At the time he was making these sides, Bird also took part in a series of broadcast sessions which reflect the in-fighting of the period. The post-war years saw a concentrated animosity between jazz’s traditional wing (dubbed the ‘mouldy figs’, often with the mock-anachronistic spelling ‘fygges’ to underline the point), and the emerging modernists, whose champions in the press included the editors of Metronome, Leonard Feather and Barry Ulanov. In September, Ulanov organised a battle of the bands on radio, with his own hand-picked selection going up against the resident band on Rudi Blesh’s This Is Jazz show, with a programme billed as ‘Bands For Bonds’ as the chosen battleground. Parker took part in all three sessions in September and November (the latter a celebration for the triumphant modernists, who won the listeners’ votes). The tapes have survived and were issued – again by Spotlite – in the early 1970s, with the altoist in typically fine fettle. For lovers of the curious, the second session of 20 September includes a radical re-interpretation of the New Orleans warhorse ‘Tiger Rag’, with Bird and Dizzy taking no prisoners. Their version prompted Ulanov to comment in the November issue of Metronome that what they did with a tune which was ‘entirely new to all of them as a piece to perform, surely must rank high in jazz history. Its remorseless progression from B flat to A flat to E flat was never accomplished with more ingenuity and less confinement’.
Shortly after that second broadcast, Bird and Dizzy were reunited again, this time on the stage of Carnegie Hall, where the saxophonist appeared as Dizzy’s guest in a concert which, as the play-bill proclaimed, brought The New Jazz to that august venue, and featured the trumpeter’s big band and singer Ella Fitzgerald. Parker received secondary billing (perhaps in part because his notorious unreliability left doubts as to whether he would actually show up), and joined Dizzy on five quintet tunes after the interval, with a rhythm section drawn from the big band, featuring John Lewis (piano), Al McKibbon (bass) and Joe Harris (drums). The music they played that night was recorded and has been issued in various forms, initially by a pirate company called Black Deuce as 78 rpm discs, and later in legitimate form by Savoy. The rivalry between the two mainstays of bebop is readily apparent as each pushes the other to more and more remarkable feats – both musical and athletic – and the rhythm section comes close to surrender at times, notably on a furious ‘Dizzy Atmosphere’ and ‘Koko’, all spurred on by their partisan supporters in the sell-out crowd. The result has to be declared an honourable draw, with the music the ultimate winner.
The final Dial session had been cut in the shadow of another recording ban called by James Petrillo of the American Federation of Musicians and scheduled to commence on 1 January 1948. Savoy, however, managed to get the quintet back into the studio for one final pre-ban session in Detroit on 21 December. ‘Klaustance’ and ‘Bird Gets the Worm’ are particularly interesting products of this session (which was completed by two blues, ‘Another Hair-Do’ and ‘Bluebird’). There is no ensemble statement of the theme in ‘Klaustance’ – Parker launches directly into a searing improvisation right from the first bar, and it is only a brief nod in the final measures that give away its distant harmonic grounding in Jerome Kern’s ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. On ‘Bird Gets the Worm’ he does the same thing, only at an even faster tempo, and perhaps with a very slight melodic hint of its distant progenitor, ‘Lover Come Back to Me’, on the opening chorus of the first take. The saxophonist had never paid a great deal of attention to themes in any case, treating them largely as launching points for the serious business to come, and the sprinkling of such tunes where he ignores the theme altogether (‘Bird’s Nest’ is an earlier example) seems to allow him an even greater freedom of expression. He adopts fearsome tempos in all of them, but the surge of ideas flowing from the saxophone is even more unfettered than usual and never falter. ‘Bird Gets the Worm’, incidentally, also contains an early example of a device that would eventually become a bop cliché, the exchange of improvised four-bar phrases with the drummer and bassist Tommy Potter. Known as ‘trading fours’ (or ‘trading eights’, depending on the measure used), it became – and remains – a staple final chorus interchange between soloists and their rhythm players.
It was to be the last session for this particular line-up. By the time Parker completed his recorded output for Savoy in the latter part of 1948 (in sessions arranged in clandestine contravention of the ban), he had a new rhythm section, with John Lewis replacing Jordan, and Curly Russell taking over from Potter. The two sessions in September produced eight more sides, including his only other contrapuntal theme, ‘Ah-Leu-Cha’, and an interesting Latin-based blues extemporisation, ‘Barbados’, which prefigured projects to come. ‘Constellation’ became a favourite bop blowing vehicle, as did ‘Steeplechase’, laid down in one take (and a fragment of false start) after twelve attempts at ‘Marmaduke’. Both these tunes were part of a generally less spectacular second session, although one which has its share of characteristically sublime moments as well, notably on the vibrant ‘Merry Go Round’. A blues, ‘Perhaps’, completed the session. ‘Marmaduke’ provides further justification of the real value in issuing the alternate takes: the final master (take 8) is arguably the best ensemble version of the tune, but equally arguably not the saxophonist’s best solo performance. There are numerous examples of that situation which recur across his work, and provide endless matter for discussion and argument.
The masterpiece of that month’s work in the studio, though, and one of his finest creations on disc, was the incomparable ‘Parker’s Mood’, a slow blues which rounded out the first session. It is one of the most expressive blues performances ever committed to record by anyone, and it could be said that Parker’s most intense display comes on the opening chorus of the rejected first long take (take two), which is both slower in tempo and darker in mood than the eventual master, but breaks down just before the coda. The slightly faster master (take 5), while more relaxed and still unquestionably sublime, does not capture quite the same level of heightened emotion and poetic clarity as the saxophonist’s initial effort. Fortunately, the listener has both options readily available.
Parker made his debut at the Royal Roost, a chicken restaurant and jazz club on Broadway, on 3 September 1948, and for a time the venue became the new focal point for modern jazz, in large part as a result of the regular broadcasts made from the club. These were presented by ‘Symphony Sid’ Torin, whose dated spiels survive on most of the record releases of these broadcasts from what he dubbed the Metropolitan Bopera House. These recordings, issued in various forms on the Savoy label, are arguably the single most valuable body of Parker’s live recordings which have come down to us. Recorded between 4 September 1948 and 12 March 1949, they provide a snapshot of Bird’s working band caught outside the confines and restrictions of the studio, sometimes augmented by guests, and in decent sound (at least by comparison with the Benedetti tapes) and complete versions.
It was at the Roost at Christmas 1948 that Miles handed in his notice by stalking angrily from the stage, complaining that Bird ‘makes you feel about one foot high’. In his autobiography, he refutes the much-repeated suggestion that he walked out of the gig for good in mid-set, but confirms that his relationship with Bird – apparently never very close on a personal level in any case – had become irreparably strained. Arguments over money and his professed disdain for Bird’s clowning brought matters to a head, and the trumpeter departed to be replaced by McKinley Dorham, who abbreviated his forename as Kinny but eventually gave up and settled on the misrepresentation which everybody actually used, Kenny. Al Haig was also now the regular piano man in the quintet (another source of friction with Miles, who favoured either Lewis or Tadd Dameron, the pianist featured on the opening night at the Roost).