GRGR(4) Cherokee, Bebop, Race and Jazz

[Darcy James Argue]

[sigh]  Some clarifications:

Michael Arnowitt wrote:

> 10) Cherokee and Charlie Parker? (63.22-64.7) Ok, anyone want to go
>     into Charlie Parker's history and the development of bebop? Ditto
>     for how bebop takes an existing song and transforms it (I have
>     been told that it is something to do with transposing but changing
>     the harmonic relations at the same time - does this mean it
>     actually falls into line as a transform along the lines of thsoe
>     used by the serial composers i.e. a perm of the scale?).

No.  Not "transposing but changing harmonic relations."  Bebop made several
departures from the mainstream jazz of the time, including stretching the
harmony by _emphasizing_ the upper partials of the chords (ninths,
elevenths, thirteenths) and altered tones (flat fifths, flat ninths, sharp
ninths, etc), further chromaticizing the music with approach tones etc.,
starting and ending lines in unpredictable spots, and making liberal use of
unpredictable accents, delaying resolutions (continuing to play lines that
fit the old chord even after the band has moved on to a new one), playing
over the barlines and breaking out of squarish four-bar phrases, and so on.

What does this mean for a song like Cherokee?  Well, originally it was a
slow ballad.  Bird had the rhythm section play it at four times the original
tempo, but keeping the chords and melody moving at their original tempo.
This allows for the excitement of playing a very fast tempo, but still gives
the soloist a lot of space to stretch on the "A" section of the tune, which
has very simple diatonic harmony.  The bridge or "B" section of the tune is
notoriously difficult, because it moves quickly through some remote keys
that many jazz musicians at the time -- hell, many jazz musicians _today_ --
were not that familiar with.  It starts in the key of B (the "A" sections
are in Bb) and descends by whole step through A, G, and F, before finally
modulating back to Bb for the final "A."

At the time, musicians were blown away by Charlie Parker's ability to
navigate that bridge at a breakneck tempo.  There is an early recording of
Lester Young playing an uptempo version of the tune, but he elects not to
solo on the bridge.  Parker also manages to transform a pretty lame popular
song into a virtuosic tour-de-force.  At one point Parker recorded a piece
called "Ko Ko" -- a fascinating composition that at first seems to have
nothing whatsoever to do with "Cherokee."  The tune itself is played with
just trumpet, alto sax and drums, no bass or piano, and it's very angular
and unpredictable. Immediately after playing the head to "Ko Ko", the bass
and and piano come in and Bird solos on the chord changes to "Cherokee."  It
might be this particular transformation that Pynchon was thinking of.

> 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.

Except these aren't "brand new chords" and no "reharmonization" has taken
place.  Listen to Bill Evans play "When I Fall In Love" (on _Portrait In
Jazz_) -- _that_ is a reharmonization.  New root motion and new chord types
underneath the original melody.  Playing off the upper partials of the
existing chords is not really reharmonization, per se.

> Then, Parker would improvise (or write) a brand new melody to go with the new
> harmony (or vice versa) and have a new tune based on the structure of the
> original.  "Koko" was based on "Cherokee" in that way.

The only thing that links "Ko Ko" and "Cherokee" is the chord sequence for
the solos.  One of the things that makes "Ko Ko" so unusual is that the form
of the tune itself has nothing to do with the form of the blowing section.
Anyway, this Michael is probably thinking of something more like
"Ornithology," where Parker wrote a new melody based on the harmony to "How
High The Moon," or one of the many tunes he wrote based on "I Got Rhythm."

Will Layman wrote:

> 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.

This is, indeed, the conventional wisdom RE: jazz history.  And much of it
is misleading and untrue.  The first jazz record was made by a white band
(The Original Dixieland Jass Band) not because of racial prejudice, but
because the black bands refused to record.  They were worried their rivals
-- we're talking the other black bands here -- were going to steal their
stuff.  White musicians like Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer (who both
played in Paul Whiteman's band) were not trying to "steal" jazz or "water it
down" -- they just heard some music that really moved them, and their sin
was having the balls to think they could learn to play it.  And some of them
played it very well.  Louis Armstrong (among others) had great respect for
Beiderbecke.  Lester Young's two biggest influences were Frankie Trumbauer
and Jimmy Dorsey.  Charlie Parker checked out a lot of Artie Shaw, and of
course he hired white musicians like Red Rodney, Chet Baker and Al Haig to
play in his band (so much for the idea of Paker and Gillespie creating bebop
in order to keep white musicians off the bandstand).  Yes, many hits of the
swing era made famous by white bandleaders (Goodman, Miller, Dorsey) were
written by black writer/arrangers like Fletcher Henderson, Sy Oliver and
Eddie Durham.  But white arrangers like Bill Challis and Will Hudson were
writing for Fletcher Henderson, Jimmie Lunceford, etc., as well.  And
regardless, the relationship between white bandleaders and black
writer/arrangers was not universally exploitative.  Sy Oliver was making
$2.50 a chart from Jimmie Lunceford.  When Tommy Dorsey hired him (in 1939),
he said, "Whatever Jimmie Lunceford is paying you, I'll pay you $5000 a year
more.  And if you'll give me a year, I'll rebuild the band any way you want
it."  Dorsey also gave his writers full credit for their compositions and
guaranteed their publishing rights -- unheard of at the time.

As far as the part of "being sold to the American public in watered-down
form" goes, the author of the above makes it sound like Duke Ellington was
some sort of unknown cult figure, appreciated only by blacks and a handful
of your hipper white cats.  Give me a break.  As Gene Lees notes, "Duke was
a national celebrity before the '20s were ended, was invited to the White
House in 1931, and traveled to engagements by private railway car."  "Mood
Indigo," "In A Sentimental Mood," "Satin Doll" -- those were _hits_,
fercrissakes.

None of this is to claim that racism did not rear its ugly head in jazz.  I
most surely, sadly did.  But, given the racially charged climate in which
the music developed, it is remarkable to what degree jazz musicians of all
colours were able to transcend all of that bullshit and just get together
and _play_.

Apologies for the rant.  This is a topic close to my heart.

- Darcy


------
djargue at sprint.ca
Montreal, QC

"But what can be done about it if the single and direct purpose of any
intelligent person is to chatter, that is to say the deliberate pouring of
emptiness into the void?"

                                - Dostoevsky, "Notes from the Underground"