New Yorker article on "Bird Flight"

[dmait]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05...fa_fact_remnick

 

>Every weekday for the past twenty-seven years, a long-in-the-tooth history major named Phil Schaap has hosted a morning program on WKCR, Columbia University

[MattZ]

thanks for this -- I subscribe to the NYer but I somehow missed this. Too much stuff to read.

[LouieB]

Yea, me too.....I will go look for this. Bird Lives.....

 

LouieB

[dmait]

The radio show is great during the morning drive. The revelatory minutae is surpassed only by the great recordings. Phil Schaap is a jazz encyclopedia. He spent an hour on Red Norvo today for his centennial. I had only known about Red from the great Sinatra live recording.

[LouieB]

The radio show is great during the morning drive. The revelatory minutae is surpassed only by the great recordings. Phil Schaap is a jazz encyclopedia. He spent an hour on Red Norvo today for his centennial. I had only known about Red from the great Sinatra live recording.

I saw Red one time. I don't suppose I appreciated him really. He was a very old man by then. He played Rick's Cafe Americanne which was in the old Holiday Inn on Lakeshore Drive near Grand. Fun place and long gone.

 

LouieB

[mountain bed]

Awesome! I'm sure he wasn't the first, but Bird certainly had obsessive/compulsive fans in his day that would rival any of the Deadheads.

 

I can't remember the dude's name, but in the fine book BIRD -The Legend Of Charlie Parker by Robert Reisner there was talk of this guy who would catch as many of Bird's shows as he could, archiving his music on an old reel-to-reel recorder. He wouldn't even tape the whole song - to save tape he'd just record Bird's solos!

[LouieB]

Awesome! I'm sure he wasn't the first, but Bird certainly had obsessive/compulsive fans in his day that would rival any of the Deadheads.

 

I can't remember the dude's name, but in the fine book BIRD -The Legend Of Charlie Parker by Robert Reisner there was talk of this guy who would catch as many of Bird's shows as he could, archiving his music on an old reel-to-reel recorder. He wouldn't even tape the whole song - to save tape he'd just record Bird's solos!

That would be Dean Bennedetti. A few years back they found his "wire" recordings and they are all out on Mosaic records. These recordings were thought to lost and finding them was a huge deal. Unlike other Mosaic releases which are printed in like 5000 copies and then go out of print, the stipulation on this set is that they never go out of print. I have never bought them, but I am tempted to do so. They are probably the first instance of a compulsive and seruptious taping of a musician. You are correct they are only Bird's solos, excluding everyone else, so I bet the experience of listening to them is rather strange. Also they are not reel to reel, but wire recorder, which I have to admit I am not exactly sure what it looks like. The "made-up" scene at the beginning of "Bird Lives" has always been criticized, since it is not real, but I kind of like it, particulary it rings true in these days of compulsive tapers at shows, Bennedetti was the early roll model for every taper since.

 

I went through a huge Bird period when I bought every Parker record I could find. As a result I have quite a few concert recordsings, some of which aren't that easy to listen to and some (like the Red Kross recordings) which are quite primative. I was criticized by Waronwar for not dwelling on Bird in my jazz article (see below). He was right of course. Few figures in music have had the kind of impact Bird had, in fact he was far more influential than either Miles or Trane, since both were inspired directly by him. If ever there were a figure who embodied the live fast and die ethic it was Parker. Skip the lousy movie treatment by Clint Eastwood, and read any number of the books out about him for a better picture of the man. Truly one of the greats. He has gone into eclipse lately, but his influence if never far away.

 

LouieB

[dmait]

>read any number of the books out about him for a better picture of the man.

 

Any one of them stand out, if you were to read only one?

 

>That would be Dean Bennedetti.

 

Very good, LouieB. Here's a (long) excerpt from the New Yorker article about the Benedetti recordings:

 

 

[LouieB]

Actually Bird Lives is not a bad bio. I enjoyed it and after reading others it doesn't differ that much. I just personally thought the Clint Eastwood movie, despite some typical over acting by Forest Whitiker is not worth the time. Some day someone will make a good movie of Parker's life, since it is cinematic to the max.

 

The Benedetti story is certainly a far cry from the technology we use today when everyone and anyone can get some sort of recording of their favorite artist and post it on the internet within days.

 

Another interesting story of recording is the one that has to do with the Fargo recording of the Duke Ellington Orchestra (I thought of it also when Wilco played up there recently.) Also the Bolden cylinder is just a myth, but the kind of myth that is fun to think about.

 

LouieB