WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.080 You can tell a history of jazz in four words. 00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:06.940 Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker. Wow. That is 00:00:06.940 --> 00:00:09.349 a... That is a hell of a way to start a conversation. 00:00:09.609 --> 00:00:11.490 It is, isn't it? And, you know, that's not some 00:00:11.490 --> 00:00:13.750 music critic just trying to sell a book or something. 00:00:14.349 --> 00:00:16.750 That's a quote from Miles Davis. Right. And if 00:00:16.750 --> 00:00:18.170 you know anything about Miles, he was not the 00:00:18.170 --> 00:00:20.769 kind of guy to hand out compliments lightly. 00:00:20.969 --> 00:00:22.329 Not at all. He wasn't giving out participation 00:00:22.329 --> 00:00:25.949 trophies. So if Miles Davis says you represent 00:00:25.949 --> 00:00:29.129 half, literally half of the history of an entire 00:00:29.129 --> 00:00:32.570 genre of music, you're talking about a titan. 00:00:32.829 --> 00:00:36.810 It's such a definitive statement. It basically 00:00:36.810 --> 00:00:40.149 cleaves jazz history in two. There's the B .C. 00:00:40.170 --> 00:00:42.609 and the A .D. Before Charlie and after Charlie. 00:00:42.630 --> 00:00:44.670 Exactly. Everything that happened before he picked 00:00:44.670 --> 00:00:46.869 up a saxophone. And everything that came after. 00:00:47.049 --> 00:00:50.229 It implies that once Parker showed up, the very 00:00:50.229 --> 00:00:52.770 DNA of the music just changed. It couldn't go 00:00:52.770 --> 00:00:54.590 back. It couldn't. And that's what we're doing 00:00:54.590 --> 00:00:57.109 today. This entire deep dive is dedicated to 00:00:57.109 --> 00:00:59.729 that second half of the equation. We are talking 00:00:59.729 --> 00:01:03.030 about Charles Parker Jr. Better known as Bird. 00:01:03.270 --> 00:01:06.879 Or Yardbird. The man who, I mean, he didn't just 00:01:06.879 --> 00:01:09.760 play jazz. He completely revolutionized it. He 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:13.159 invented a new musical language, a whole syntax 00:01:13.159 --> 00:01:16.120 we call bebop. But our mission today, I think, 00:01:16.219 --> 00:01:18.659 it's not just about the notes on the page, right? 00:01:18.760 --> 00:01:22.459 We have this massive stack of sources here. We're 00:01:22.459 --> 00:01:25.780 talking biographical records, really dense musical 00:01:25.780 --> 00:01:28.480 analysis. Autopsy reports, even. Yeah, personal 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:32.500 letters, oral histories. The picture they paint 00:01:32.500 --> 00:01:34.840 is just so incredibly complex. We're trying to 00:01:34.840 --> 00:01:37.980 figure out how a kid from Kansas City, how did 00:01:37.980 --> 00:01:40.379 he change the entire sonic landscape of the 20th 00:01:40.379 --> 00:01:42.659 century? Right. The technical brilliance is part 00:01:42.659 --> 00:01:44.680 of it for sure. I want to know how he played 00:01:44.680 --> 00:01:46.620 things that, you know, shouldn't have been possible. 00:01:46.659 --> 00:01:50.290 But we also have to get into the. the tragic 00:01:50.290 --> 00:01:52.629 and chaotic life that fueled all of that. And 00:01:52.629 --> 00:01:54.170 maybe you destroyed it in the end. And ultimately 00:01:54.170 --> 00:01:57.230 destroyed it. It's the story of the cool hipster 00:01:57.230 --> 00:01:59.569 icon on one hand. And this man just battling 00:01:59.569 --> 00:02:01.709 these enormous personal demons on the other. 00:02:01.790 --> 00:02:03.989 It's a tension that defines his entire life. 00:02:04.170 --> 00:02:08.330 You've got this supreme intellectual, almost 00:02:08.330 --> 00:02:10.909 mathematical artistry. And on the other side, 00:02:10.930 --> 00:02:14.229 just a life riddled with addiction, with mental 00:02:14.229 --> 00:02:17.229 health struggles, with real tragedy. And I think 00:02:17.229 --> 00:02:20.150 people often focus on the legend. Oh, yeah. The 00:02:20.150 --> 00:02:22.389 drugs, the myth of the tortured artist. Exactly. 00:02:22.590 --> 00:02:25.050 The erratic behavior. But what these sources 00:02:25.050 --> 00:02:27.210 really, really highlight and that we need to 00:02:27.210 --> 00:02:30.349 get into today is the discipline. This was not 00:02:30.349 --> 00:02:32.969 accidental. It wasn't magic. Okay, so let's unpack 00:02:32.969 --> 00:02:34.969 that. Let's strip away the bird mythology and 00:02:34.969 --> 00:02:36.889 just look at the man. Where does someone like 00:02:36.889 --> 00:02:39.449 Charlie Parker even come from? He wasn't born 00:02:39.449 --> 00:02:42.870 playing bebop in some smoky New York club. No, 00:02:42.930 --> 00:02:45.610 not at all. Far from it. He was born in August 00:02:45.610 --> 00:02:48.569 of 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas. But he was raised 00:02:48.569 --> 00:02:50.729 mostly across the river in Kansas City, Missouri. 00:02:50.990 --> 00:02:53.210 And we should probably pause there because Kansas 00:02:53.210 --> 00:02:56.250 City at that time. It's crucial to the story, 00:02:56.349 --> 00:02:58.689 right? It is absolutely crucial. Kansas City 00:02:58.689 --> 00:03:01.969 in the 20s and 30s, this was not some sleepy 00:03:01.969 --> 00:03:04.729 Midwestern town. It was run by the Pendergast 00:03:04.729 --> 00:03:07.009 political machine, which basically made it a 00:03:07.009 --> 00:03:09.349 wide open city. Wide open, which sounds like 00:03:09.349 --> 00:03:12.110 a very polite term for... Lawless. That chuckles. 00:03:12.509 --> 00:03:14.909 It basically was, yeah. The nightclubs literally 00:03:14.909 --> 00:03:17.729 never closed. Alcohol was flowing freely, even 00:03:17.729 --> 00:03:20.270 during Prohibition. Oh, wow. And all that corruption, 00:03:20.530 --> 00:03:23.800 it... It inadvertently created this incredible 00:03:23.800 --> 00:03:26.400 hotbed for jazz because the clubs were open all 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:29.599 night. Musicians could just play forever from 00:03:29.599 --> 00:03:31.659 sundown to sunup. It created a really competitive 00:03:31.659 --> 00:03:33.860 atmosphere, I bet. Incredible high pressure. 00:03:33.979 --> 00:03:35.840 You had these jam sessions that would last until 00:03:35.840 --> 00:03:38.860 noon the next day. A real trial by fire. So he's 00:03:38.860 --> 00:03:41.439 growing up in this incubator of sound. What about 00:03:41.439 --> 00:03:43.539 his family? Was he from a long line of musical 00:03:43.539 --> 00:03:47.280 geniuses? It was musical, but it was fractured. 00:03:47.759 --> 00:03:50.840 His father, Charles Parker Sr., was a pianist, 00:03:50.900 --> 00:03:54.479 a singer. A dancer. He was on the TOBA circuit. 00:03:54.780 --> 00:03:57.219 TOBA? I've heard that. Remind me. It stood for 00:03:57.219 --> 00:03:59.460 the Theater Owners Booking Association, basically 00:03:59.460 --> 00:04:01.159 the vaudeville circuit for African -American 00:04:01.159 --> 00:04:03.680 performers at the time. Right. But the performers 00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:06.860 had a pretty grim nickname for it. Tough on black 00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:09.780 asses. It was a brutal life. The pay was low. 00:04:09.919 --> 00:04:12.460 The travel was awful. His father was talented, 00:04:12.659 --> 00:04:15.879 but he was also a Pullman waiter and, well, a 00:04:15.879 --> 00:04:18.939 severe alcoholic. The marriage fell apart when 00:04:18.939 --> 00:04:21.360 Charlie was about 10. So the father's out of 00:04:21.360 --> 00:04:23.699 the picture. It's just Charlie and his mom, Addie. 00:04:23.819 --> 00:04:26.459 Right. And Addie is really the unsung hero here. 00:04:26.699 --> 00:04:29.500 She worked nights cleaning a Western Union office 00:04:29.500 --> 00:04:32.000 just to keep things together. She was tough, 00:04:32.139 --> 00:04:36.100 fiercely protective, and she absolutely doted 00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:38.000 on him. And she's the one who gets him the saxophone. 00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:40.079 She is. In the middle of the Great Depression, 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:42.839 she scrapes together the money to buy him his 00:04:42.839 --> 00:04:46.100 first alto sax while he was in high school. Okay, 00:04:46.220 --> 00:04:48.459 so he gets the horn. And this is where, you know, 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:50.360 in the movie version, you'd get the montage of 00:04:50.360 --> 00:04:52.899 him being an instant prodigy. Yeah, blowing everyone 00:04:52.899 --> 00:04:54.980 away at the talent show. But looking at these 00:04:54.980 --> 00:04:57.879 sources, that is not what happened. Not even 00:04:57.879 --> 00:05:00.100 close. This is one of the most important things 00:05:00.100 --> 00:05:03.199 to understand. Charlie Parker was not a prodigy. 00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:06.000 He did not pick up that horn and just start playing 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:08.899 these perfect melodies. He was. He was actually 00:05:08.899 --> 00:05:12.459 considered mediocre. Mediocre. Charlie Parker. 00:05:13.149 --> 00:05:15.329 The guy Miles Davis called half the history of 00:05:15.329 --> 00:05:17.850 jazz. That's hard to wrap my head around. He 00:05:17.850 --> 00:05:20.329 was enthusiastic, but he just wasn't very good. 00:05:20.470 --> 00:05:21.949 He played in the high school band, but he was 00:05:21.949 --> 00:05:24.970 no star. He had to work for every single inch 00:05:24.970 --> 00:05:27.790 of progress. And this brings us to a concept 00:05:27.790 --> 00:05:31.750 that's just, it's so central to his story. The 00:05:31.750 --> 00:05:34.509 idea of woodshedding. Woodshedding. I love that 00:05:34.509 --> 00:05:36.370 term. It sounds like manual labor, like you're 00:05:36.370 --> 00:05:39.029 out back chomping logs. And in a way it is. It's 00:05:39.029 --> 00:05:40.990 manual labor for your fingers and your soul. 00:05:41.339 --> 00:05:43.819 It means you retreat from the world. You go into 00:05:43.819 --> 00:05:46.360 the woodshed, literally or metaphorically. Then 00:05:46.360 --> 00:05:48.899 you just practice. Intensely. It's solitary confinement 00:05:48.899 --> 00:05:51.100 with your instrument. And Parker took this to 00:05:51.100 --> 00:05:53.319 an absolute extreme. After he dropped out of 00:05:53.319 --> 00:05:55.939 high school in 35, sources say he spent the next 00:05:55.939 --> 00:05:58.660 three to four years practicing up to 15 hours 00:05:58.660 --> 00:06:01.720 a day. Wait, 15 hours. So do the math on that. 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:04.120 That leaves nine hours for sleeping and eating. 00:06:04.220 --> 00:06:06.639 That's it. That is obsessive. It's beyond practice. 00:06:06.699 --> 00:06:09.100 It's a complete rewiring of your life. It's almost. 00:06:09.519 --> 00:06:12.540 monastic so what lit that fire what pushes a 00:06:12.540 --> 00:06:14.399 teenager to do that there has to be a catalyst 00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:18.839 there was a single profoundly humiliating event 00:06:18.839 --> 00:06:22.459 in jazz lore it's known as the symbol incident 00:06:22.459 --> 00:06:24.879 oh this is the famous story this is like his 00:06:24.879 --> 00:06:27.420 superhero origin story but instead of a spider 00:06:27.420 --> 00:06:30.339 bite it's just public shaming that's a good way 00:06:30.339 --> 00:06:35.779 to put it it's 1936. parker is a Maybe 15, 16 00:06:35.779 --> 00:06:38.139 years old. He's confident, probably overconfident. 00:06:38.459 --> 00:06:40.959 He steps into a jam session at the Reno Club 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:44.079 in Kansas City. And this is in some dive bar. 00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:46.800 He's trying to play with members of the Count 00:06:46.800 --> 00:06:48.720 Basie Orchestra. That's like a high school kid 00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:50.519 trying to jump into a pickup game with the Golden 00:06:50.519 --> 00:06:52.879 State Warriors. Just the sheer audacity of it. 00:06:53.019 --> 00:06:55.100 Exactly. So he gets up there. He starts trying 00:06:55.100 --> 00:06:57.540 to improvise on body and soul. And at first, 00:06:57.579 --> 00:06:59.339 you know, he's hanging in there. Right. But then 00:06:59.339 --> 00:07:01.319 he tries to play a double time run. Playing twice 00:07:01.319 --> 00:07:04.029 as fast as the beat. And he just. He loses it. 00:07:04.050 --> 00:07:06.329 He gets lost in the chord changes. The rhythm 00:07:06.329 --> 00:07:08.610 section is moving on. The train has left the 00:07:08.610 --> 00:07:10.529 station. And he's just stuck on the platform 00:07:10.529 --> 00:07:13.009 playing notes that don't fit. He freezes. Totally 00:07:13.009 --> 00:07:16.430 freezes. And the drummer that night is Joe Jones, 00:07:16.649 --> 00:07:22.129 a legend. And he decides to offer some, let's 00:07:22.129 --> 00:07:24.930 call it unconventional feedback. Unconventional 00:07:24.930 --> 00:07:27.990 is one word for it. He stops playing. He reaches 00:07:27.990 --> 00:07:31.430 up, unscrews this huge cymbal from his drum kit. 00:07:31.850 --> 00:07:33.850 And he throws it. Just throws it on the floor. 00:07:33.889 --> 00:07:36.029 It crashes right at Parker's feet, this huge 00:07:36.029 --> 00:07:38.810 echoing clang. The ultimate full stop. It's not 00:07:38.810 --> 00:07:40.769 a suggestion to get off stage. It's an order. 00:07:40.930 --> 00:07:43.009 The entire club just goes quiet for a second. 00:07:43.089 --> 00:07:46.009 Yeah. And then laughter. The audience, the other 00:07:46.009 --> 00:07:47.689 musicians, they're all just laughing at this 00:07:47.689 --> 00:07:50.310 kid. Humiliating. He packs up his horn, walks 00:07:50.310 --> 00:07:53.110 off stage, goes home, and apparently just cries. 00:07:53.509 --> 00:07:55.889 Tells his mom, I'm never playing again. And see, 00:07:55.930 --> 00:07:57.670 that's where most of us would stop. That story 00:07:57.670 --> 00:07:59.550 would end there. I'd sell the sax and become 00:07:59.550 --> 00:08:02.370 an accountant. But he didn't. This is the pivot. 00:08:02.470 --> 00:08:04.949 This is the resilience. He vowed that he would 00:08:04.949 --> 00:08:07.970 never, ever be laughed at on stage again. And 00:08:07.970 --> 00:08:10.250 that humiliation, that's what drove those 15 00:08:10.250 --> 00:08:12.470 -hour practice days. He went back to the woodshed. 00:08:12.529 --> 00:08:14.589 He turned the shame into fuel. He absolutely 00:08:14.589 --> 00:08:17.370 did. He dissected music. He learned every scale, 00:08:17.550 --> 00:08:21.189 every chord in all 12 keys, forwards and backwards. 00:08:21.449 --> 00:08:23.910 He built his entire technique on the foundation 00:08:23.910 --> 00:08:26.819 of that failure. It's an amazing story of resilience, 00:08:27.120 --> 00:08:29.639 but there's a darker thread that starts around 00:08:29.639 --> 00:08:32.139 the exact same time. As he's building up this 00:08:32.139 --> 00:08:34.460 musical armor, something else is happening to 00:08:34.460 --> 00:08:37.799 his body. Yes. This is the tragic counter -narrative. 00:08:38.120 --> 00:08:41.779 Later that same year, 1936, he's traveling with 00:08:41.779 --> 00:08:45.179 a band to a gig in the Ozarks. It's winter. The 00:08:45.179 --> 00:08:47.539 roads are icy. And there's a car accident. A 00:08:47.539 --> 00:08:51.320 bad one. The car skids, crashes. Parker breaks 00:08:51.320 --> 00:08:54.399 three ribs and fractures his spine. A fractured 00:08:54.399 --> 00:08:56.840 spine in 1936. I mean, the pain must have been 00:08:56.840 --> 00:08:59.620 unimaginable. Agonizing. Oh. And what was the 00:08:59.620 --> 00:09:01.600 standard medical solution for that kind of pain 00:09:01.600 --> 00:09:04.399 back then? Morphine. Morphine. And there it is. 00:09:04.519 --> 00:09:07.940 That's the moment. He's 16 years old. 16. Doctors 00:09:07.940 --> 00:09:10.000 prescribe morphine for the pain, and that is 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:12.139 what sparks the opioid addiction that would follow 00:09:12.139 --> 00:09:14.120 him for the rest of his life. So at the exact 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:16.500 same time, he's forging this incredible musical 00:09:16.500 --> 00:09:18.460 discipline. He's also being chemically bound 00:09:18.460 --> 00:09:20.720 to this addiction. It's heartbreaking. It wasn't 00:09:20.720 --> 00:09:23.350 about partying. Not at first. It was just pain 00:09:23.350 --> 00:09:26.009 management that went horribly wrong. So now he's 00:09:26.009 --> 00:09:27.889 got the addiction, but he also has the skills. 00:09:28.370 --> 00:09:30.929 He leaves Kansas City. He's got to go to the 00:09:30.929 --> 00:09:33.649 Mecca, right? New York City. This is 1939. He 00:09:33.649 --> 00:09:36.169 goes to New York. And again, you have to dispel 00:09:36.169 --> 00:09:38.889 any idea of glamour. He's not walking into a 00:09:38.889 --> 00:09:42.509 record deal. He's doot poor. He ends up taking 00:09:42.509 --> 00:09:45.990 a job. washing dishes at a place called Jimmy's 00:09:45.990 --> 00:09:48.509 Chicken Shack. For $9 a week, I think I read? 00:09:48.730 --> 00:09:50.669 Something like that, yeah. But why there? Why 00:09:50.669 --> 00:09:52.690 that specific restaurant? Because of the house 00:09:52.690 --> 00:09:54.970 pianist. The guy playing out front every night 00:09:54.970 --> 00:09:57.950 was Art Tatum. Art Tatum, the legend. Wait, so 00:09:57.950 --> 00:10:00.570 Charlie Parker, the future of jazz, is scrubbing 00:10:00.570 --> 00:10:02.769 pots in the kitchen? Just so he can hear Art 00:10:02.769 --> 00:10:06.440 Tatum through the door. Wow. And this is so important 00:10:06.440 --> 00:10:08.740 because Tatum was doing things on the piano nobody 00:10:08.740 --> 00:10:11.940 else was doing. This unbelievable harmonic complexity, 00:10:12.100 --> 00:10:15.860 these blistering fast runs, reharmonizing songs 00:10:15.860 --> 00:10:18.759 on the fly. And Parker is in the back soaking 00:10:18.759 --> 00:10:20.960 all of it in. He's hearing the possibilities. 00:10:21.080 --> 00:10:24.039 And this leads to his own breakthrough. The aha 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:27.639 moment. It does. This is the technical discovery 00:10:27.639 --> 00:10:30.639 where bebop is essentially born in his mind. 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:33.200 He was jamming with a guitarist, a guy named 00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:36.220 Bitty Fleet. They were playing the song Cherokee. 00:10:36.679 --> 00:10:39.059 Cherokee is a standard, but it's known for being 00:10:39.059 --> 00:10:41.500 tricky, right? The chords move really fast. Very 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:45.059 fast. And Parker said later that he was getting 00:10:45.059 --> 00:10:48.779 bored. He was bored with the same old stereotyped 00:10:48.779 --> 00:10:51.759 chord changes. He kept hearing something else, 00:10:51.779 --> 00:10:54.220 a different kind of melody in his head, but he 00:10:54.220 --> 00:10:56.179 couldn't. He couldn't get it out of the horn. 00:10:56.299 --> 00:10:58.500 He couldn't figure out how to play it. And then... 00:10:58.759 --> 00:11:01.019 Playing Cherokee, he had the revelation. What 00:11:01.019 --> 00:11:03.799 was it? He realized he could use the higher intervals 00:11:03.799 --> 00:11:06.919 of a chord as a melody line. Okay, stop. Let's 00:11:06.919 --> 00:11:08.399 break that down. Higher intervals. For those 00:11:08.399 --> 00:11:10.259 of us who don't have a music degree, what does 00:11:10.259 --> 00:11:13.360 that actually mean? Sure. So think of a basic 00:11:13.360 --> 00:11:16.399 chord as like a three -story house. You've got 00:11:16.399 --> 00:11:18.440 the ground floor, the first floor, the second 00:11:18.440 --> 00:11:21.019 floor, the root, the third, the fifth. They're 00:11:21.019 --> 00:11:23.360 the safe, stable notes. The notes that sound 00:11:23.360 --> 00:11:26.200 nice together, the stuff you can hum. Exactly. 00:11:26.279 --> 00:11:29.259 Most jazz players at the time, their melodies 00:11:29.259 --> 00:11:32.779 lived on those three floors. What Parker realized 00:11:32.779 --> 00:11:35.299 is that he could build a penthouse. Good chuckles. 00:11:35.539 --> 00:11:38.179 A penthouse. He could play the 7th, the 9th, 00:11:38.279 --> 00:11:41.519 the 11th, the 13th notes of the scale. These 00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:43.519 are notes that are technically outside the basic 00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:46.399 chord. They create tension. They sound a little 00:11:46.399 --> 00:11:49.700 weird, a little dissonant if you just sit on 00:11:49.700 --> 00:11:51.879 them. So he's basically making the music taller. 00:11:52.220 --> 00:11:54.720 That's a perfect analogy. But here's the genius 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:57.659 part. If you just play those weird notes, it 00:11:57.659 --> 00:11:59.980 sounds like you're making mistakes. Parker's 00:11:59.980 --> 00:12:02.360 breakthrough was realizing that if he backed 00:12:02.360 --> 00:12:04.539 them up with the right chord changes underneath. 00:12:04.899 --> 00:12:07.039 Changing the foundation of the house. Then those 00:12:07.039 --> 00:12:10.259 high, tense notes would resolve perfectly. He 00:12:10.259 --> 00:12:12.039 could create this incredible cycle of tension 00:12:12.039 --> 00:12:14.789 and release at blinding speeds. So it wasn't 00:12:14.789 --> 00:12:17.450 just about playing fast. It was a complete restructuring 00:12:17.450 --> 00:12:20.190 of how melody and harmony work together. It was. 00:12:20.190 --> 00:12:23.049 He was making the music chromatic, complex, intellectual. 00:12:23.370 --> 00:12:26.470 He said later, I came alive. He finally had the 00:12:26.470 --> 00:12:28.409 vocabulary for the sounds he'd been hearing in 00:12:28.409 --> 00:12:30.539 his head all that time. And he wasn't alone in 00:12:30.539 --> 00:12:32.480 this, right? He starts finding other guys who 00:12:32.480 --> 00:12:35.100 are also tired of the old swing style. Right. 00:12:35.320 --> 00:12:37.480 This is where he connects with Dizzy Gillespie, 00:12:37.580 --> 00:12:40.840 with felonious monk Kenny Clark. They start having 00:12:40.840 --> 00:12:44.200 these late night jam sessions in Harlem, at places 00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:46.159 like Minton's Playhouse. And they were pushing 00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:48.399 the music to its limits. Pushing the tempo so 00:12:48.399 --> 00:12:51.919 fast that it was a way of keeping the amateurs 00:12:51.919 --> 00:12:55.139 out. It was intentional exclusion. Totally. They 00:12:55.139 --> 00:12:56.799 didn't want the guys who couldn't keep up getting 00:12:56.799 --> 00:12:59.059 on stage. Remember the cymbal incident? They 00:12:59.059 --> 00:13:01.059 were creating a musical environment where you 00:13:01.059 --> 00:13:04.740 had to be a virtuoso to even hang. It was musical 00:13:04.740 --> 00:13:08.299 Darwinism. A secret society of musical wizards? 00:13:08.460 --> 00:13:10.659 But here's the strange thing about this whole 00:13:10.659 --> 00:13:14.360 period. This birth of bebop. We have almost no 00:13:14.360 --> 00:13:16.840 recordings of it. Why is that? It's one of the 00:13:16.840 --> 00:13:19.419 great tragedies of jazz history, really. From 00:13:19.419 --> 00:13:22.799 1942 to 1944, there was a recording ban. A ban. 00:13:23.019 --> 00:13:24.879 Yeah, the American Federation of Musicians went 00:13:24.879 --> 00:13:27.940 on strike over royalty payments from jukeboxes 00:13:27.940 --> 00:13:30.440 and radio. They forbid their members from making 00:13:30.440 --> 00:13:32.559 any commercial recordings. So this entire musical 00:13:32.559 --> 00:13:35.000 revolution has happened. In the shadows. Behind 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:37.480 closed doors in Harlem clubs, but the microphones 00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:39.799 are all off. Exactly. So by the time the ban 00:13:39.799 --> 00:13:43.000 was lifted in 1945, and these guys finally got 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:45.750 into a studio, The music had already changed 00:13:45.750 --> 00:13:47.809 completely. The public was just shocked. They'd 00:13:47.809 --> 00:13:49.169 missed the whole transition. It was like going 00:13:49.169 --> 00:13:51.529 from a horse and buggy straight to a jet engine. 00:13:51.750 --> 00:13:54.610 Which brings us to what people call the golden 00:13:54.610 --> 00:13:58.990 era, 1925. The band is over. Parker is ready 00:13:58.990 --> 00:14:01.970 to finally put this new sound on wax. November 00:14:01.970 --> 00:14:06.230 26, 1945. A date you have to remember. Parker 00:14:06.230 --> 00:14:09.370 leads a session for Savoy Records. And the band 00:14:09.370 --> 00:14:11.289 he assembled. I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's 00:14:11.289 --> 00:14:14.450 the dream team. You've got Parker. Dizzy Gillespie 00:14:14.450 --> 00:14:16.809 on trumpet, a super young Miles Davis also on 00:14:16.809 --> 00:14:19.470 trumpet, Curly Russell on bass, and Max Roach 00:14:19.470 --> 00:14:22.490 on drums. And they record Coco. And Coco is, 00:14:22.649 --> 00:14:25.250 it's a masterpiece. But it has a secret, right? 00:14:25.289 --> 00:14:27.029 It connects right back to that breakthrough moment 00:14:27.029 --> 00:14:28.889 we were just talking about. It's a contrafact, 00:14:28.929 --> 00:14:31.169 right? Exactly. He took the chord progression 00:14:31.169 --> 00:14:34.330 from another song and wrote this incredibly complex 00:14:34.330 --> 00:14:37.090 new melody over it. And that song was Cherokee. 00:14:37.149 --> 00:14:39.590 The song that unlocked everything for him, he 00:14:39.590 --> 00:14:42.350 came full circle. And the playing on Coco is 00:14:42.350 --> 00:14:44.649 just ferocious. It's light speed. It's aggressive. 00:14:45.309 --> 00:14:47.710 There's a story that Miles Davis, who was only 00:14:47.710 --> 00:14:50.330 19, couldn't actually play the intro because 00:14:50.330 --> 00:14:52.909 it was too hard. Dizzy had to step in. Dizzy 00:14:52.909 --> 00:14:55.190 had to play the piano and trumpet parts. That 00:14:55.190 --> 00:14:57.350 session announced to the world that there was 00:14:57.350 --> 00:15:00.830 a new king of the alto saxophone. So artistically, 00:15:00.830 --> 00:15:03.669 he's at the absolute summit. But just as he's 00:15:03.669 --> 00:15:06.090 reaching this peak, the personal chaos starts 00:15:06.090 --> 00:15:09.019 to pull him back down. The band goes to Los Angeles 00:15:09.019 --> 00:15:11.679 for a gig. And it's a disaster. You have to remember, 00:15:11.940 --> 00:15:15.240 bebop is intense. It's frantic music. The West 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:17.419 Coast audiences were used to more laid back swing. 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:19.919 They wanted to dance. They were not ready for 00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:22.240 this. So the gig isn't a success and the band 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:25.899 heads back to New York. But Parker stays. He 00:15:25.899 --> 00:15:28.600 stays behind. Why? He cashed in his return plane 00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:33.460 ticket to buy heroin. That just says it all, 00:15:33.500 --> 00:15:35.860 doesn't it? He literally stranded himself for 00:15:35.860 --> 00:15:37.720 the drug. It gets even more specific. He wrote 00:15:37.720 --> 00:15:39.600 a song around this time called Moose the Moosh. 00:15:39.759 --> 00:15:41.919 It's a classic bebop tune. Sounds really happy 00:15:41.919 --> 00:15:44.539 and bouncy. And Moose the Moosh was? The name 00:15:44.539 --> 00:15:47.080 of his heroin dealer in L .A. He named a jazz 00:15:47.080 --> 00:15:50.480 standard after his drug dealer, that is. That's 00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:52.139 something else. It shows you how intertwined 00:15:52.139 --> 00:15:54.120 it all was. Yeah. He was literally signing over 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:56.639 half his royalties to this guy to keep his habit 00:15:56.639 --> 00:15:59.580 going. But then the dealer gets arrested. The 00:15:59.580 --> 00:16:02.029 supply chain is cut. And Parker starts to unravel. 00:16:02.330 --> 00:16:04.470 He starts drinking heavily to compensate for 00:16:04.470 --> 00:16:06.590 the withdrawal. And this leads to one of the 00:16:06.590 --> 00:16:08.730 most infamous recording sessions in history. 00:16:09.190 --> 00:16:13.769 The Lover Man session. July 1946. I look this 00:16:13.769 --> 00:16:16.809 up and the details are just harrowing. It's painful 00:16:16.809 --> 00:16:19.210 to even read about. It's painful to listen to. 00:16:19.269 --> 00:16:21.269 He shows up to the studio for Dial Records and 00:16:21.269 --> 00:16:24.809 he is just wrecked. He's in withdrawal. He's 00:16:24.809 --> 00:16:27.350 incredibly drunk. Apparently he drank a quart 00:16:27.350 --> 00:16:29.570 of whiskey just to be able to stand up. A quart 00:16:29.570 --> 00:16:31.549 of whiskey. And you can hear it on the recording. 00:16:31.730 --> 00:16:33.950 Oh, you can. His timing is off. He misses his 00:16:33.950 --> 00:16:36.850 cues. His tone, which is usually so sharp and 00:16:36.850 --> 00:16:41.269 clear, it's lagging and weak. The producer, Ross 00:16:41.269 --> 00:16:43.529 Russell, literally had to hold him up in front 00:16:43.529 --> 00:16:45.149 of the microphone. And they still released it. 00:16:45.269 --> 00:16:48.169 They released it. And Parker never forgave them 00:16:48.169 --> 00:16:51.549 for it. He saw it as a total humiliation. His 00:16:51.549 --> 00:16:54.029 precision was everything to him. And here he 00:16:54.029 --> 00:16:57.429 was on record, just broken. And what happened 00:16:57.429 --> 00:17:00.129 immediately after that session? He completely 00:17:00.129 --> 00:17:03.370 snapped. He went back to his hotel, set his bedsheets 00:17:03.370 --> 00:17:06.009 on fire, ran naked through the lobby screaming. 00:17:06.269 --> 00:17:08.190 And he was arrested. Arrested and committed to 00:17:08.190 --> 00:17:11.049 Camarillo State Mental Hospital. Which, weirdly, 00:17:11.289 --> 00:17:13.410 ends up being a good thing for a little while. 00:17:13.549 --> 00:17:16.150 For a time, yeah. Yep. He spent six months there. 00:17:16.269 --> 00:17:19.089 He got clean. He gained weight. He seemed healthy. 00:17:19.309 --> 00:17:22.549 When he got out, he recorded a tune called Relaxin' 00:17:22.549 --> 00:17:24.789 at Camarillo, which is just... Brilliant and 00:17:24.789 --> 00:17:27.069 sunny. He goes back to New York clean and ready 00:17:27.069 --> 00:17:30.190 to go. But it didn't last. No. Almost as soon 00:17:30.190 --> 00:17:32.089 as he got back into that New York scene, he started 00:17:32.089 --> 00:17:35.029 using heroin again. It's just it's a tragic pattern. 00:17:35.109 --> 00:17:37.750 The environment, the pressure, the chemical hook. 00:17:38.250 --> 00:17:40.910 It was too much. But even with that relapse, 00:17:40.950 --> 00:17:43.849 his artistic ambition was still growing. He didn't 00:17:43.849 --> 00:17:47.109 just want to play bebop in clubs. He had. much 00:17:47.109 --> 00:17:48.869 bigger dreams, he wanted to play with strings. 00:17:49.230 --> 00:17:51.150 This is such a fascinating part of his story. 00:17:51.250 --> 00:17:53.609 People think of him as this raw street -level 00:17:53.609 --> 00:17:58.049 genius, but he loved classical music. He idolized 00:17:58.049 --> 00:18:01.230 Stravinsky. He wanted the legitimacy that came 00:18:01.230 --> 00:18:03.430 with an orchestra. And the jazz purists hated 00:18:03.430 --> 00:18:05.849 it, right? I can just hear them, oh, Bird's selling 00:18:05.849 --> 00:18:07.869 out. He's playing with violins now. Yeah, they 00:18:07.869 --> 00:18:09.630 called it commercial. They called it elevator 00:18:09.630 --> 00:18:12.250 music. But for Parker, this was about elevating 00:18:12.250 --> 00:18:15.119 the art form. This was the third stream. mixing 00:18:15.119 --> 00:18:18.519 jazz and classical. And in 1949, he finally got 00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:21.119 his wish. The producer Norman Grant sets it up. 00:18:21.140 --> 00:18:23.220 Sets up a session with a whole chamber orchestra. 00:18:23.619 --> 00:18:26.440 And they record these lush, beautiful versions 00:18:26.440 --> 00:18:29.880 of Just Friends and... April in Paris. And Just 00:18:29.880 --> 00:18:32.480 Friends is just, it's haunting. It's Parker's 00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:34.500 sound just floating over this gorgeous backdrop. 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:36.380 It's so lyrical. Parker said it was one of his 00:18:36.380 --> 00:18:38.339 favorite things he ever recorded. He felt like 00:18:38.339 --> 00:18:40.200 he was finally being heard as a serious composer, 00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:43.839 not just a sideshow act in a bar. But the chaos 00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:47.680 is always right there next to the ambition. We 00:18:47.680 --> 00:18:51.019 have to talk about Massey Hall, 1953. This is 00:18:51.019 --> 00:18:53.079 another one of those legendary greatest concert 00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:55.900 ever moments. The lineup is just, it's absurd. 00:18:56.359 --> 00:18:59.940 Parker. Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles 00:18:59.940 --> 00:19:03.019 Mingus, Max Roach. It's the Mount Rushmore of 00:19:03.019 --> 00:19:05.740 bebop on one stage. But the circumstances were 00:19:05.740 --> 00:19:08.559 almost a comedy of errors. Completely. The concert 00:19:08.559 --> 00:19:11.200 happened to be on the same night as a huge Rocky 00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:13.680 Marciano heavyweight fight, so the hall in Toronto 00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:16.059 was half empty. And Parker didn't even have his 00:19:16.059 --> 00:19:18.599 own saxophone. No, he had pawned it. He pawned 00:19:18.599 --> 00:19:20.660 his horn, the tool of his trade. To get money 00:19:20.660 --> 00:19:23.440 for drugs. So he shows up in Toronto empty -handed. 00:19:23.849 --> 00:19:26.309 For this legendary concert, they had to scramble 00:19:26.309 --> 00:19:29.470 and find him a replacement, a plastic Grafton 00:19:29.470 --> 00:19:32.410 saxophone. Classic sax, like a toy from a department 00:19:32.410 --> 00:19:34.450 store. I mean, pretty much. It was a cheap, cream 00:19:34.450 --> 00:19:37.049 -colored acrylic instrument. But if you listen 00:19:37.049 --> 00:19:39.650 to the recording, Jazz at Massey Hall, you would 00:19:39.650 --> 00:19:42.529 never know. He sounds like Bird. It's incredible. 00:19:42.769 --> 00:19:44.470 It proves that the sound wasn't in the metal. 00:19:44.569 --> 00:19:47.220 It was in him. It was in his lungs, his mind. 00:19:47.380 --> 00:19:49.279 But while the music is soaring, his personal 00:19:49.279 --> 00:19:52.039 life is just, it's in a nosedive. And this leads 00:19:52.039 --> 00:19:54.660 to the tragedy that really finally broke him. 00:19:54.759 --> 00:19:57.680 Yeah. The death of his daughter, Pree. He had 00:19:57.680 --> 00:20:00.240 a common -law wife, Chan Berg, and they had two 00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:05.339 kids. And in 1954, his daughter, Pree, died of 00:20:05.339 --> 00:20:07.579 pneumonia. She was only three years old. And 00:20:07.579 --> 00:20:09.559 he wasn't there when it happened. He was on the 00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:12.119 road. When he got the news and came back to New 00:20:12.119 --> 00:20:14.759 York, he was just... He was a shell of a man. 00:20:14.819 --> 00:20:17.079 The grief completely consumed him. He started 00:20:17.079 --> 00:20:19.740 drinking even more heavily. He got fired from 00:20:19.740 --> 00:20:22.259 Birdland, the club that was literally named after 00:20:22.259 --> 00:20:25.839 him. And he attempted suicide. Twice. After Pree 00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:28.279 died, it just seems like the fight just went 00:20:28.279 --> 00:20:30.500 out of him. That resilience we saw after the 00:20:30.500 --> 00:20:32.819 symbol incident, it was gone. You can only take 00:20:32.819 --> 00:20:35.279 so much trauma. It finally ran out. Which brings 00:20:35.279 --> 00:20:38.539 us to the end. March of 1955. The very sad end. 00:20:38.779 --> 00:20:41.779 He has one last chaotic gig at Birdland where 00:20:41.779 --> 00:20:43.480 he gets into a public fight with Bud Powell. 00:20:43.680 --> 00:20:46.480 He just wanders off and ends up at the hotel 00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:48.980 suite of the Baroness Panotica Knickswater. The 00:20:48.980 --> 00:20:51.819 jazz baroness, this wealthy heiress who was a 00:20:51.819 --> 00:20:54.660 patron and protector for so many musicians. Exactly. 00:20:54.660 --> 00:20:56.400 He knew she would take care of him. He was obviously 00:20:56.400 --> 00:20:58.740 very sick, but he refused to go to a hospital. 00:20:58.759 --> 00:21:01.119 He probably associated hospitals with detox and 00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:03.640 pain by that point. Probably. So he just stayed 00:21:03.640 --> 00:21:06.700 in her suite. And on March 12th, 1955, he was 00:21:06.700 --> 00:21:08.980 sitting there. watching the Dorsey Brothers variety 00:21:08.980 --> 00:21:12.640 show on TV. And he just died. He laughed at a 00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:15.339 juggler on the screen, started choking, and collapsed. 00:21:15.660 --> 00:21:18.000 He was gone. And the detail from the autopsy, 00:21:18.039 --> 00:21:19.779 I mean, it's the thing that just stops you cold. 00:21:19.880 --> 00:21:22.460 It puts the whole physical toll of his life into 00:21:22.460 --> 00:21:24.859 such stark perspective. It's the most shocking 00:21:24.859 --> 00:21:28.059 statistic of his entire life. The coroner who 00:21:28.059 --> 00:21:30.680 examined the body had to estimate his age on 00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:33.740 the report. He wrote down between 50 and 60 years 00:21:33.740 --> 00:21:36.420 old. Between 50 and 60. Charlie Parker was 34. 00:21:36.759 --> 00:21:40.660 34. His body was so ravaged by the alcohol, the 00:21:40.660 --> 00:21:43.559 ulcers, the cirrhosis, the addiction, that he 00:21:43.559 --> 00:21:45.839 looked like a man in his late 50s. It's just 00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:47.880 a devastating illustration of the price he paid. 00:21:48.039 --> 00:21:50.640 He lived an entire lifetime of pain in just three 00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:52.480 and a half decades. And even after his death, 00:21:52.599 --> 00:21:55.380 the chaos continued. Total chaos. His body was 00:21:55.380 --> 00:21:57.839 flown back to Missouri for burial against the 00:21:57.839 --> 00:21:59.660 wishes of his wife, Chan, who wanted him buried 00:21:59.660 --> 00:22:02.420 in New York. His tombstone has a picture of a 00:22:02.420 --> 00:22:05.259 tenor sax on it. But he played the alto. And... 00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:08.059 The death date on the stone was wrong for years. 00:22:08.319 --> 00:22:10.400 There's a huge fight over the funeral because 00:22:10.400 --> 00:22:12.920 Parker was an atheist, but his family insisted 00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:16.339 on a Christian service. Even in death, he couldn't 00:22:16.339 --> 00:22:19.839 find peace. But his legacy, that was instant. 00:22:20.220 --> 00:22:22.660 Bird Lives. Bird Lives. That graffiti started 00:22:22.660 --> 00:22:24.900 popping up all over New York City. And musically, 00:22:25.039 --> 00:22:27.960 it's absolutely true. You cannot play modern 00:22:27.960 --> 00:22:30.900 jazz on any instrument without dealing with the 00:22:30.900 --> 00:22:33.420 ghost of Charlie Parker. His innovations, like 00:22:33.420 --> 00:22:35.519 the contrafacts we talked about. It's a huge 00:22:35.519 --> 00:22:38.599 part of it. Ornithology is just the chords to 00:22:38.599 --> 00:22:41.640 How High the Moon. He re -engineered the entire 00:22:41.640 --> 00:22:44.299 American songbook. He gave musicians a whole 00:22:44.299 --> 00:22:47.099 new roadmap for harmony. And culturally, he became 00:22:47.099 --> 00:22:50.519 the archetype of the cool intellectual. uncompromising 00:22:50.519 --> 00:22:53.420 artists. The beat generation writers like Kerouac 00:22:53.420 --> 00:22:55.579 and Ginsberg, they worshipped him. He wasn't 00:22:55.579 --> 00:22:57.759 some smiling entertainer. He was a serious artist 00:22:57.759 --> 00:23:00.240 grappling with the sublime. He basically invented 00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:02.359 cool. So we've gone through the whole story, 00:23:02.460 --> 00:23:04.240 the woodshedding, the genius, the addiction, 00:23:04.440 --> 00:23:07.220 the tragedy. What's the final takeaway? I think 00:23:07.220 --> 00:23:09.299 it forces you to confront that really difficult 00:23:09.299 --> 00:23:12.920 question. about the relationship between genius 00:23:12.920 --> 00:23:14.960 and suffering. You know, there's that line in 00:23:14.960 --> 00:23:16.960 the movie Whiplash, which actually references 00:23:16.960 --> 00:23:20.400 the symbol incident. Right. The idea is that 00:23:20.400 --> 00:23:22.519 if Joe Jones hadn't thrown that symbol, maybe 00:23:22.519 --> 00:23:24.579 we wouldn't have gotten Charlie Parker, that 00:23:24.579 --> 00:23:27.079 the trauma was a necessary ingredient for the 00:23:27.079 --> 00:23:29.980 greatness. It's a provocative thought. Does genius 00:23:29.980 --> 00:23:33.140 require that kind of push, that kind of pitiless 00:23:33.140 --> 00:23:36.859 pressure? Or is that just a romantic way of justifying 00:23:36.859 --> 00:23:39.019 abuse and suffering? That's the billion -dollar 00:23:39.019 --> 00:23:40.960 question. Yeah. And on the flip side of that, 00:23:41.039 --> 00:23:44.859 you have to ask, what did we lose? If addiction 00:23:44.859 --> 00:23:47.980 had been treated as a disease back then and not 00:23:47.980 --> 00:23:51.140 a moral failing, could we have had 30 more years 00:23:51.140 --> 00:23:52.839 of Charlie Parker's music? What would he have 00:23:52.839 --> 00:23:55.160 sounded like in the 60s or the 70s? That's a 00:23:55.160 --> 00:23:57.420 haunting what if. We potentially lost decades 00:23:57.420 --> 00:23:59.779 of music because of a treatable illness. We did. 00:24:00.160 --> 00:24:02.220 But we still have the recordings. We still have 00:24:02.220 --> 00:24:05.740 the four words that Miles Davis gave us. Absolutely. 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:07.940 So here's our challenge to you, the listener. 00:24:08.140 --> 00:24:12.160 Go put on Coco or maybe Parker's Mood and don't 00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:14.000 just have it on in the background. Really listen. 00:24:14.259 --> 00:24:16.599 Listen to the speed, the complexity, the joy 00:24:16.599 --> 00:24:19.420 and the pain in those notes. You can hear history 00:24:19.420 --> 00:24:21.740 being made in real time. You can hear the sound 00:24:21.740 --> 00:24:24.400 of a man who built a penthouse on top of the 00:24:24.400 --> 00:24:26.759 musical world, even as his own foundation was 00:24:26.759 --> 00:24:29.220 crumbling beneath them. Well said. Thanks for 00:24:29.220 --> 00:24:31.000 diving deep with us. We'll catch you on the next 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:31.759 one. Keep listening.