Discussion opener for GRGR(5)

[Paul Mackin]

>From Ron C.:

In a 
 Parker's solo on Cherokee, which he recorded later
as Koko (to avoid royalty problems) was a revelation/revolution to the
musicians who heard it (and dug what he was doing) subverting a rather tame
big band swing number into an assault on the musical status quo.

Someone should probably mention that 1949 Downbeat article:

Charlie's horn first came alive in a chili house on Seventh Avenue between 139th Street and 140th Street in December 1939.. He was jamming then with a guitarist named Buddy Fleet. At the time, Charlie says, he was bored with the stereotyped changes being used then.

"I kept thinking there's bound to be something else," he recalls. "I could hear it sometimes but I coundn't play it."

Working over "Cherokee" with Fleet, Charlie suddenly found that by using higher  intervals of a chord as a meloly line and backing them with appropriately related changes, he could play the thing he had been "hearing." Fleet picked it up behind him and bop was born.

Or, at leat, it is reasonable to assume that this was the birth of bop. The closest Charlie will come in such a statement is "I'm accuseed of having been one of the pioneers."

(end of quote)

I am taking this on the authority of some fairly recent liner notes I had handy.

				P.