Phil Schaap: Charlie Parker (Pt. 2)

Phil Schaap is much more than a Charlie Parker chatterbox. In addition to hosting the most informative and detailed weekday radio show on Parker on WCKR in New York, Phil is a Grammy-winning jazz archivist and record producer, liner-notes writer and educator at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York.

In celebration of Parker's 90th birthday on August 29 and WKCR's Charlie Parker broadcast special on August 28 and 29, I asked Phil about several major phases of Parker's brief career. Yesterday we discussed the recording of Ko-Ko. Today, we look at Parker's West Coast period from December 1945 to April 1947:

JazzWax: Do we know what impact Charlie Parker had on West Coast jazz musicians during his California trip?
Phil Schaap: Parker travels out to Los Angeles in December 1945 with Dizzy Gillespie to play at Billy Berg's club in Hollywood. But when Gillespie and the band return as scheduled in January, Parker remains behind in California. During his months on the scene in 1946, Parker is having the most impact on musicians who are grasping his breakthrough and have access to him displaying it. But that’s a relatively small crew. A lot of bebop's popularization is being done outside of what Parker is doing on the West Coast.

JW: For example?
PS: Dizzy Gillespie is continuing to play and gain acclaim on 52nd Street. In addition, Dizzy and his orchestra record for RCA Victor on February 22, 1946. That's a major session Bird would have been on had he returned to New York as planned. The recording occurs only 15 days after Dizzy leaves the West Coast without Parker and with largely the same group that was on the West Coast.

JW: So Parker remaining on the West Coast plays a minor role in the advancement of bebop out there?
PS: For the most part, yes. Bird's stay in Hollywood is eventful in that other musicians out there are exposed to him. But it's not significant, and the period has its own set of ups and downs, ending with Parker's unfortunate downward health spiral, reaching bottom with the Lover Man session for Dial Records in July. During that recording session, he's completely out of it, and when he returns to his hotel room, he sets fire to the curtains, is arrested and ultimately sentenced to spend time at the Camarillo State Mental Hospital.

JW: Have West Coast jazz musicians been translating and adapting what Parker was doing up until that point?
PS: That's tough to say. He's having an influence on some but not on others. So, if you’re Howard McGhee, you’re already playing bebop and now you’re playing it with the music’s creator. If you’re Willie Smith, your style may be changing a little but probably not at all. If you’re Lu Watters, you're not having anything to do with bebop whatsoever. [Photo of Miles Davis and Howard McGhee by William P. Gottlieb]

JW: So Bird is struggling out there in 1946.
PS: That's fair to say. If Bird had been really popular in 1946, he would have had a home, he would have had money and he would have had drugs instead of getting sick. He has none of those things. Remember, in California in 1946, he's largely a sideman.

JW: So it’s not until after his release from Camarillo in late January 1947 that he has the most impact.
PS: Right. He’s anxious to leave the West Coast after his release at the end of January 1947. He leaves on April 5, so he's there for two months and a week after his release. Bebop during this time is catching on steadily. But very few things in any art happen in 24 hours. Dizzy’s career is advancing the music, and other primary bebop players are emerging. The general grappling of this new musical concept is making bebop better known. But its development requires lead time to advance and mature.

JW: So bebop on the West Coast doesn't die out as a result of Bird being off the scene incarcerated in a hospital.
PS: Exactly. In fact, Bird reaps some of the bounty of bebop's development during his absence. He returns to the scene at a time when bebop's inventiveness is more widely recognized. It's not until 1948 and 1949 that Bird becomes truly big. Charlie Parker with Strings, recorded in November 1949, is just the commercial cherry on the sundae. By then he has established himself here and in Europe as the dominant force. Remember, Birdland opens in New York in December 1949. The largest club in New York wouldn't have been named for Parker if he had been a nobody at that point.

JW: Backing up a bit, is much known about Parker’s period at Camarillo in 1946-47?
PS: Pianist Joe Albany got busted at about the same time and was there with Bird for a while. But Albany broke out because the facility didn't have tight security where they were housed. Bird actually thought Albany was silly for not using the benefit of the recuperation period.

JW: Did Parker practice while at Camarillo?
PS: Psychiatrists thought Bird should not be allowed to play and that working on a gardening detail would be more productive. He wasn’t allowed to play until the very end of his stay, when he was on work-release.

JW: He seems to have effortlessly kicked the habit for a while at Camarillo.
PS: At Camarillo, he went cold turkey. He was kept off drugs for a half year in 1946 and early 1947.

JW: Does Gillespie avoid re-teaming with Parker because Parker becomes re-addicted to drugs?
PS: I don't know. I think the reason had more to do with Dizzy's own vision of what he wanted to do at that point with a big band and Bird's way of life. Dizzy could see that Parker wasn’t going to change and that he would remain largely unpredictable and irresponsible from an employer's standpoint, which to Dizzy was a liability, despite Bird's musical genius. [Photo of Dizzy Gillespie by Herman Leonard/CTSImages.com]

JW: How does Bird view his time in Camarillo?
PS: He views it as incarceration. He doesn’t really see its proactive element. I think Howard McGhee put it best when he said that the only reason why Parker didn't die in 1946 is because of his stay at Camarillo.

JW: Did anyone ever anyone speak to the doctors there about Parker?
PS: I don't know. I know that Bird's primary doctor committed suicide soon afterward. Psychiatrists were impressed with Parker's talent and intelligence, but by the time he got to them, he was clean in terms of drug use. So he was just another patient they were tasked with trying to help.

JW: Was there a difference in his playing after Camarillo?
PS: I would say so, but it had little to do with the rest or care at the facility. Camarillo definitely recharged his batteries. Had he not been interned there, Lover Man more than likely would have been his last session.

JW: How does he grow musically?
PS: If you're 25 years old and you’re a creative genius, you’re supposed to grow. One would expect someone at age 26 to be better than they were at age 25. Camarillo protected Parker from himself and let him recharge. It's a convalescence and an essential one to his existence. [Photo of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis by William P. Gottlieb]

JW: What was the reason for his frying out during the Lover Man session?
PS: I did a lot of research on this. Doris Parker, Bird's wife at the time, insisted he had a nervous breakdown and was clinically depressed. Based on the drug use and need for psychiatric care, Bird clearly was unhappy, and the emotional setback at the Lover Man session was devastating. Whatever Parker suffered from, it wasn't easily fixed by a drug-withdrawal regimen or gardening program. While this experience cleans him up, it doesn’t resolve whatever long-term mental issues he was facing. [Photo: Charlie Parker, producer Ross Russell, Earl Coleman and Shifty Henry at a post-Camarillo session for Dial in February 1947]

JazzWax tracks: The Lover Man session was recorded on July 29, 1946. The tracks recorded were Max Is Making Wax, Lover Man and The Gypsy. Charlie Parker is clearly in poor physical condition that day at Dial's Hollywood studio. And yet the genius of the artist pushes through, despite the near-tragic events that would take place after the date's conclusion. You can find these tracks on The Complete Savoy & Dial Master Takes at iTunes or here.

JazzWax clip: Here's an ailing Charlie Parker recording Lover Man for Dial in July 1946...

And here's the same track as portrayed in Bird (1988) by Forest Whitaker...

Comments

[Brew]

Regarding the infamous "Lover Man" session, whose masters should have been destroyed, and never been issued, if they had asked Bird: Hadn't Bird run out of heroin, and took booze instead before he arrived at the studio that day?

The heroin would have made him just function alright, but the amount of alcohol he had taken for compensating the unavailable heroin made him sick.

When one listens closely to the tracks (which is a painful experience), one can hear Bird staggering in front of the microphone. It can be noticed particularly at "Max Is Making Wax".

After his stay at "Camarillo" it's a new Bird, a very relaxed Charlie Parker we can hear. One reason for that was the absence of drugs, and the other reason was Erroll Garner's cheerful presence. This session captured some of the most beautiful sounds which ever came out of an altosax at all.

Regarding Dizzy's feelings: There was really not much he could have done about Bird's abusive, and self-destructive way of life. In an interview in a German magazine which came out in the early 1990's, he said that no one could have saved Charlie but he himself.

There are some live tracks though, featuring Bird with Dizzy's orchestra; but the sound is less than miserable. So, Bird in Dizzy's orchestra will remain a dream. An impression of how he might have sounded there can be heard at "Bird With The Herd" which came closest to Dizzy's big band bop.

[Jaleel Ghose]

Phil Schaap is now a worldwide resource, thanks to the streaming internet - and you, Marc.

His insights and knowledge are profound and illuminating: quite a comparison to the recycled and well known info above. But that was the guy with the klaktoveedsedsteen fairy tale if memory serves.

You continue to lead the pack.

[Jon Foley]

While I admire Phil Schaap for keeping the legacy of Charlie Parker alive on his program, I have a few questions about the accuracy of his Birdlore:

"JW: What was the reason for his frying out during the Lover Man session?
PS: I did a lot of research on this. Doris Parker, Bird's wife at the time, insisted he had a nervous breakdown and was clinically depressed."
Mmm, not quite enough research. How could Doris know he had a nervous breakdown when she was not even there? She was living back in NY at the time and didn't come out until AFTER Bird was admitted to Camarillo. As to the reasons for the disastrous session, he might well have been depressed but he also was suffering from alcoholism, malnutrition, heroin withdrawal, and he was administered 6 phenobarbital tablets by Dr. Richard Freeman in the studio, after which he went completely off the tracks.

"JW: Did Parker practice while at Camarillo?
PS: Psychiatrists thought Bird should not be allowed to play and that working on a gardening detail would be more productive. He wasn’t allowed to play until the very end of his stay, when he was on work-release."
Not true; Parker told Ross Russell and Dr. Freeman that he was playing every week in a staff/inmate band (on C-melody sax) and enjoyed it very much. He also told them he VOLUNTEERED for the gardening detail. And work-release? He was never on a work-release program; he never left Camarillo until Russell petitioned to have him released into his custody in early 1947.

There are quite a few other assertions here that I question, but I don't have the time to take them up now (if Mr. Schaap has some recently-uncovered documents that contradict me, I love to hear about them). I'd suggest that people read the half-dozen or so Parker biographies, at least two of which were written by people who were there at the time.

[blbs]

Your blog is becoming increasingly substantial. For me it is becoming essential.
Thanks Marc.

[David]

Ross Russell may have been there at the time, but his book is largely mythology.

[Jon Foley]

"Ross Russell may have been there at the time, but his book is largely mythology."

And your expertise in the matter stems from ...............?

[David]

As for expertise, I'll have to defer to Mr. Schapp. However I've seen to many accounts contradicting Mr. Russell's stories to take them at face value. As owner of many of Bird's recordings, Russell seemed to be interested in creating a larger than life character to spur sales of both the book and the records. Also stories about Bird urinating in phone booths just naturally strain one's credulity, especially without corroboration. Finally there's the fact that other scholars don't seem to take Russell's book very seriously.

[Jon Foley]

"However I've seen to [sic] many accounts contradicting Mr. Russell's stories to take them at face value."
Please favor us with these accounts, their sources, and your reasons for accepting their credibility.

"...Russell seemed to be interested in creating a larger than life character..."
Seemed - to you, that is. That's called an opinion.

"Finally there's the fact that other scholars don't seem to take Russell's book very seriously."
Please furnish us quotes from these "scholars" supporting this "fact."

I just love it when people who weren't present at an event (and probably weren't even alive yet) contradict those who were. What they're really saying is, "I have an image I created of who I think Charlie Parker was, and these stories don't support my fantasy. Therefore, they must be false." I say again, read all the Parker biographies (not just Russell's) - I have (and where is Stanley Crouch's long-awaited bio, rumored to be the best one yet?).

And by the way, Phil's name is SCHAAP, not SCHAPP.

[David]

Jon, I apologize for the typo.
For what it's worth, here's an excerpt from an obit published at jazzhaus.org:
"Ross Russell made important if often controversial contributions to the development of modern jazz, initially as a record producer and later as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction works dealing with jazz, although his critics argued that his inability (or unwillingness) to distinguish between the two was a major weakness of his historical research. That reservation applied particularly strongly to his best known book, Bird Lives!, a biography of Charlie Parker which remains eminently readable, but in which he allowed his imagination to run away with the facts rather too readily."
See also last paragraph of p.20 in Giddin's book.

[David]

Again, for what it's worth, here is Dizzy Gillespie's comment on Russell's book:
"These book is full of lies! - It's all lies in this book!"

[David]

Earl Coleman, who recorded with Bird on a date produced by Russell, had this to say:
"I don't know what Mr. Russell had in mind when he was writing this. I guess we all want money. But the book isn't accurate, I'm sorry to say. It's far from accurate. I was never so disappointed in a human being in my whole life."
(Just his opinion of course.)

[David]

Teddy Edwards:
“I know in Ross Russell's book (Bird Lives!), he says that he was the first one to the General Hospital, but that is not right. Howard, he and I were the first ones on the scene in the hospital.”

Brian Priestly (biographer):
“Most of the musicians who knew him hated Ross Russell’s book.”

Joey Skee (Queens College):
“Benedetti was excoriated as a sycophantic leech, the prototypical ‘white Negro’ who was blamed for contributing to Bird’s demise, in part, as the great jazzman’s supplier of heroin. It was Ross Russell’s now infamous biography Bird Lives (1973) that crystallized this false narrative that would be recycled by subsequent jazz writers.”

Ron Wynn (All Music Guide):
“Ross Russell's self-serving book ‘Bird Lives! irritated many by its slant, as did Robert Reisner's ‘Bird - The Legend Of Charlie Parker.’ Gary Giddins' "Celebrating Bird - The Triumph Of Charlie Parker" is the best combination of scholarship, commentary and analysis.”

[David]

A couple more comments from biographer Brian Priestly:

“In Ross Russell's book, Bird Lives!: The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, he implies there was a piano in the Parker household, but this is really just guesswork, so we don't know this for sure.”

“Doris, the woman he lived with in New York before he got sent to Camarillo, came out to visit him. Also, Chan Richardson -- known later as Chan Parker, although they were not officially married -- wrote about this period because she had contact with Parker even before they lived together. So, there are conflicting stories, even in the little bit of information that we have about his time there. Apparently he was forced to rest, and he may have done a little physical work like gardening.”