{"id":143,"date":"2020-06-14T17:14:26","date_gmt":"2020-06-14T22:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/?p=143"},"modified":"2024-07-24T12:09:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T17:09:57","slug":"early-recordings-of-charlie-parkers-cherokee-from-the-trail-of-tears-to-ko-ko-in-nyc-november-26-1945","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/?p=143","title":{"rendered":"Early recordings of Charlie Parker\u2019s Cherokee \u2014 from the Trail of Tears to Ko Ko in NYC, November 26, 1945"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

According to the first volume of Stanley Crouch\u2019s masterful biography (Kansas City Lightning<\/a><\/em>, 2013<\/a>) both parents of the Charles Parker Jr. who largely invented modern jazz could trace at least part of their most visibly African American ancestry to the first peoples of North America. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This seems especially (and perhaps most openly) true of \u201cCharlie Parker\u2019s mother, Addie.\u201d She \u201cwas from Oklahoma, the region once called Indian Territory<\/a> \u2026 She was part Choctaw, her Indian blood probably the result of President Andrew Jackson\u2019s policies.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These policies had led to the infamous Trail of Tears \u2014 \u201ca series of forced relocations of approximately 60,000 Native Americans<\/a> \u2026 from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States, to areas to the west of the Mississippi River that had been designated as Indian Territory.\u201d The Trail followed \u201cthe passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830,\u201d and \u201cincluded members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cParadise Effaced\u201d (pen and ink) by Michael Seward, June 2020.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On another account : \u201cTaking place in the 1830s, the Trail of Tears was the forced and brutal relocation of approximately 100,000 indigenous people<\/a> \u2026 Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole \u2026 to land west of the Mississippi River. Motivated by gold and land, Congress (under President Andrew Jackson) passed the Indian Removal Act by a slim and controversial margin in 1830.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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African-Choctaw American meets British Indigenous pop tune in late 1930s<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charlie Parker, 1941. Photo : Gregory Galloway.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On another page of his first volume Stanley Crouch summarizes all this in his account of Charles Parker Jr\u2019s birth : \u201cOn August 29, 1920, a brown baby, with a red undertone to his skin<\/a>, came yowling from the womb \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems that Addie Parker made her only child aware of why his skin had a red undertone \u2014 which may help explain his deep attraction to the late 1930s pop tune \u201cCherokee.\u201d (Charlie Parker is also not the only noted jazz musician with some Native American roots<\/a>. And he recorded an indigenous blues tune of his own called \u201cMohawk\u201d<\/a> in June 1950<\/a>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCherokee\u201d itself was written by the British bandleader Ray Noble<\/a>, as the first of five movements in his late 1930s \u201cIndian Suite\u201d (Cherokee<\/a>, Comanche War Dance<\/a>, Iroquois<\/a>, Seminole<\/a>, and Sioux Sue<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charlie Parker (alto sax) and Gene Ramey (bass) in Kansas City 1942.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Noble band recorded Cherokee in 1938<\/a>. But it was an arrangement of the tune by trumpeter Billy May that became a hit instrumental for Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra \u2014 rising to \u201cnumber fifteen on the pop charts\u201d in 1939<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The road to the modern jazz legend of Ko Ko in 1945 (and 1947<\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie Parker would have first heard Ray Noble\u2019s Cherokee on the radio in his late teens, and it does seem to have almost possessed him for much of his early career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most celebrated outcome of the possession was a brilliant recording made in New York City on November 26, 1945<\/a> \u2014 an astonishing \u201cimprovisation\u201d on the Cherokee chord changes or harmonic structure, released without the Ray Noble melody as \u201cKo Ko\u201d<\/a> to avoid royalty payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cJACKKEROUAC\u2018ONTHEROAD\u2019\u201d by prize-winning Toronto artist Michael Seward, June 2020. Kerouac was one of the early Charlie Parker aficionados and proselytizers in the late 1940s and early 1950s.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As in many other cases, listening over and over to this late 1945 recording of \u201cKo Ko\u201d \u2014 and then actually trying to play the transcription in the Charlie Parker Omnibook<\/a><\/em> (first published in 1978) \u2014 is what finally helped me understand just why Charles \u201cYardbird\u201d Parker Jr (1920-1955) was such an awesome innovator, in the modern jazz that took shape between 1940 and 1970 and still haunts us today (and perhaps especially) in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charlie Parker at Carnegie Hall in New York City, 1947.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This November 26, 1945 \u201cKo Ko\u201d quickly became a legend among the early aficionados in New York, Chicago, Kansas City, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and beyond (Toronto eg), who first recognized and proselytized \u201cBird\u2019s\u201d genius. A second version of \u201cKo Ko\u201d was recorded at a Carnegie Hall concert in New York in 1947<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two earlier expressions of Charlie Parker\u2019s Cherokee possession<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me the Carnegie Hall Ko Ko recording of 1947 is somewhat less commanding than the 1945 original. It makes eminent sense that a written transcription of the 1945 recording is what appears in the Charlie Parker Omnibook<\/em> of 1978. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Yardbird and friends at Chicago\u2019s Savoy Ballroom. February 29 fell on a Sunday in 1948, and that\u2019s probably when all this happened.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Much more recently, however (and largely through the often astounding musical resources that now appear on YouTube), I have discovered (along with many others) at least two earlier expressions of Charlie Parker\u2019s Cherokee possession, that retain the Ray Noble melody as part of the performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They certainly do not surpass the 1945 Ko Ko or in any way contest its status as the first great expression of the Yardbird\u2019s talent and defining contribution to modern jazz. But the late great baritone saxophonist and arranger Gerry Mulligan much later reported<\/a> :<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSomebody sent me a little bit of tape that had Bird playing at home when he must have been maybe seventeen years old or something with a friend of his, a guitar player, and of course he was playing \u2018Cherokee.\u2019 This was his number, man, he worked on that thing for years. Somebody said that when he did \u2018Ko-Ko.\u2019 It was not just a little accident that it came out the way it did. He had been layin’ for that thing for twenty years anyway. The solo he played on that is like a masterpiece in itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jay McShann Orchestra recording of Cherokee featuring Charlie Parker?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charlie Parker (in middle of photo, wearing white socks next to Gene Ramey on bass) with Jay McShann band, at its first recording session in Witchita, Kansas, November 30-December 2, 1940.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Both the early Charlie Parker Cherokee recordings I have recently stumbled across myself illustrate just what Gerry Mulligan is talking about here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Allowing that \u201clayin’ for that thing for twenty years anyway\u201d is in an honoured older musician\u2019s hyperbolic recollection : Cherokee was only first recorded in 1938 when the Yardbird was 18, and he recorded the original Ko Ko in 1945 when he was still only 25.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first of my early Charlie Parker Cherokee recordings is said to be by the Jay McShann Orchestra \u201cfeaturing Charlie Parker.\u201d<\/a> This was the blues and swing big band based in Parker\u2019s Kansas City hometown that he cut at least several of his musical teeth with in the late 1930s and early 1940s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cVital Heat\u201d by Michael Seward, June 2020.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A gentleman called Rob Chalfen, commenting on the YouTube posting by jon ancker, claims that the group playing here is \u201cnot McShann, but house band at Monroes in NYC with someone named Tinney on piano, about ’42.\u201d<\/a> Mr. ancker appears to accept this claim, but I am far from dead certain myself. No one seems to dispute that it is Charlie Parker playing an extended alto sax solo on Cherokee (preparing for Ko Ko a few years later).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1942 (or 1941?) Kansas City Trio recording (and free transcription on the Net)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As a mark of what Charlie Parker turned it into, EG Jazz released an album with 19 different versions of the Ray Noble tune Cherokee late in 2015.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

My second early Charlie Parker Cherokee recording seems at least very close to Gerry Mulligan\u2019s \u201c little bit of tape that had Bird playing \u2026 with a friend of his, a guitar player.\u201d<\/a> And I think it\u2019s considerably more interesting than the Jay McShann or Monroe\u2019s house band recording of (maybe) \u201cabout \u201842.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The documentation on the YouTube posting of this version of Cherokee reads<\/a> : \u201cVic Damon Studios, Kansas City, September 1942 \u2026 Charlie Parker (alto sax), Efferge Ware (guitar), Little Phil Phillips (drums). There is also some reporting on the Net that sets the date in 1941.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Page 1 of the 5-page transcription. Many tks to dutchbopper.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I have stumbled across two further resources for understanding this early 1940s Kansas City trio version of Charlie Parker\u2019s Cherokee. One is some interesting commentary from the young UK alto saxophonist Sam Braysher<\/a> on what (to further complicate the universe) he suggests is a tune recorded in 1943, that certainly sounds like the YouTube \u201cSeptember 1942\u201d version. The other resource is a free five-page transcription of what certainly is the YouTube \u201cSeptember 1942\u201d version of Charlie Parker\u2019s part in the Kansas City trio recording<\/a>. (Although this transcription itself suggests 1942 or 1941 as the recording date.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course the early 1940s trio version of Cherokee is not up to the same elevated standard as the 1945 quintet version of Ko Ko. It is part of the preparation for climbing the mountain not the ultimate climb itself. On the other hand, it is probably more immediately accessible for a somewhat broader audience than Ko Ko. And yet, at the same time, I have recently been trying out the new five-page transcription. And I can report that, as usual, attempting to play such things at all adequately remains a force for deep humility in my experience, at the very least. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the first volume of Stanley Crouch\u2019s masterful biography (Kansas City Lightning, 2013) both parents of the Charles Parker Jr. who largely invented modern jazz could trace at least part of their most visibly African American ancestry to the first peoples of North America. This seems especially (and perhaps most openly) true of \u201cCharlie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,37,33,26,34,35,32,30,27,28,31,36],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bgs","tag-addie-parker","tag-bird","tag-charlie-barnett","tag-charlie-parkers-cherokee","tag-gerry-mulligan","tag-jay-mcshann","tag-ko-ko","tag-mohawk-by-charlie-parker","tag-ray-noble","tag-stanley-crouch","tag-trail-of-tears","tag-yardbird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203,"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}