Seventy years in the past, Charlie Parker and 4 different be-bop legends created what many name the best jazz live performance ever— with Parker taking part in a plastic saxophone. A reissue of the recording is out.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Greater than 70 years in the past, what’s usually known as the best jazz live performance of all time came about in Toronto. Charlie “Chook” Parker soared with 4 legendary colleagues whereas taking part in a plastic saxophone. It is now on show on the American Jazz Museum in Kansas Metropolis, and a reissue of the efficiency was lately launched. Reporter Invoice Brownlee has extra.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE PARKER, ET AL.’S “WEE (ALLEN’S ALLEY)”)
BILL BROWNLEE, BYLINE: The tune titled “Wee” was a part of the 1953 efficiency that came about at a half-full Massey Corridor. It is the one time that 5 major architects of bebop had been recorded taking part in collectively – trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell on piano, bassist Charles Mingus, Max Roach on drums, and Charlie Parker taking part in a plastic saxophone.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE PARKER, ET AL.’S “WEE (ALLEN’S ALLEY)”)
BROWNLEE: The Grafton alto saxophones had been fabricated from acrylic plastic and had been manufactured for less than about 10 years within the Fifties.
DINA BENNETT: There have been so many issues that went mistaken throughout that evening. It actually wasn’t properly attended. Charlie Parker had pawned his saxophone.
BROWNLEE: Dina Bennett is a physician of ethnomusicology and interim director of the American Jazz Museum.
BENNETT: He was given the plastic saxophone to play. He was late. Bud Powell had been launched from the hospital. Dizzy Gillespie was operating behind stage to take heed to the boxing match between, I feel, Rocky Marciano and Joe Walcott, after which they saved going throughout the road to the Silver Tavern for drinks.
BROWNLEE: The issues continued after the present. A lot of the musicians’ checks bounced, and even worse, the recording failed to choose up Mingus’ bass. After being persuaded to not destroy the tapes, Mingus overdubbed his instrument. Regardless of, and maybe partly in recognition of, these obstacles, “The Penguin Information To Jazz” calls the live performance a outstanding expertise to not be missed.
Right here on the American Jazz Museum, the lustrous white saxophone is on show in a case surrounded by live performance memorabilia. Bennett marvels at how Parker surmounted the instrument’s limitations.
BENNETT: I imply, it is made out of Fifties low cost plastic. He did not miss a beat, and he performed it with the dexterity and the genius that he performed his brass saxophone.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE PARKER, ET AL.’S “WEE (ALLEN’S ALLEY)”)
BROWNLEE: The unlikely instrument is the centerpiece of the museum due to the efforts of Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. The mayor of Kansas Metropolis on the time, Cleaver huddled with officers and civic leaders when the saxophone was auctioned by Christie’s in London in 1994.
EMANUEL CLEAVER: It was at 3 a.m. within the morning that we met within the workplace on the church I pastored on the time. The opening bid was $5,000. I keep in mind clearly as a result of I assumed, oh, the saxophone most likely value $199. However, , we bought some historic worth right here. So $5,000 is nothing. Earlier than I knew it, we had been as much as $75,000.
BROWNLEE: Cleaver’s successful bid was $144,000. Skeptical pundits and political opponents objected. However Cleaver insists his actions had been warranted.
CLEAVER: Shopping for that sax was the coup d’etat for Kansas Metropolis. And, after all, now it isn’t controversial.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE PARKER, ET AL.’S “WEE (ALLEN’S ALLEY)”)
BROWNLEE: Parker’s one-of-a-kind efficiency comes by means of extra clearly than ever on the reissue of the Massey Corridor live performance.
For NPR Information, I am Invoice Brownlee in Kansas Metropolis.
(SOUNDBITE OF MINUTEMEN’S “COHESION”)
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