Re- GRGR(5) -- on Parker an

[WillL at fieldschool.com]

Date	11/20/96
Subject	Re- GRGR(5) -- on Parker an
>From	WillL
To	Pynchon List

Re: GRGR(5) -- on Parker and Cherokee

Plenty of folks have weighed in on "Cherokee," its structure and the fact that
it is one legendary leaping off point for the harmonic revolution in jazz that
was bebop.  I think I can add a few points but, more importantly, note how this
jazz reference links in to some of the other vital concerns of the book.

The story of how Parker used Cherokee for experimenting with new harmonies in
jazz was made famous by that Downbeat article and by a book of interviews (cited
by Weisenberger in the Companion, I think).  Here's how I would explain it: 
"swing" style jazz allowed musicians to improvise over the existing harmony of
songs, often standard "pop" songs.  While the swing musicians applied blues
harmony concepts to these songs, the melodic choices the improvisers had were
relatively limited.  Parker (and Gillespie and Monk and others) were seeking
greater freedom as improvisers, but they weren't just wild men, seeking to  honk
and squeak with utter abondon; they were hearing a musical logic that would
allow them to improvise more freely within a new structure.  Parker took the
chords to Cherokee and "extended them upward from the root (the 1) past the
usual extend of chords (the seventh tone) to the ninth, thirteenth, etc.,
building these brand new chords from which new melodic choices were possible. 
These new chords were then a "reharmonization" of the original tune. Then,
Parker would improvise (or write) a brand new melody to go with the new hormony
(or vice versa) and have a new tune based on the structure of the original. 
"Koko" was based on "Cherokee" in that way.

It's the racial and political implications of this that fascinate Pynchon most,
though (though his Slothrop is another musical seeker, chasing that Blues harp
down the toilet, finally learning how to bend those blues tones by the end). 
The history of swing was, needless to say, one of considerable exploitation.  As
fast as black jazz musicians could create jazz in the teens and 20's and 30's,
white bandleaders were there to cash in.  From Paul Whiteman to Glenn Miller to
the Dorseys, the bold sounds of Fletcher Henderson and Don Redman and Duke and
dozens of others were watered down and sold to the American public in blanched
form.  It's said that part of what the boppers were doing was not only breaking
out of the harmonic and rhythmic confines of swing but also creating a music so
complex that the pretenders couldn't understand it and then steal it.

When Louis Armstrong -- the first great jazz improviser to make records -- first
heard bebop, he disliked it and referred to it as "Chinese music," a derogatory
reference that plays into the history of racism that can't really be separated
from jazz.  And so Pynchon is all over it, not only noting the irony that
"Cherokee" (with those patronizing lyrics) was the vehicle for Parker's
revolutionary act, but linking "Cherokee" to the exploitation of blacks through
"Red" -- the young Malcolm X's nickname due to his hair color.

I've always felt that Pynchon's allusions to Parker and jazz here are one way of
seeing some unsentimental optimism in GR.  Bird finds a way of turning white
exploitation of jazz on its head by expanding possibilities rather than limiting
them.  He "steals back" jazz by taking a dopey pop song and making it into
sophisticated art on his own terms.  Moreoever, he's one model for Slothrop and
his searching disappearance.  After Parker died at the age of 34 in 1955, the
"rumor" and graffitti "Bird Lives" were all over NY, and the myth was that he
was appearing, ghost-like, at concerts and in clubs, inhabiting the body of
every decent alto sax player to come along for a decade or more -- not unlike
the shadow appearances of Slothrop at the end of the book in liner notes, etc.

-- Will Layman