I was supposed to be practicing
the guitar before writing this review but the Bruins were on TV. I practice the guitar almost every day but
the Bruins on TV is rare so I took a time out to watch it. The Gods of Guitar Practice saw fit to reward
me by having me watch us lose a two goal lead evaporate in the final six and a
half minutes, as we lost to the hateful Penguins. Well played, Guitar Practice Gods, well
played.
Disc 493 is… A Proper Introduction to Charlie Parker (Star Eyes)
Year of Release: 2005, but with
music from 1945 - 1951
What’s up with the Cover? Charlie Parker blows his own horn, because that’s
what Charlie Parker does. I imagine he
also addresses himself in the third person, but that’s just supposition on my
part.
How I Came To Know It: In my old job we had an intern one summer – I think
he was in grade nine or ten – and he was getting job credits for school
(nowadays it isn’t enough for kids to experience the drudgery of work upon
graduation; they need to do it earlier – and for free).
Anyway
the kid was a nice guy, and exceptionally smart, despite being only marginally
reliable as a file clerk. I took him
for lunch one day, and while I imparted what I hoped was some worldly wisdom,
we got to talking about music. He was
into jazz, and when I asked who his favourite artist was, he was unequivocal
that it was Mr. Charlie Parker. So I
bought this album on his recommendation, because worldly wisdom isn’t
age-dependent my friends.
How It Stacks Up: This is a ‘best of’ and so it doesn’t really stack
up at all.
Rating: Best of albums don’t get rated on the Odyssey
– that’s the drill, sunshine.
Brilliant
jazz musicianship or aimless, harmless noodling? Probably a bit of both defines my feelings
toward Charlie Parker.
This
album once again had me re-examining my complex relationship with jazz. Although I am not a jazz fan, Parker is in my
wheelhouse. He plays pretty basic licks,
and I can follow along well enough.
Somehow, I once again struggled to feel a connection to it.
It isn’t
that it is instrumental; I find good classical music compelling and, like jazz,
I have only a surface idea what is going on in that style. I think it is that like a lot of jazz, I just
don’t get the core emotion behind the music.
My main
influences are metal and country/folk, and both those genres rely heavily on
some emotional investment from the musician.
When Bruce Dickinson sings “Flight
of Icarus” you can feel yourself compelled to fly so high you burn in the
sun. When Kris Kristofferson sings “Sunday Morning, Comin’ Down”, you can
feel the impact of the can he kicks on your own toe, and smell the chicken down
the street being cooked by some family that is – and always will be – happier than
you. It doesn’t have to always be this
good, but there’s got to be something for me to hang my heart on once I come inside.
On a
good day, like today on my walk home, listening to Charlie Parker makes me
appreciate his virtuosity, which is considerable. I can see myself in a European roadster,
engaging in some kind of lighthearted chase scene through a sixties caper film
like Walter Matthau in Hopscotch. OK, Hopscotch
was filmed in 1980, but you get the idea; it’s fun, it’s carefree and driving
or walking – it is good toodling-about music.
On a bad
day, like yesterday, it just sounds like someone bragging – at times almost
braying – through a reed, just to show he can.
Feeling is an important part of music for me. Just clever playing, clever note
progressions, those don’t do it for me, even when they’re done by a master like
Parker.
If I was going to get caught up in any kind
of passion for this kind of music, I’d need more than three minutes. Regrettably, “Star Eyes” really isn’t the
proper introduction to Charlie Parker it advertises. A lot of these songs seem like they are
prematurely cut off with a clever flourish of notes (often the piano and
Charlie’s saxophone playing off one another).
I think most tracks would benefit from being a little longer, and I’d
like to think that’s how Charlie would’ve preferred them too.
Also,
the album has way too many of these three minute tracks; twenty-five of them to
be precise. The album is seventy-eight
minutes long, which is about as much as you can pack onto a compact disc. The sheer assortment of tracks, coupled with
my relative unfamiliarity with them made it hard to distinguish one from the
other, even as I resolutely dug my hand in pocket as each one ended to check
the names.
As I
mentioned earlier, I had a pretty positive walk home with Mr. Parker tonight,
and I was tempted to keep the album after all, but one experience turned the
tide. Over the weekend, my car stereo
became possessed and almost devoured my favourite Neko Case CD (2006’s “Fox
Confessor Brings the Flood”). I rescued
the album relatively unscathed, but I’ve been viewing the car stereo in a very
untrustworthy way ever since.
Tonight,
driving Sheila to something, I decided to test the stereo’s safety for the
first time since the near-fox devouring incident. I barely hesitated as I put Charlie Parker’s “Star
Eyes” into the player. I think I
cheerfully bragged to Sheila before I did it, just what risks I was subjecting
it to. A fine musician like Charlie
Parker deserves a better home than that.
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