health. During the previous couple of years, he had put on considerable weight, steadily growing from pudgy to portly. His binge drinking and narcotics abuse while in Los Angeles caused his weight to balloon. Charlie’s considerable girth strained the top button of the jacket of his white suit, wrinkled by nights spent sleeping on couches in apartments of friends and acquaintances. He looked considerably older than thirty-one. The tour also cost Charlie financially. The expense of maintaining a home in New York while living on the road led to financial disaster. The small amounts of money he sent to Chan by Western Union barely covered household expenses let alone the medical bills for Pree. His spendthrift ways and voracious appetite for heroin compounded matters. Charlie habitually squandered his pay and demanded advances from club owners. His persis- tent financial scams against club owners, sidemen, and the Shaw Agency led to a flurry of charges and countercharges mediated by the American Federation of Musicians. When the owner of the Tiffany Club, Chuck Landis, deducted the agreed amount to repay the advance Charlie owed the Shaw Agency, Charlie dispar- aged Shaw and threatened to walk out. Landis relented and paid Charlie the full amount of $750 per week. Feeling caught in the middle, Landis contacted Shaw. The conflict followed Charlie up the coast to San Francisco. After closing out at the Tiffany Club on June 14, Charlie played a date with the Harry Babasin All Stars at the Trade Winds Club in Inglewood and then headed to San Francisco for an engagement at the Say When Club. A letter from Billy Shaw greeted Charlie’s arrival at the club. In the letter dated June 16, 1952, Shaw, who felt personally betrayed, detailed Charlie’s financial transgressions and disregard for the Agency: Dear Charlie: I understand that you are back to your old tricks again, making various promises, and not living up to them. Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the sum of the sum of the sum of the sum of the sum of the sum

When you were in my office, you signed deduction orders, and asked me to have your money sent here; now, I understand you threatened to walk out if there were any deductions, etc. Also understand you made some very ugly remarks about me. In the first place, Charlie, rest assured I will not take your word again in the future; as a matter of fact, we do not have to worry about anything but our own monies. We advanced you transportation money to California, and you only allowed them to deduct our commissions, plus the $15.00 per week on the old balance. I am sending a copy of this letter to Cliff Aronson. Charlie, you are indebted to us in the sum of $734.98. You promised to give us $15.00 a week towards the balance; since you are getting $750.00 a week, I am sure you can spare a stinking $15 per week. In the event you give Cliff Aronson any more trouble with regarding the deductions orders, we will be forced to take this up with the Federation. As far as I am concerned, your word doesn’t mean a thing to me anymore; we have tried to help you in every way, but to no avail. I am tired of always getting a run around. Sincerely, Billy Shaw21 Events that followed ended Charlie’s association with the Billy Shaw Agency. During the engagement at the Say When Club, Charlie estranged the club manager, Dutch Neiman, and the local union. One of the leading clubs in San Francisco, the Say When featured a house band led by drum- mer Cuz Cousineau that accompanied visiting musicians and entertainers. The Cousineau band featured clarinetist Vince Cattolica and guitarist Ed- die Duran. Charlie surprised Nieman by showing up with Chet Baker and a drummer from another union, insisting he would only work with them. Opening night, Charlie gave the Cousineau band the benefit of the doubt. The next day, he hired a local pianist and bassist and refused to work with the house band. Tenor saxophonist Flip Philips, the co-headliner, concurred with Charlie’s opinion of the house band and left after the first week. Charlie showed his displeasure with the Say When by showing up late and sitting in after hours at other clubs. Charlie frequented the late-night jam sessions at Bop City which fea- tured drummer Art Blakey, Curly Russell on bass, and Kenny Drew on piano. One night when Charlie showed up wobbly drunk, Blakey and the others

What was the name of the band Charlie took up at the Say When?<sep> What was the

took their revenge on him for shorting them on money at the last date they played together. Under pressure from Blakey, Charlie reluctantly sat in with the band. Blakey called “52nd St. Theme,” and the band launched into the bop standard at a breakneck tempo, leaving Charlie behind. After several false starts and fluffed notes, Charlie, who was reminded of his humiliation years earlier at the Reno Club, told the band “Give me an hour, I’ll be back.” Saxophonist Jerome Richardson recalled, “No one knows how he did it, but in one hour, he returned cold, deadly sober. There was no tune too fast, too slow, too unfamiliar. He played till seven in the morning.”22 Charlie’s late night and onstage antics irritated the no-nonsense Neiman. Down Beat detailed how the booking at the Say When descended into chaos: The heralded Charlie Parker–Flip Phillips battle-of-the-saxes at the Say When disintegrated into one of the most miserable foul-ups in local history. Both instrumentalists were salty at having to work with the house band and Parker finally brought in a unit of his own. Flip and the club parted company after the first week, both being wholeheartedly dissatisfied. Charlie remained for part of the next week, but that ended in a class ‘A’ hassle. After appear- ing twice on the Cerebral Palsy TV marathon, Charlie took up a collection in the club, asked club op [operator] Dutch Neiman for a contribution, was refused (because Neiman said he had already contributed), took the mike, called the house ‘cheap’ and then Neiman and the Bird engaged in a gentle shoving contest with Parker losing. Neiman refused to pay him off and Bird was stranded in town for almost a week. The mix up was still being batted around at the union at press time.23 In truth, the TV Marathon had ended by the time Charlie decided to take up the collection at the club. After the fracas with Neiman, Charlie sat in with tenor saxophonist Vido Musso’s band at the Black Hawk. Opening night, Charlie sent word to pa- trons of the Say When that he was at the Black Hawk. Incensed, Neiman refused to pay Charlie for the three remaining nights of the contract. Charlie later filed a complaint against the Say When for nonpayment with National Federation of Musicians. The complaint brought a strong rebuttal from Nei- man and the San Francisco Musicians Union, Local 669. During the engage- ment at the Say When, Charlie failed to file a contract with the local and pay the 10 percent surcharge levied against visiting bandleaders. In a letter to Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the national union that complained about Charlie?<sep> What was the name of

the national union, A. V. Forbes, the secretary of Local 669 complained that “He [Charlie] not only intended to ignore the Local, but was most insult- ing to the officers, and created a scene which was unprovoked. As for his conduct both at the club, and the Local, it was without precedent. The man appeared to be constantly under the influence of something.”24 On the way back to New York, Charlie stopped off in Kansas City to visit Addie and hustle up some nightclub dates. Charlie opened at Tootie’s May- fair on July 17 and abruptly closed a few days later. “In 1953 [1952] he came out to the club one night in an open convertible with some white girl he’d picked up in town,” Tootie Clarkin remembered. “We got word somehow that she was trying to frame him on a narcotics charge for the government. He only had time to play eight bars of ‘How High the Moon’ when we mo- tioned him off the bandstand. . . . I got up and said, ‘The Bird goofed,’ and the audience understood.” According to Clarkin, the girl later framed two other musicians.25 The next week Charlie opened at the El Capitan in the heart of Eighteenth and Vine. Fans and musicians jammed the El Capitan to see Charlie play- ing on Eighteenth Street, where he had launched his career years earlier. The Kansas City Call reported that on opening night, “the place looked like celebrity nite.”26 Jay McShann stopped by to sit in with Charlie. Bringing their careers full circle, the two led off with “Hootie Blues.” Charlie, out of respect for Jay, played his solo from the original recording note for note. He proved to be such a gracious crowd-pleaser that management added a second matinee and held him over the next week. Off hours, Charlie spent time with Addie and old friends at Eighteenth and Vine. After playing three weeks of steady engagements in Kansas City, Charlie returned to New York with some money to show for the tour. He arrived just in time for the birth of his second child with Chan. As Chan labored in the hospital, Charlie walked off his nervousness in Tompkins Square Park. That rainy evening, Charlie first met Robert Reisner, a wiry, bearded young jazz enthusiast who taught art history at the New School for Social Research. Re- isner distinctly remembered meeting Charlie. “I had been at a party on the East Side of New York City. It was around 12:30 [a.m.] when I saw a large, lumbering, lonely man, walking aimlessly. I recognized him and was amazed and thrilled, but what in the devil was he doing in this poor Jewish neighbor-

What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie

hood, walking by himself in the soaking rain. ‘You’re Charlie Parker,’ I said. ‘I’m Bob Reisner. What are you doing by yourself?’ There was absolutely no one around but him and me. He smiled a big, warm, brown smile. He said, ‘My wife is having a baby, and I’m kind of walking off my nervousness and waiting to call back. ’”27 The two struck up a friendship that led to their future association. Inspired by the chance meeting, Reisner later booked Charlie in a Sunday jazz series and became the first to chronicle his life. Early the next morning, Sunday, August 10, Chan delivered a healthy boy Charlie named Baird. The baby so closely resembled Charlie that he proudly bragged to have “spit him out.”28 Out of concern for Chan, Charlie stayed close to home for the next few months. Since moving into Avenue B, Charlie had spent little time at home. Now Chan found it hard to adjust to having Charlie around for long stretches. She was surprised by his fairly conven- tional attitudes about family life and motherhood. Charlie loved hosting Sunday dinners. Chan cooked a pot roast and relatives gathered around the treble clef–shaped dining room table for a family meal. He rebuked Chan for dressing immodestly in public and walking around the house naked in front of Baird. Charlie spent weekdays hanging out in neighborhood tav- erns, drinking and talking politics with the old ethnic men huddled at the bar. They had no idea of Charlie’s celebrity, and that suited him. Financial reality soon interrupted Charlie’s domestic idyll. He remained on the Shaw Agency roster, but in name only. After the fiasco at the Say When, Billy Shaw quit booking club dates for Charlie, and the Say When dispute came back to haunt Charlie. Club owners who were already well aware of Charlie’s reputation for unreliability declined to book him. Dutch Neiman pressed his case with the union, forcing Charlie to respond in kind. Charlie paced around the kitchen dictating to Chan, who diligently typed his response. In the end, Charlie lost the dispute with Dutch Neiman and had to pay one hundred dollars in damages. Charlie worked little that fall and winter, playing mainly concert dates as a solo. While Charlie and Chan enjoyed the trappings of the middle class, driv- ing a Cadillac and employing a maid to tidy up the apartment, they sank deeper in debt, sucked down by his habits and inability to work in New York. They applied for assistance from the Aid to Dependent Children board only to be rejected. Desperate for money, Charlie pawned his custom King alto Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the jazz workshop held by Paul Bley?<sep> What was the name

and started playing an English Grafton acrylic saxophone given to him by a factory representative. Since the Grafton held little value to pawnbrokers, Charlie managed to keep it on hand for use when the King was in hock. It mattered little to Charlie, who routinely played borrowed horns. Red Rodney believed that Charlie “could play a tomato can and make it sound great.”29 In early February 1953, Paul Bley, a brash, lanky young pianist from Mon- treal, turned up on Charlie’s doorstep. A year earlier, Bley and other local musicians had established the Jazz Workshop, a jazz series administered and funded by musicians, held on Saturday afternoons at the Chez Paree, a leading Montreal club. After a series of successful concerts, Bley and other members of the Jazz Workshop decided to book Charlie. Bley frequently traveled between Montreal and New York, where he at- tended Julliard. On a whim, Bley knocked on Charlie’s door and asked him to play the Jazz Workshop that weekend. Charlie readily accepted the invitation. Well aware of Charlie’s reputation for unreliability, Bley recalled, “He was totally out of work, totally without funds. And the money was right. . . . The question was not whether he would accept the gig, but whether he would show up for it. ”30 Charlie pleasantly surprised Bley and the Jazz Workshop. On February 5, 1953, Charlie flew to Montreal for an appearance on a CBFT television program coincidently called the Jazz Workshop, followed by a Saturday Jazz Workshop concert at the Chez Paree. He arrived late and missed the rehearsal for the television show, putting everyone involved with the show on edge. The producer, Bley, and the other musicians waited ner- vously for Charlie in the studio. At the time, television shows were broadcast live, so if Charlie failed to show, the broadcast would have to go on without him. Eager to be on television, Charlie arrived on time to an excited studio audience and relieved musicians. The Paul Bley trio kicked off the program with a modern rendition of George Gershwin’s “’S Wonderful. ” Next, guitarist Russell Garcia joined the trio for his composition “Johann Sebastian Bop. ” The announcer Don Cam- eron then introduced Charlie. After exchanging pleasantries with Cameron, Charlie called “Cool Blues. ” Bassist Neil Michaud recalled how “when Bird went on he just called over his shoulder ‘Cool Blues in C.’ He called every tune from that point on. I think we ended about half a second out from where we started. And the producers were ecstatic; first of all they were freaking

What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie

that he was just calling everything from the front, and then of course in the end they were delighted because it had run so perfectly.”31 Charlie spent the next day wandering around Montreal trying to score heroin with no luck. That evening, a pair of jazz fans, Hugette Rajotte, a young bohemian woman who was secretary of the Emanon Jazz Society, and Willie Lauzon, a fellow Emanon member, tracked down Charlie—holed up in his hotel. Charlie graciously invited them up to his room, which was sparsely furnished with two beds and a nightstand. Sweating profusely, he talked with his guests for several hours and then dozed off. Rajotte stayed in the room and worshipfully watched Charlie sleeping. She was surprised when he began whistling “April in Paris” in his sleep. After breakfast the next morning, Charlie politely informed workshop members that he needed to get “straight” before he could play. Bassist Neil Michaud and Alfie Wade Jr., a young jazz fan, escorted Charlie to the apart- ment of pianist Steep Wade, where he scored some heroin.32 Charlie was all business during the transaction, but in no hurry to get to the concert sched- uled to begin at 2:00 that afternoon. The concert needed to end promptly at 5:00 p.m. to leave enough time for the staff to set the room up for Frank Sinatra. Michaud recalled, “We had a hell of a time getting him [Charlie] to the concert. ”33 They managed to get Charlie and Steep Wade to the concert after 4:00. Tenor saxophonist Brew Moore was on stage when Charlie arrived. Quickly assembling his Grafton, Charlie took charge of the session. He called “How High the Moon,” then segued into “Ornithology.” The pianist Valdo Wil- liams rushed the tempo, throwing off other band members who were do- ing their best to follow Charlie. After an up-tempo version of “Cool Blues,” Charlie called a short break and replaced Williams with Steep Wade. Per- haps as a nod to his newfound connection, Charlie launched into “Moose the Mooche,” written for Emry Byrd, his Los Angeles connection years earlier. With time running short, Charlie quickly wrapped up the concert with the ballad “Embraceable You” and “Now’s the Time” from the Savoy sessions. Later that night, Charlie sat in at the Latin Quarter with the house band. The next morning, he boarded a flight home to little fanfare, leaving behind a lasting impression.34 Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the band box that Charlie opened in 1953?<sep> What was the name

Aside from the heroin scored during his brief visit to Montreal, Charlie conducted himself with great dignity and set new musical standards for local musicians. Bley and the others who accompanied Charlie were both humbled and elated by the experience. Bley judged that “Everybody didn’t know how badly they played until that performance. He [Charlie] defined the centre of the aesthetic and left all of us wanting. ” Bill Graham compared accompanying Charlie to “riding a fire engine around a corner at 90 miles an hour—you’re just hanging on by the tips of your fingers.”35 For his part, Charlie was glad to be respected as an artist and to have the opportunity to make some money. Faced with financial and professional disaster, Charlie resumed playing in New York clubs without his cabaret card. On February 13, 1953, Charlie opened at the Band Box, located next door to Birdland. Metronome hailed the Band Box as the “newest, biggest and most exciting night club to open in years. ”36 Charlie shared the bill with the Duke Ellington orchestra featuring Charles Mingus on bass. Charlie and Mingus became friendly while work- ing at the Band Box, setting the stage for their future association. A few days after Charlie’s debut at the Band Box, liquor control agents showed up and pulled him off the stage for performing without a cabaret card. Outraged, Charlie wrote a heartfelt letter to the State Liquor Authority pleading for the return of his card: My right to pursue my chosen profession has been taken away, and my wife and three children who are innocent of any wrongdoing are suffering. . . . My baby girl [Pree] is a city case in the hospital because her health has been neglected since we hadn’t the necessary doctor fees. . . . I feel sure when you examine my record and see that I have made a sincere effort to become a family man and a good citizen, you will reconsider. If by any chance you feel I haven’t paid my debt to society, by all means let me do so and give me and my family back the right to live.37 Shortly afterward, the state liquor board reinstated Charlie’s card, just in time to hold off total financial disaster. Charlie worked steadily through the spring, alternating between the Band Box and Birdland, filling out his schedule with a series of Sunday concerts booked by Bob Reisner at the Open

What was the name of the first jazz concert in Toronto?<sep> What was the name of the

Door in Greenwich Village. Reisner, tired of studying and talking about jazz, decided to “get his hands dirty” and learn more about jazz by becoming a concert promoter. The management of the Open Door turned Sunday nights over to Reisner, who was determined to bring modern jazz to the strip of jazz clubs in the Village which otherwise featured Dixieland. Vocalist Dave Lam- bert approached Reisner about booking Charlie at the Open Door. Surprised to find Charlie available, Reisner drew up an agreement. Reisner paid the sidemen scale and Charlie a percentage of the door. Charlie made his debut at the Open Door on April 26, 1953. Charlie gave Reisner a crash course on jazz promotion, challenging him at every turn. Reisner related: [Charlie] was one of the most difficult individuals I have ever met. He was suave, cunning, urbane, charming, and generally fiendish—too much. He could butter me up, lull me into position, and then bang!—a great betrayal. I have seen managers quit on him in succession like horses shot under a great general. Musicians feared and loved him. Like the comedian who wants to play Hamlet, Bird fancied himself a business expert and virtually assumed command of the business end of the Sunday sessions in which he appeared. He was pretty shrewd about it. I always gave him the first numbered ticket on the roll, and he would match it against the last ticket to check the take. Something would always be wrong; he saw to that. Anything to start a fight, to accuse me of treachery, of cheating him, even though I never did—and I’m sure he never really felt I did—but, nevertheless, he went to preposterous lengths in his farcical belligerence.38 On May 15, 1953, Charlie joined Gillespie, Powell, Roach, and Charles Mingus for the first annual Festival of Creative Jazz Concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, giving his career and spirit a needed boost. The concert was pro- duced by The New Jazz Society (NJS), a loose-knit organization that met at members’ apartments to listen to jazz recordings. Dick Wattam, a parts clerk at General Electric, and other members of the NJS produced a successful concert featuring the Lennie Tristano Quintet. As a follow-up, they decided to put on a concert featuring Charlie, Dizzy Gillespie with Max Roach, and an all-star bebop rhythm section. They scheduled the concert for May 15, a date with no apparent conflicts. Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the band that contacted Charlie?<sep> What was the name of the

On January 23, 1953, Wattam, Art Granatstein, and two other NJS mem- bers drew up contracts for the concert and drove all night to New York City where they contacted Charlie, Gillespie, Roach, and Mingus. They found Charlie at a recording session. During breaks in the session, Wattam and Granatstein pitched their idea to Charlie, who immediately agreed to par- ticipate. Granatstein recalled that “Bird was really the pussycat of them all. He was really desirous of getting together [with the others], and expressed it by signing up as readily as he did. He was a sweet guy, and he really went for it, really liked the whole bag. ”39 After traveling as a solo playing with lo- cal bands, Charlie looked forward to an evening playing with his peers. The other musicians were less enthusiastic and more businesslike. Gil- lespie and Roach, who were contacted in their homes, quizzed the young Canadians about the financial details of the agreement. Their questions about guarantees, travel arrangements, lodging, and other conditions caught the neophyte promoters off guard. Although they had yet to work out the details or raise the money for the concert, Wattam and Granatstein assured Gillespie and Roach that the finances for the concert were in place. In actu- ality, they planned to borrow enough money to cover initial expenses and then use the profits from the concert to pay the musicians. Gillespie and Roach reluctantly signed on. Mingus, who was a member of the Duke El- lington band, expressed little interest in the concert. A few months later, Ellington fired Mingus for getting into an onstage altercation with trombonist Juan Tizol. The racially charged incident culmi- nated with Tizol pulling a bolo knife on Mingus, who scrambled offstage and returned with a fire ax in hand, chasing Tizol off the stage. After the show, Mingus became the only musician ever to be personally fired by Ellington. Suddenly available, Mingus signed up for the Toronto concert. The NJS booked Bud Powell through the Moe Gale Agency. At the time, Powell was receiving in-patient treatment at Creedmor Psychiatric Hos- pital in Queens, New York. Oscar Goodstein, the manager of Birdland and Powell’s legal guardian, agreed to accompany him to the concert. By booking the musicians individually, NJS inadvertently left the concert leaderless. The morning of the concert, the musicians met at LaGuardia Airport for the flight to Toronto. When Charlie failed to show at the appointed time,

What was the name of the band that led the Topping band?<sep> What was the name

Dizzy located him and the two caught a later flight. Once in Toronto, Char- lie slipped away from Gillespie. He later pleasantly surprised Gillespie by showing up on time for the concert, sober and in a good mood. Right before the concert, Charlie told Dick Wattam he needed a drink before taking the stage. Wattam steered Charlie to the Silver Rail bar across the street and watched in amazement as he downed a triple scotch in one gulp. The New Jazz Society needed to sell fifteen hundred tickets to break even. When the NJS scheduled the date there were no conflicting events on the ho- rizon. Unfortunately, the Rocky Marciano–Jersey Joe Walcott World Heavy- weight Championship, originally scheduled for April 10, was rescheduled for the same night as the Massey Hall concert. The long-anticipated fight was broadcast over television to United States and Canadian audiences, drawing significantly from the Massey Hall concert. By curtain time, the concert had sold only half the tickets necessary to cover expenses. The cav- ernous concert hall, soaring three stories with two balconies, accentuated the sparse attendance. A hastily assembled sixteen-piece band led by trumpeter Graham Top- ping opened the concert with a forty-five-minute set of jazz standards and Topping originals. During the Topping band’s set, Charlie, Gillespie, and other band members could be heard squabbling backstage about the money, set list, and who would lead the session. Gillespie took charge of the concert, fronting the band and calling the tunes. He prudently selected standards that band members knew well. The band members came together and gave a freewheeling performance remi- niscent of the late-night cutting contests uptown in Harlem during the early days of bop, less than a decade before. Roach explained that “just prior to going on the bandstand, we decided what we’re going to play on that par- ticular concert. So it was pure spontaneity. That’s the thing about that date. It wasn’t like, ‘O.K., we’ll rehearse two or three hours here,’ we just went onstage, and things began to happen. ”40 In the first set, Gillespie led the band through “Perdido,” “Salt Peanuts,” and “All the Things You Are. ” While Charlie was all business, Gillespie clowned onstage. During “Perdido” Gillespie’s onstage antics caused the audience to break up during Charlie’s solo. Gillespie then teased Charlie by quoting Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the standard Charlie recorded with?<sep> What was the name of the band

“Laura,” a popular standard Charlie had recorded with a string section. For his part, Charlie remained focused and gave a masterful performance. During intermission, Charlie, Gillespie, and Roach went across the street to the Silver Rail bar to watch the Marciano and Walcott fight. Gillespie and other African American fight fans counted on Walcott to reclaim the title he had lost to Marciano on September 23, 1952. Much to Gillespie’s dismay, Marciano knocked out Walcott with a flurry of punches delivered in the first two-and-a-half minutes of the first round. After intermission, the concert resumed with Roach alone on the mas- sive stage improvising an extended solo that later became known as “Drum Conversation. ” Then Powell and Mingus joined Roach onstage for a set fea- turing the trio. Powell hunkered down at the piano and gave a brilliant per- formance. After a seventy-five minute break, Gillespie and Charlie returned to the stage for three more selections: “Wee,” “Hot House,” and “A Night in Tunisia,” wrapping up with a “52nd Street Theme” coda. The Graham Topping Band concluded the concert with a set of standards. Topping and the other soloist in the big band dutifully took their appointed solos well aware that they paled in comparison to the spirited exchanges between Charlie and Gillespie in the previous set. Charlie, Gillespie, Roach, and Mingus joined the Topping band for an encore. In the end, the concert proved to be an artistic success but a financial di- saster for all concerned. After the concert, Dick Wattam confessed to Char- lie, Gillespie, and the others that the NJS lacked sufficient funds to pay them. Charlie became agitated, insisting that as a family man, he should be paid in full. Ironically, months earlier, Charlie had been paid an advance. Wattam assured the chagrined musicians that in the future they would profit from tapes of the concert. Charlie and Gillepsie were taken aback to learn the concert had been recorded. Roach and Mingus arranged with NJS to tape the concert without informing them. The NJS borrowed a new Ampex open reel tape recorder, and Mingus brought along reels of a new formula Scotch recording tape available only in the United States to record the concert. Mingus and Roach intended to issue recordings of the concert on their fledgling Debut label. Charlie protested that he was under exclusive contract to Mercury.

What was the name of the band that aired the Massey Hall con cert?

Later that night, Mingus, Wattam, and other members of the NJS met at radio station CKFH to audition the tapes. Mingus was outraged to find the recording equipment failed to record his bass. “Mingus nearly exploded,” declared Wattam. “You couldn’t hear his bass at all.” Mingus seized the tapes. Concerned that Mingus intended to destroy the tapes, Wattam sent a telegram to Barry Ulanov, the editor of Metronome, pleading “DO NOT LET MINGUS ERASE TAPES. STOP. DO NOT LET MINGUS ERASE TAPES. STOP. HE IS UNBALANCED.”41 The next morning, NJS members paid Charlie, Gillespie, Powell, and Roach with checks drawn on their personal accounts. They paid Mingus in cash after he threatened to sell his bass, which would have forced NJS to forfeit its custom bond posted for the instrument. Charlie cashed his check at Premier Radio, a local business that sold tickets for the concert. Later, the owner, who was a jazz fan, had the check framed and hung it in his store. Gillespie waited to cash his check until he returned to New York. According to Gillespie, “It bounced, and bounced and bounced like a rubber ball.”42 Although few outside of Toronto had heard about the Massey Hall con- cert, it became a legendary performance after Mingus issued three 10" LPs from the tapes of the session on his Debut label. “Jazz at Massey Hall” vol- umes one and three featured the Quintet, and volume two featured the Bud Powell trio. Having been left out of the mix in the original recordings, Min- gus took the tapes into the studio and overdubbed his bass line for the LP releases. Charlie had Mingus list him as Charlie Chan in the lineup of the quintet as a nod to Chan and to avoid possible litigation by Norman Granz. Energized by the Massey Hall concert, Charlie signed with the Moe Gale Agency and formed a new quintet featuring Bud Powell and Charles Mingus. That summer, Charlie played a series of steady engagements at Birdland, the Open Door, and the High Hat in Boston. An interview with John McLellan on WHDH in Boston captured Charlie in a thoughtful mood looking toward the future. When asked what would be the basis for his musical future, Charlie replied philosophically, “Hm. That’s hard to tell, too, John. See, like, your ideas change as you grow older. Most people fail to realize that most of the things that they hear, either coming out of a man’s horn ad lib, or else things that are written, you know, say, original things, I mean, they’re just experiences. The way you feel, the beauty of the weather, the nice look of a mountain, Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the family cat that killed Chan?<sep> What was the name of the

maybe a nice fresh cool breath of air. I mean, all those things you can never tell what you’ll be thinking tomorrow, but I can definitely say that the music won’t stop. It’ll be—keep going forward. ”43 Just as Charlie’s career underwent a revival, his personal life fell apart. Chan, who was pregnant again, suffered from chronic ill health. The two frequently fought. One row caused Chan to flee with the children to her mother’s apartment on Fifty-Second Street. “In 1953,” Chan recalled, “Baird was less than a year old and Pree was just two. Bird and I were having prob- lems with our relationship, and I was pregnant again. I was not in good health: I weighed 103 pounds, had chronic bronchitis, and was working on my sixth pneumonia. . . . Bird was drinking heavily. After a bad scene, I took the children and fled once again to my womb [her mother’s house] on 52nd Street. Three days later, Bird sobered up and realized the physical condition I was in.”44 Chan’s condition worsened after she was bitten by the family cat, Or- pheus. She had to be hospitalized when the puncture wound became in- fected. Chan’s mother convinced Charlie that she was too weak to have the baby. Charlie, who wanted the child, reluctantly arranged for Chan to have an abortion at his drug connection’s apartment. The abortion went awry, and Chan landed back in the hospital with gangrene. After returning home, Chan asked Charlie to take Orpheus to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and have him tested for rabies. A few hours later, Charlie returned without the cat. When Chan asked what had happened to Orpheus, Charlie confessed he had ordered that the cat be killed. Chan called just in time to save Orpheus. When pressed by Chan why he wanted the cat destroyed, Charlie replied cruelly, “You killed my son, didn’t you?”45 Increasingly at odds with Chan, Charlie spent most of the fall and winter on the road. On October 12, Charlie opened for a weeklong engagement at the Latin Quarter in Montreal. The owner, Morton Berman, had the Gale agency specify in the contract that Charlie would be accompanied by his working band. Instead, Charlie showed up with a pickup group of musicians who were unprepared for the engagement. The drummer arrived without a drum set and had to borrow one from a local drummer. On opening night, the sidemen, particularly the pianist, failed to rise to the occasion. Charlie’s ulcers flared up, making him difficult on and off the bandstand.

What was the name of the band Charlie joined for?<sep> What was the name of the band

After three nights, Berman fired Charlie and refused to pay him for the final four days. Incensed, Charlie filed a suit against the Latin Quarter with the musicians union. In response, Berman complained to the union that “Their performance was pitiful; Mr. Parker personally did his best but the others, especially the pianist, didn’t match him at all; the piano-player was always in a fog; half of the time he didn’t play; one of the men in the band remarked ‘the pianist is way off . . . is bad. ’”46 Customers walked out in mid- set. Morton further claimed that Charlie stopped in mid-tune to announce the breaks, constantly chewed lemon peels which he spat out in the back of the bandstand, and threatened the master of ceremonies, Al Cown.47 On the heels of the fiasco at the Latin Quarter, Charlie joined Chet Baker for a tour up the West Coast from Los Angeles to Eugene, Oregon. After being introduced to heroin during his last association with Charlie, Baker began using heavily. On the road, the two spent off hours getting high. After wrapping up the tour on November 8, Charlie returned home to respond to the counter charge filed by Morton Berman, owner of the Latin Quarter. In a lengthy response, Charlie rebutted Berman’s account of the incident para- graph by paragraph, indignantly defending his good name and reputation. Charlie could ill afford to lose the union judgment. That winter, Charlie toured the Midwest and New England, spending Thanksgiving and Christmas on the road. On January 28, 1954, he joined the Festival of Modern American Jazz Tour with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, June Christy, Dizzy Gillespie, the Errol Garner Trio, Lee Konitz, and Latin percussionists Candido. Charlie replaced Stan Getz, who had recently been arrested for possessing heroin and attempting to rob a pharmacy in Seattle. The tour led to professional and personal disaster for Charlie. The first leg of the trip covered the South, ranging from Wichita Falls, Texas, to Ra- leigh, North Carolina. Charlie usually avoided touring the South. He still bore scars from the beating he suffered years earlier as a member of the Jay McShann band. Riding on the tour bus across the South, he found that little had changed since then. Alto saxophonist Dave Schildkraut recalled, “In one Southern town, a restaurant would not serve Negroes, so Bird had to wait on the bus while the rest of us were wolfing down steaks. Finally, after persuasion, the eatery relented. Dizzy and Erroll Garner left the bus, but Charlie held out and refused to go in and eat. I brought him out a big Parker’s Mood  • 

What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie

steak sandwich, and he grumbled, ‘What, are you trying to be good to me?’ and he put it aside. But I noticed that, as soon as the bus moved on, he fell on that sandwich and devoured it. ”48 After leaving the South, the tour swept up the East Coast, with dates in New York and Washington, then across the Great Lakes region with stops in Detroit, Toronto, and Chicago. After wrapping up an engagement at the Rainbo Club in Chicago, band members caught a charter plane for the final leg of the tour covering Seattle, Eugene, Oakland, and Los Angeles. The grueling schedule featured two shows nightly. While on the road, Charlie’s ulcers flared up, compelling him to drown the pain with huge amounts of alcohol and heroin. High and in constant pain, he performed unevenly. Bill Perkins recalled Charlie as being “so out of it after the job that he’d fall down on the floor. I always remember even when he was out of it he played well. But on those rare nights when he was fairly straight—Dizzy would always be in the wings listening and on those rare nights, maybe one out of five, it was absolutely amazing.49 Charlie arrived in Los Angeles mentally and physically exhausted. He was eager to head home after the final concert of the tour at the Palladium. Unfortunately, the Gale Agency had booked a weeklong engagement at the Tiffany Club, starting the next evening. Jack Tucker, the manager of the Tif- fany Club, showed up backstage at the Palladium and insisted that Charlie rehearse with the Joe Rotondi Trio the next morning at the club. Worn out from the tour, Charlie rebuffed Tucker’s demand. Tucker called the Gale Agency and indignantly complained about Charlie’s refusal to cooperate. After a call from Tim Gale, Charlie showed up at the club the next afternoon, rehearsed with the band for fifteen minutes, and then abruptly left. Opening night at the Tiffany Club began on a sour note. Charlie played two brief sets and then left the club to get a sandwich. While on break, he called Chan to check on Pree, who was suffering from severely declining health. Charlie tried to comfort Chan, who was at her wits’ end. On the way back to the club, the police picked up Charlie on suspicion of being a narcotics user. Unable to prove the case for narcotics, the police booked him on a drunk and disorderly charge. The next evening, Charles Carpenter of the Gale Agency paid the ten-dollar fine to get Charlie out of jail just in time for the engagement at the Tiffany Club.50

What was the name of the telegram that Charlie drank on the job?<sep>

Over the next three days, Jack Tucker and Charlie clashed on and off the bandstand. Tucker dogged Charlie at every turn, clocking his time spent on stage and dutifully noting his every transgression of house rules. While on the job Wednesday night, Charlie learned that doctors had put Pree in an oxygen tent, in a final attempt to save her life. Charlie, grief stricken and suffering from ulcers, drank heavily on the job, downing triple Brandy Alexanders with double scotches on the side until the bartender finally cut him off. Tucker fired Charlie after a row on Thursday night and refused to hire him back Friday morning.51 Pree died Saturday evening, March 6, 1954. After learning of his daugh- ter’s death early the next morning, Charlie drank himself into a stupor with quadruple Brandy Alexanders and then sent Chan a series of increasingly confused telegrams. 4:11 a.m.: MY DARLING MY DAUGHTER’S DEATH SURPRISED ME MORE THAT IT DID YOU DON’T FULFILL FUNERAL PROCEEDINGS UNTIL I GET THERE I SHALL BE THE FIRST ONE TO WALK INTO OUR CHAPEL FORGIVE ME FOR NOT BE- ING THERE WITH YOU WHILE YOU WERE AT THE HOSPITAL YOURS MOST SINCERELY YOUR HUSBAND CHARLIE PARKER. 4:13 a.m.: MY DARLING FOR GOD’S SAKE HOLD ON TO YOURSELF CHAS PARKER 4:15 a.m.: CHAN, HELP CHARLIE PARKER 7:58 a.m.: MY DAUGHTER IS DEAD. I KNOW IT. I WILL BE THERE AS QUICK AS I CAN. MY NAME IS BIRD. IT IS VERY NICE TO BE OUT HERE. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN VERY NICE TO ME OUT HERE. I AM COMING IN RIGHT AWAY TAKE IT EASY. LET ME BE THE FIRST ONE TO APPROACH YOU. I AM YOUR HUSBAND. SIN- CERELY, CHARLIE PARKER.52 Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the soap opera that Chan referred to as?<sep> What was the

The telegrams meant to assure Chan had the opposite effect. As Chan recalled, “I was in deep shock as the telegrams, some of them strangely dispassionate, kept arriving, each one opening the wound even more.”53 The next morning, Charlie poured a bottle of scotch down the toilet, gave away his heroin, and left for home sober. Before leaving, he confided in Julie MacDonald, a sculptor and friend who took him to the airport, “I hope I can be a good husband . . . at least until after this is over.”54 Chan and Charlie buried Pree in Mount Hope Cemetery in upstate New York where Chan’s father was interred. Later they discovered that the cem- etery buried Pree in the Negro section rather than next to her grandfather in the Jewish section. Standing firm as a rock throughout the funeral, Charlie crumbled afterward, wracked by guilt for not being there when Pree was born or when she died. Charlie never forgave himself. Chan, grieving for both her child lost in an abortion and for Pree, pulled away from Charlie. Kim observed, “Bird detached from things to save himself, which meant that in a way the sadness between them was very powerful. I’ve seen very sad photographs of them . . . shortly after Pree’s death and there’s just a complete space between them and I think it was just the beginning of the end, really. ”55 That summer, during a month-long family vacation at the seashore, Charlie began acting strangely, shaving his head, ostensibly to get rid of sand fleas, then dramatically snatching up Baird in the middle of the night and threatening to return to New York. Spooked by Charlie’s odd behavior, Chan withdrew emotionally and physically, spending more time with a girl- friend in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and at her mother’s apartment than at the apartment she shared with Charlie on Avenue B. Returning from a tour of New England and the Midwest in early August, Charlie became more difficult than usual. After spending long stretches on the road high on whiskey, heroin, and pills, Charlie became abusive when he returned home. “Beside using shit, Bird was drinking heavily,” Chan recalled. “The combination made him a crazy man, evil and violent. When it got to be too much for me, I would take the children and flee to my mother’s apart- ment. My friends began calling me ‘Portia’ after the heroine of the popular soap opera ‘Portia Faces Life. ’ In fact it was more of a tragedy.”56

What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie's name?<sep> What was Charlie

In the early morning hours of August 18, Charlie sent Chan a Western Union Telegram at her mother’s apartment, with an oblique reference to suicide: MY DARLING I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW REGARDLESS OF THE THINGS WE HAVE TO EXPERIENCE IN LIFE I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I AM IN THE GROUND NOW I WOULD SHOOT MYSELF FOR YOU IF I HAD A GUN BUT I DON’T HAVE ONE TELL MY WIFE THE MOST HORRIBLE THING IN THE WORLD IS SILENCE AND I AM EXPERIENCING SAME. IM TIRED AND GOING TO SLEEP CHARLES PARKER57 Moved by Charlie’s telegram, Chan returned home. On Thursday, August 26, Charlie opened at Birdland for a three-week engagement with the string group on a bill with Dizzy Gillespie and Dinah Washington. The next Sunday, on his thirty-fourth birthday, Charlie impe- rially dismissed the entire string section and repaired to the bar, downing shot after shot of whiskey. The manager of Birdland, Oscar Goodstein, furious at the uproar, banished Charlie from his namesake club. With tears streaming down his face, Charlie walked around the corner to the Basin Street and drank himself into a stupor.58 Returning home in the wee hours, Charlie calmly assured Chan that he only wanted to pick up a few things and be on his way. Walking back to the restroom and quietly closing the door, Charlie attempted suicide. “I found Bird in the bathroom. He had swallowed iodine,” Chan reported. “There were open bottles of aspirin and other pills in the sink. My reaction was cold: ‘That was stupid. Now I’ll just have to call an ambulance.’ As I was calling Bellevue, Bird wandered to the corner as if he didn’t know what to do next. The ambulance arrived at the same time as the Daily News press car, and Bird was photographed in his long Bermudas being helped into it.”59 Bellevue staff assigned Charlie to the ward for agitated patients. The hospital file on Charlie reported that he “exhibited a passive dependency and proved ingratiating and friendly to all physicians. Psychometric testing in- dicated a high average intelligence with paranoid tendencies. Evaluation by psychiatrists indicate a hostile, evasive personality with manifestations of primitive and sexual fantasies associated with hostility and gross evidence Parker’s Mood  • 

What was Charlie's first time playing?<sep> What was Charlie's first time playing?

of paranoid thinking. Psychoanalytic diagnosis latent schizophrenia. ” After being discharged under a doctor’s care on September 10, Charlie resumed drinking. Later that month, Charlie readmitted himself to Bellevue, feeling depressed and fearing “for his own safety. ”60 After being discharged on October 15, Charlie moved with Chan to New Hope. He commuted for outpatient treatments and work in the city, tem- porarily regaining a sense of normalcy. Charlie enjoyed playing the square, riding the train into the city surrounded by businessmen, poring over news- papers. Around Christmas, Charlie resumed drinking heavily again, driving Chan away for good. Cut loose from his domestic anchor, Charlie drifted off into the New York nightlife, drinking excessively and sleeping wherever and whenever he could. When he could not find shelter, Charlie rode the subways all night long. Ahmed Basheer, a young devout Muslim with an air of gentle dignity, literally picked Charlie up off the street and put him up in a spare room in his cold-water flat on Barrow Street in the Village. It took Basheer and three friends to maneuver Charlie upstairs to the apartment and lay him out on the bed. As Charlie’s rescuers hovered over the bed, he feverishly expressed a desire to die. He told them, “I know you fellows are trying to keep an eye on me because you don’t want me to kill myself, but regardless of what you say or do, I’ll have to die, and that’s all there is to it. It won’t be anything to it; it will be very easy. I’ll just simply maybe jump off a bridge or something some night, and you fellows will hear about it. ”61 Charlie stayed with Basheer during the last four months of his life. Leonard Feather witnessed Charlie’s swift mental and physical decline, starting in early 1955: I saw Charlie three times after that. The first time playing, a Town Hall con- cert, he looked healthy, talked sensibly, played magnificently and told me he was commuting daily between New Hope, Pa., where he and Chan had found a home, and Bellevue hospital where he was undergoing psychiatric treat- ment. He had dropped 20 pounds of unhealthy fat; he was like a new man, and New Hope seemed the right place for him to be living. The second time, a month ago, he was standing in a bar over Birdland, raggedly dressed. He said he had not been home to New Hope lately. The bloated fat was back. His eyes looked desperately sad. The final night, Charlie was playing at Birdland

What was the name of the baroness that Nica was known for?<sep> What was

for two nights only, with Bud Powell, Kenny Dorham, Art Blakey, and Charlie Mingus. One set was too much for anyone who had known and respected this man. He refused to take the stand, quarreled with Powell, stalked off after playing a few desultory bars, and a few minutes later was seen by a friend around the corner at Basin Street, with tears streaming down his face. “You’ll kill yourself if you go on like this,” said Mingus, who loved Charlie and was mortified at the spectacle of his imminent self-destruction. A week later, Charlie was dead.62 Fueling tabloid headlines, Charlie passed in the suite of the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter in the Hotel Stanhope, located on Fifth Avenue across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An aristocratic maverick and woman of independent means, the Baroness, known as Nica to the jazz musicians she befriended, hailed from the English banking branch of the Rothschild family, longtime patrons of music. Raised in society, Nica married Baron Jules de Koeningswarter, a pilot and high-ranking official in the French diplomatic corps. During World War II, she fought alongside her husband in the French resistance, serving as an ambulance driver, decoder, and broadcaster. Becoming bored with her husband’s postwar diplomatic post in Mexico City, Nica fled with her daughter to New York City in 1951. Having gotten the jazz bug as a teenager from her brother Victor, the third Lord Rothschild and Winston Churchill’s diplomatic courier to the White House, she befriended Thelonious Monk, Charlie, and other modernists, making them welcome in her elegant suite at the Stanhope. Monk often stopped by, lingering in the lobby, sporting colorful, oddly matched outfits, much to the chagrin of the doormen charged with maintaining the staid decorum of the hotel. Charlie visited infrequently, helping himself to the well-stocked bar, playing records and games with Nica’s teenage daughter.63 On Wednesday, March 9, 1955, Charlie stopped off at Nica’s apartment after falling ill on the way to an engagement at George Wein’s Storyville Club in Boston. She immediately noticed Charlie’s grave condition and called the house physician, Dr. Richard Freymann. She recalled: The first thing that happened [that] was unusual was, when I offered him a drink, and he said no. I took a look at him, and I noticed he appeared quite ill. A few minutes later he began to vomit blood. I sent for my doctor, who came right away. He said that Bird could not go on any trip, and Bird, who felt Parker’s Mood  • 

What was the name of the show that Charlie was a fan of?<sep> What was the

better momentarily, started to argue the point and said that he had a com- mitment to play this gig and that he had to go. We told him that he must go to the hospital. That, he said, was the last thing he was going to do. He said he hated hospitals, that he had had enough of them. I then said to the doctor, “Let him stay here.” We agreed on that, and my daughter and I took shifts around the clock watching and waiting upon him and bringing ice water by the gallon, which he consumed. His thirst was incredible; it couldn’t be quenched. Sometimes he would bring it up with some blood, and then he lay back and had to have more water. It went on like that for a day or two.64 Closely monitoring his patient, Dr. Freymann visited Nica’s apartment three times a day. Feeling better by Saturday, March 12, 1955, Charlie got up to watch the Tommy Dorsey program on TV. “We braced him up in an easy chair, with pillows and wrapped in blankets. He was enjoying what he saw of the pro- gram,” Nica recounted. Bird was a fan of Dorsey’s, and he didn’t see anything strange in that. “He’s a wonderful trombonist,” he said. Then came the part of the show consisting of jugglers who were throwing bricks around that were stuck together. My daughter was asking how they did it, and Bird and I were being very mysteri- ous about it. Suddenly in the act, they dropped the bricks, and we all laughed. Bird was laughing uproariously, but then he began to choke. He rose from his chair and choked, perhaps twice, and sat back in the chair. I was on the phone immediately, calling the doctor. “Don’t worry, Mummy,” my daughter said. “He’s all right now. ” I went over and took his pulse. He had dropped back in the chair, with his head falling forward. He was unconscious. I could feel his pulse still there. Then his pulse stopped. I didn’t want to believe it. I could feel my own pulse. I tried to believe my pulse was his. But I really knew that Bird was dead. At the moment of his going, there was a tremendous clap of thunder. I didn’t think about it at the time, but I’ve thought about it often since; how strange it was.65 Just thirty-four years old, Charlie died from lobar pneumonia due to vis- ceral congestion. Surveying Charlie’s abused body for the police report, Dr. Freymann judged his age as fifty-three. Nica, desperate to contact Chan before the newspapers and radio sta- tions got wind of the story, kept Charlie’s death to herself while making

What was the name of the funeral Doris and Addie arranged for?<sep> What

discreet inquiries as to Chan’s whereabouts. She finally got in touch with Chan’s mother on Monday, the day before news of Charlie’s death broke. As Chan made plans for a simple funeral, Doris arrived from Chicago, marriage certificate in hand, and claimed the body. Working in concert with Addie, Charlie’s mother, Doris arranged for a public funeral at the Abyssinian Bap- tist Church in Harlem, then final internment in Kansas City. Chan protested that Charlie did not want a “showbiz funeral” or to be buried in Kansas City, only to be overruled by Doris and Addie. Doris temporarily put aside her animosity and graciously seated Chan in the front row, while taking a seat in the back. Chan found little comfort in her ringside seat to the spectacle: All Harlem had turned out: pimps, pushers, whores in their finery mingled with fans, and the businessmen who had had a vested interest in Bird when he was alive and looked forward to bigger profits now that he was dead. Adam Clayton Powell being a senator in Washington was replaced by the Most Reverend Licorice, who conducted the service. The coffin was sur- rounded by huge floral displays and my little daisy bouquet looked lost and innocent in that exotic garden. An organist played “The Lost Chord. ” (Bird never lost a chord in his life!) Reverend Licorice pontificated on what a fine man Charlie Bird had been. It was surreal. After the interminable service, there was another long wait in an alcove where Mingus mumbled insanely in my ear that it wasn’t Bird in the coffin. Later, I realized what he meant. Then the coffin was clumsily carried past me by a sweating Teddy Reig, a distraught Leonard Feather, and others whose faces I didn’t recognize. As they walked down the steps, someone stumbled and the coffin almost fell. Lennie Tristano an honorary pallbearer, who was nearby, intuitively reached up and caught the coffin as it fell. It was placed in a hearse to be taken to Kansas City.66 Norman Granz quietly paid the funeral expenses and the cost of shipping the body home. The next morning, Doris and Addie accompanied Charlie’s body to Kansas City. Members of Local 627 carried Charlie to his final resting place atop a hill in Lincoln Cemetery, an African American cemetery located in an unin- corporated area between Kansas City and Independence. Addie buried her son under a shade tree, so he would be cool during the summer. A simple Parker’s Mood  •