Synopsis
This one-act opera features roles based on real-life figures Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Pannonica de Koenigswarter, Chan Parker, and Charlie Parker's wives and mother. The opera does not purport to depict actual events as they occurred or statements, beliefs, or opinions of the persons depicted.
As the opera begins, Charlie Parker's spirit finds itself at Birdland, the jazz club named after him. He has just died; his body is still at the segregated hotel suite of Nica de Koenigswarter. Panicking about the scandal that will ensue when his body is found in her rooms, Nica finds his spirit at Birdland. She wants Chan, Charlie's wife, to identify his body; but Charlie begs Nica not to tell Chan where he is, to keep his secret for a while, until he has time to compose a masterpiece.
Looking for inspiration, Charlie remembers growing up in Kansas City. His neighbors complain about all the noise he makes, learning to play saxophone—particularly the tritone, "the Devil's interval"—while his mother, Addie, worries about his lifestyle in the age of Jim Crow laws. Rebecca, Charlie's first wife, joins Addie in a lament about the challenges of being a wife and mother to black males in the United States. Hoping to save his life, Addie tells Charlie he must leave Kansas City. He promises to make her proud one day, and asks her to take care of his wife and son.
Charlie's third wife, Doris, tries to help him find peace; but there are still unanswered questions. Dizzy Gillespie, on the other hand, brings Charlie inspiration, and together the two musicians triumph as Bebop is born.
Charlie then remembers how he met Chan and went off to conquer California with Dizzy, despite his heroin addiction. Meanwhile, Addie remembers her pride upon hearing Charlie play on the radio.
In California, Charlie hears from Chan that their two-year-old daughter, Pree, is dead. Charlie breaks down and ends up in Camarillo State Hospital. Music facilitates his recovery.
By now Charlie's body has been discovered. Addie wants him buried in Kansas City, but Chan wants to bury him in New York. Doris and Rebecca join the argument over where Charlie is to be buried while the world sings, "Bird lives!"
Charlie realizes that playing the saxophone was his life's work, his masterpiece. He makes peace with himself, frees his soul, and sings lines from Paul Laurence Dunbar's classic poem, "Sympathy".
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy Eldridge but adding layers of harmonic and rhythmic complexity previously unheard in jazz. His combination of musicianship, showmanship, and wit made him a leading popularizer of the new music called bebop. His beret and horn-rimmed spectacles, scat singing, bent horn, pouched cheeks, and light-hearted personality have made him an enduring icon.
Charles Parker Jr., nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. He was a virtuoso and introduced revolutionary rhythmic and harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Parker's tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber.
Theodore "Fats" Navarro was an American jazz trumpet player and a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. A native of Key West, Florida, he toured with big bands before achieving fame as a bebop trumpeter in New York. Following a series of studio sessions with leading bebop figures including Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Kenny Clarke, he became ill with tuberculosis and died at the age of 26. Despite the short duration of his career, he had a strong stylistic influence on trumpet players who rose to fame in later decades, including Clifford Brown and Lee Morgan.
Minton's Playhouse is a jazz club and bar located on the first floor of the Cecil Hotel at 210 West 118th Street in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. It is a registered trademark of Housing and Services, Inc. a New York City nonprofit provider of supportive housing. The door to the actual club itself is at 206 West 118th Street where there is a small plaque. Minton's was founded by tenor saxophonist Henry Minton in 1938. Minton's is known for its role in the development of modern jazz, also known as bebop, where in its jam sessions in the early 1940s, Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie pioneered the new music. Minton's thrived for three decades until its decline near the end of the 1960s, and its eventual closure in 1974. After being closed for more than 30 years, the newly remodeled club reopened on May 19, 2006, under the name Uptown Lounge at Minton's Playhouse. However, the reopened club was closed again in 2010.
Baroness Kathleen Annie Pannonica de Koenigswarter was a British-born jazz patron and writer. A leading patron of bebop, she was a member of the Rothschild family.
Bird is a 1988 American biographical musical drama film about jazz saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker, directed and produced by Clint Eastwood from a screenplay by Joel Oliansky. The film stars Forest Whitaker as Parker, and Diane Venora. It is constructed as a montage of scenes from Parker's life, from his childhood in Kansas City, through his early death at the age of 34.
"A Night in Tunisia" is a musical composition written by American trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie around 1940–1942. He wrote it while he was playing with the Benny Carter band. It has become a jazz standard. It is also known as "Interlude", and with lyrics by Raymond Leveen was recorded by Sarah Vaughan in 1944.
Jazz at Massey Hall is a live jazz album recorded on 15 May 1953 at Massey Hall in Toronto, Canada. Credited to "the Quintet", the group was composed of five leading "modern" players of the day: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach. It was the only time that the five musicians recorded together as a unit, and it was the last recorded meeting of Parker and Gillespie.
Confirmation is a bebop standard composed by saxophonist Charlie Parker in 1945. It is known as a challenging number due to its long, complex head and rapid chord changes, which feature an extended cycle of fifths. Jazz educator Dariusz Terefenko has pointed out the speed and intricacy of "Confirmation's" "harmonic rhythm", which he notes is typical of the bebop era.
Baron Jules Adolphe de Kœnigswarter, was a French soldier and diplomat of Jewish descent.
Birdland is a jazz club started in New York City on December 15, 1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan, was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979. A revival began in 1986 with the opening of the second nightclub by the same name that is now located in Manhattan's Theater District, not far from the original nightclub's location. The current location is in the same building as the previous headquarters of The New York Observer.
This is a list of recordings by American jazz alto saxophonist Charlie Parker ("Bird"). Parker primarily recorded for three labels: Savoy, Dial, and Verve. His work with these labels has been chronicled in box sets. Charlie Parker's Savoy and Dial Sessions have been issued on The Complete Savoy Sessions, Charlie Parker on Dial and Complete Charlie Parker on Dial and The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes. His Verve recordings are available on Bird: The Complete Charlie Parker on Verve and The Complete Verve Master Takes.
"Ko-Ko" is a 1945 bebop recording composed by Charlie Parker. The original recorded version lists Parker on alto saxophone with trumpeter Miles Davis, double bassist Curley Russell and drummer Max Roach. Due to the absence of Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie was enlisted to play piano, instead of his usual trumpet. Pianist Sadik Hakim, then known as Argonne Thornton, was also known to be present at the session. Rumors persist to this day about precisely who played trumpet and piano on this piece; some claim it's young Miles Davis who plays trumpet and Gillespie comping at piano, on both takes; most claim Gillespie plays trumpet and, or instead of, piano; some claim Hakim is the pianist on all or part of one or both of the takes. However, Miles Davis confirms in his autobiography that he did not play trumpet on "Ko Ko":
"I remember Bird wanting me to play "Ko-Ko," a tune that was based on the changes of "Cherokee." Now Bird knew I was having trouble playing "Cherokee" back then. So when he said that that was the tune he wanted me to play, I just said no, I wasn't going to do it. That's why Dizzy's playing trumpet on "Ko-Ko," "Warmin' up a Riff," and "Meandering" on Charlie Parker’s Reboppers, because I wasn't going to get out there and embarrass myself. I didn't really think I was ready to play tunes at the tempo of "Cherokee" and I didn't make no bones about it."
"Groovin' High" is an influential 1945 song by jazz composer and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. The song was a bebop mainstay that became a jazz standard, one of Gillespie's best known hits, and according to Bebop: The Music and Its Players author Thomas Owens, "the first famous bebop recording". The song is a complex musical arrangement based on the chord structure of the 1920 standard originally recorded by Paul Whiteman, "Whispering", with lyrics by John Schonberger and Richard Coburn (né Frank Reginald DeLong; 1886–1952) and music by Vincent Rose. The biography Dizzy characterizes the song as "a pleasant medium-tempo tune" that "demonstrates...[Gillespie's] skill in fashioning interesting textures using only six instruments".
Charlie Parker on Dial: The Complete Sessions is a 1993 four-disc box set collecting jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker's 1940s recordings for Dial Records. The box set, released by the English label Spotlite Records, assembled into a single package the multi-volume compilation albums the label had released by Spotlite on vinyl in the 1970s under the series title Charlie Parker on Dial. The box set has been critically well received. In 1996, a different box set collecting Parker's work with Dial was assembled by Jazz Classics and released as Complete Charlie Parker on Dial.
Seven Standards (1985), Vols. 1 & 2 is a two volume set by free jazz musician Anthony Braxton. It was recorded January 30 – 31, 1985. The album is less free than most of Braxton's previous work and features jazz standards arranged in the usual jazz-combo style.
Lawrence Brownlee is an American operatic tenor particularly associated with the bel canto repertoire. Describing his voice, Speight Jenkins, general director of the Seattle Opera, said: "There are other singers that sing this repertory very well, but I don't think anyone else has quite as beautiful a sound and as rounded a tone," and praise his "incredible top notes", adding about his high F (F5) in "Credeasi, misera": "With him it's not a scream, it's a beautiful sound." Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato adds: "He is always in service of the music. His natural instrument is just incredibly beautiful. The word 'honey' comes to mind. He also has technical prowess and agility."
"Billie's Bounce" is a jazz composition written in 1945 by Charlie Parker in the form of a 12 bar F blues. Some sources claim that the song was dedicated to Dizzy Gillespie's agent, Billy Shaw, although according to Ross Russell, Shaw's "name was misspelled" accidentally. However, others claim that the song was in fact dedicated to Shaw's secretary, who was called Billie. The original recording by Charlie Parker and His Re-Boppers was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002.
Monte Kay was an American musicians' agent and record producer.
One Night in Birdland is a live album by saxophone player Charlie Parker, trumpeter Fats Navarro, pianist Bud Powell, bassist Curley Russell, and drummer Art Blakey recorded at Birdland on May 15–16, 1950. Recorded in low audio quality on a private tape, it was released as an LP by Columbia Records.
