This will be a fun concert – please register and join us!

Here are the 6 altos of the band Exaltation playing Jerry’s timeless “Thank You.”

Happy Birthday and Thank You, Thank You, Thank You Jerry!

This is the big one, 120 hours of broadcast and streaming content devoted to Charlie Parker, scheduled around the 100th anniversary of his birth, Aug 29, 2020. All of it coming your way live on wkcr 88.9FM in NYC, and streaming at http://www.wkcr.org

“Commencing at midnight August 29th and concluding at midnight September 3rd, WKCR-FM (89.9 FM, wkcr.org) will present the Charlie Parker Centennial Festival, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of a colossal figure in American music with a 120-hour marathon broadcast.

The Festival will air 24 hours a day, and will showcase the majority of the saxophonist’s extensive discography, including both commercially issued material and rarities. Beginning each day with a potpourri of studio recordings and concerts, the Festival will primarily consist of thematic segments, including surveys of Parker records issued on the Savoy, Dial, and Verve labels and deep focuses into his early years, broadcast appearances, and essential collaborations with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

Following the Festival, WKCR will present Beyond Bird (September 3rd), a 24-hour celebration (midnight to midnight) of Charlie Parker’s continuing impact on the world of music, art, and poetry.”

More info about the special – and about WKCR’s regular jazz programming – at wkcr.org

We got off to a good start! Good rehearsals, good charts, high enthusiasm, GREAT playing. Our first public performance on February 20 at Silvana in NYC was a lot of fun and we had high hopes for a year of happy celebrating. When NYC’s Jazz performance scene reawakens in the future, we’ll be out there hustling for gigs and we hope you’ll be able to drop by and help celebrate Bird’s music. Until then, please enjoy the following video memento. BIRD LIVES!

Please check out charlieparkercentennial.com, a new website dedicated to the great alto saxophonist on the centennial of his birth in 1920. The site has information about his life and music, links to further information around the web, reviews of books, an informal calendar of centennial events taking place this year, a few transcribed solos & leadsheets, some photos, and other tidbits.

The site is maintained by 2 jazz alto saxophonists who have spent decades listening, learning, and debating Bird and his music. We’re not academics, we’re not marketers, we’re musicians who have gained so much from having Bird’s music in our lives and we want to share what we’ve learned. The site will evolve as the centennial year goes on; please check it out from time to time to see what’s new.

Duke Ellington in his own words from Duke Ellington’s America by Harvey Cohen 2010 University of Chicago Press

• “Sometimes they’d tell me to write for current modes and not for myself. I’d get the feeling that maybe I ought to listen to them and then I sit down and talk with Billy [Strayhorn]. He’d convince me all over again that I ought to write what I felt. That’s what I’ve done.” [1948]

• “I know the only thing I do in music is listen, not the only thing maybe, but the big thing I do in music is listen. Before you can play anything, or before you can write it, you gotta hear it. If you can’t hear it, then it’s a mechanical thing. It has to do with the ear. Some of the prettiest things on paper come off drab.” [Early 1960s]

• “I’m a hotel man; I like being alone, you know. I don’t know why.” [1956]

• “I wanted to get back to Europe for a while. It’s good for the morale. It gives you the kind of adjustment of mind you need in this business. Over there [in America] you get too used to the Hit Parade. You know it means nothing, and yet after a while, you start paying attention. That’s bad for your music.” [1948, in Europe]

This book is filled with information that gives us context for a richer understanding of Ellington’s life and musical achievements. Here’s a straightforward review.

A couple of high points for me:

• It’s helpful to know about the 1919 Washington DC Race Riot, “a flashpoint in American racial dynamics.” This event preceded a period when Ellington and his hometown colleagues began visiting and eventually settling in New York City. That violence, and the racial politics and activism all around it HAD to have been a major part of the conversation as these young African Americans pondered their future and their music. Years later, when asked about why he left a comfortable career in DC (providing commercial music for social events), Ellington’s elegant and inscrutable statement was simply, “It’s always more important to know what’s happening than it is to make a living.” Is the riot and its aftermath in the background behind those words? Ellington always leaves you thinking….
• Harvey Cohen quotes extensively from unpublished essays in which Duke describes his vivid vision for an extended musical work that would be a tone parallel to the African American experience. That work eventually came together as “Black Brown and Beige,” first performed in 1943, and Duke generally avoided public descriptions of it or any of his other major works. The writings that Cohen has unearthed are intense and moving; as you read you can imagine the words in Duke’s voice, telling you what he wants to get across to listeners.

Cohen also gives us painful details about business hassles that repeatedly dragged down Ellington, even as he was creating masterpieces after masterpiece.

Over and over again the best parts of the book are Ellington’s own words – from correspondence, articles, and interviews. The simple statements at the top of this post appealed to me; If you read this book, you’re sure to find messages from Duke that are meant for you.

A priceless moment in the film “Big Ben: Ben Webster In Europe.” He demonstrates the old school strategy of playing along with a recording, in this case a Fats Waller LP.
This film isn’t a performance documentary; it’s sketches of Mr. Webster’s daily life: going to the zoo, talking with his landlady, playing some stride piano, commuting to gigs, running a rehearsal (with Don Byas!), and so forth.

Here’s a link to the full film