American History In Video: Episode 8: Risk
Episode 8: Risk from PBS (Public Broadcasting Service, 2000) 122:05.
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A FLORENTINE FILMS PRODUCTION JON HENDRICKS Singer
Jon Hendricks I was on a troop ship coming home from Bremerhaven, Germany to New York Harbor in 1946 .
[sil.]
Jon Hendricks And I suddenly heard this song over the ship's radio. And it was frenetic and exciting, and fast and furious, and brilliant. And I almost bumped my head jumping off my bunk. So, I'd ran up to the control room and said to the guy, "What was that?" And he said, "What?" I said, "That last song you just played, the one you just played." He said, "I don't know." I said, "Where is it?" He said, "It's down there on the floor." I looked down there on the floor, the floor is covered in records. I said, "Come on, what color was the label?" He said, "It's red label." So, I begin to sort out and I come across red labels, and I would ask him, "Was it this one?" and he said, "No." Finally, I found it. It was a Music Craft label, and it was called "Salt Peanuts," and it was Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie . And I gave him $30, and I said, "Play this for the next hour."
JAZZ
Keith David After the Second World War, America achieved a level of growth and prosperity unimaginable just a few years earlier. But the Cold War and its nuclear threat lurked always in the background, and the human race found itself haunted by the spectre of instant annihilation. Millions of White Americans began to move to brand new, safe suburbs. The cities and the people of the inner cities were left to fend for themselves. There was a growing frustration in the Black community as young men returned once again from defending freedom abroad to confront discrimination at home, while a new plague, narcotics, swept through Black neighborhoods dimming hopes and destroying lives.
[sil.]
Keith David Jazz music would reflect it all. Jazz had always involved risk, to create art on the spot, to step forward and express oneself, had always meant taking enormous chances. But now, for some young musicians, the time seemed right for freeing jazz from what they considered the tyranny of popular taste, building a new musical world in which only their virtuoso talents would matter. The new music that had been incubating during the war was intricate, fast-paced, and filled with danger. A perfect mirror of the complicated world from which it sprang. The singular genius whose startling innovations came to epitomize the new music was Charlie Parker . But those innovations came at a great cost. The jazz audience shrank as young people, both Black and White, found other forms of music to dance to. And the generation of aspiring young musicians would have to come to terms with Parker's twin legacies. The terrible addiction that threatened to ruin their lives even as it was destroying his and the musical accomplishments for which he would never be forgotten.
OSSIE DAVIS Actor
Ossie Davis Charlie Parker , to me, was a golden cleaver that could cut the bone and release forces that we didn't know were there. He would ride the horses of extreme danger, even if they pulled them apart. And his anguish as a man and as a Black man was all folded in to his, his relationship to the saxophone.
Episode Eight Risk SINATRA FANS STORM PARAMOUNT! PARAMOUNT NEWS Voice: Bob Harris
Keith David The end of World War II marked the beginning of the end for the swing bands. Tastes had changed. Instrumentalists were forced to retreat to the background as popular singers took center stage, and young people flocked to see and hear them including the skinny, young baritone from Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra, Frank Sinatra .
[sil.]
Keith David The big bands struggle to survive. Duke Ellington and Count Basie managed to stay on the road, but by Christmas of 1946 , eight of their best-known rivals would announce that they were at least temporarily leaving it, including Harry James , Stan Kenton , Benny Carter , Tommy Dorsey , Woody Herman , even the "King of Swing," Benny Goodman . Great jazz soloist abandoned dreams of having a big bands of their own, formed small groups instead and retreated to nightclubs, places too small for dancing. All kinds of jazz were being played at the war's end, in clubs from 52nd Street in Manhattan to Central Avenue in Los Angeles . But whatever the style, the jam session had become the model, freewheeling, competitive, demanding, the kind of jazz musicians had always played to entertain themselves after the squares had gone home. The Swing Era was over; jazz had moved on. And here and there across the country, in small clubs and on obscure record labels, the new and risk-filled music was finally beginning to be heard. It was called "Bebop."
Jon Hendricks The melodies that, that they were playing had been altered drastically, and the chords underneath those melodies had been altered drastically. For example, they used songs like, ah, "Whispering da da dee da that I love you, da da da dee da da da wha da da dee dee da da da," popular songs like Whispering, but the way Charlie Parker would rephrase these songs, it became, "Da dup, da dup, badoo be doo be doo da dup de doodley day da bup da bup, be dooby be dup de bup doodley day du bup da bup, doo doo be badoo bup be doo day, badoo de doo doo dee dee dup." It was so exciting, so inventive, so creative, so artistic that your soul just swelled up with the possibilities for what you could do with it with, whatever limited aspects you had.
STAN LEVEY Drums
Stan Levey They played very, very fast. They had great technique, great ideas. They ran their lines through the chord changes differently than anybody else. Prior to them, it was Roy Elridge , Coleman Hawkins , you know, that type of thing. This was a complete left-hand turn with the music. It was wonderful. When I heard this thing, I said it was for me. I'm connected, and I got connected.
[sil.]
Keith David Bebop was as much evolutionary as it was revolutionary. It had grown out of after-hour wartime jam sessions at places like Minton's Playhouse in Harlem . Among musicians schooled in swing music: Coleman Hawkins , Charlie Christian , Kenny Clarke , and the eccentric genius of the piano, Thelonious Monk . In bop, the old steady rhythm of the dance band was broken up by new ways of drumming. The rhythm section was freer now to interact with the horns. Musicians used unexpected intervals that created dissonant sounds. Classical musicians once called them "The Devil's Interval." Boppers called them "Flatted Fifths."
[sil.]
Keith David "Bebop emerged from the war years and it reflected those times," said the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie , who would become bop's finest teacher and most articulate champion. "It might have looked and sounded like bedlam," he said, "but it wasn't."
[sil.]
Keith David The man who spoke the language of bebop most eloquently was Charlie Parker , Bird .
[sil.]
Jon Hendricks He was a genius. He could discuss any subject you'd bring up, nuclear physics, the quantum theory, you know, anything. God that guy was amazing. His favorite composer was Stravinsky and his favorite work was Le Sacre Du Printemps. He loved that. He was, he was a real intellectual, huge mind, this big.
Keith David On the bandstand, Parker risked everything, furiously pouring out fresh ideas as if his very life depended on it. Shocking everyone who heard it with his speed, his fire, his ferocious concentration.
Stan Levey Charlie Parker , his sound, his music to me, when I first heard it, the first night, was the Pied Piper of Hamlin. I would have followed him anywhere, you know, over the cliff, wherever. I was working on 52nd Street with different people: Ben Webster , Coleman Hawkins . And this guy walks down, he's got one blue shoe, one green shoe, rumpled, he's got his horn in a paper bag with rubber bands and cellophane on it, and there he is, Charlie Parker . His hair standing straight up. He was doing a Don King back then. Well, I said, "I can't believe this, this guy looks terrible. Can he play? What?" you know.
[sil.]
Stan Levey And he sat in and within four bars, I just fell in love with this guy, the music, you know. And he looked at back at me, you know, with that big grin, with that gold tooth, and we were just like that. From that moment on, we were together. We moved in together. We got our, our room together and we were together for a couple of years, we lived together.
Keith David Off the bandstand, Parker's private life was also filled with risk. He had been addicted to heroin since the age of 17.
STANLEY CROUCH Writer
Stanley Crouch Charlie Parker was a man who could never outrun his appetites. His appetites always outran him. So, his appetites were kinda like of a wagon that he was tied to that dragged him out of street at different velocities. If they dragged him slowly, he didn't get, he didn't get too cut up. If they dragged him quickly, he got badly hurt.
[sil.]
Keith David In December of 1945 , Charlie Parker , Dizzy Gillespie , and a group of musicians including the drummer, Stan Levey set out for California . Gillespie had been invited to put together a group to play the new music at a Hollywood nightclub called "Billy Berg's."
[sil.]
Keith David Gillespie was reluctant to bring along the often unreliable Parker , and from the start the trip was a disaster.
Stan Levey When we left Chicago to go to California , it was the long trip through the desert, and he got desperately ill, I mean, really, really ill. You had to stop for water in the desert. And I looked out the window, and he see this spot out there carrying it, like, a little grip. I'm saying, "What the hell is that?" And I look closer, it's Charles Parker .
Keith David Parker had wandered off into the desert in search of a fix.
Stan Levey Dizzy turned to me, and he says, "What's that?" And I said, "I think it's your saxophone player." So he said, "Go get him." So, I ran out real quick and grabbed him and I said, "Where are you going?" He said, "I, I got to get something out here somewhere." I said, "There's nothing there," and I helped him back into the train. Well, needless to say he was so sick when we got to Union Station. It was a mess, you know.
Keith David When the group including the strung-out Parker finally reached Los Angeles , young West Coast musicians, who had already began to experiment with the same sorts of sounds Gillespie and Parker were playing, flocked to Billy Berg's. Howard McGhee , Charles Mingus , and Dexter Gordon were among those dazzled by their sound. But most jazz fans seemed baffled by their music. It struck a good many listeners as frantic, nervous, chaotic, and the audience dwindled away.
Jon Hendricks They were trying to say to the audience. Look, lift yourselves up to where we are. We, we're not that far out there, you know. We're just a little more hip than the average person, so, come on, get hip, you know, dig this, dig this, take that wax out of your ears.
WYNTON MARSALIS Trumpet
Wynton Marsalis When an art form is created, you, the question is how do you come to it not how does it come to you like, ah, ah, ah, Beethoven's music is not going to come to you, or the art of Picasso won't come to you, Shakespeare , you have to go to it. And when you go to it, you get the benefits of it.
Keith David It took Charlie Parker weeks to locate a steady source for heroin in Los Angeles . The proprietor of a shoeshine stand known as "Moose the Mooche." Parker was so grateful; he named a tune in his new dealer's honor. On the eve of the bands return to New York , Parker sold his plane ticket for heroin and disappeared, and Gillespie , who had once called Parker , "The other half of my heartbeat," left for home without him. Parker was now stranded in Los Angeles without a steady job. He managed to record several sides on his own for Dial Records, a small specialty label, and signed a document giving one-half his earnings to Moose the Mooche in exchange for heroin. When "The Mooche" was arrested, Parker began drinking as much as a quart of whisky a day to compensate for the heroin he craved. Soon he was living in an empty garage, with only his overcoat as bedding.
PHIL SCHAAP Historian
Phil Schaap He's going through withdrawal symptoms. He's a heroin addict who doesn't really have a home, who's intentionally cut himself off from the one place where he feels he can maneuver in society with equal footing, which would be New York City . His main colleague, Dizzy Gillespie , is off, doing completely different, ah, things in his career and is not in full contact with Bird if in any contact and Bird is in trouble.
Keith David On July 29th, 1946 , he turned up so drunk for a recording session. The record producer had to hold him up in front of the microphone. A doctor gave him six tablets of phenobarbital to bring him around, and he managed to stumble through single takes of Bebop and Lover Man.
[sil.]
Keith David Parker himself later said the recording should be stomped into the ground, but the producer released it anyway, and some of Parker's admirers dutifully committed it to memory, note for tortured note.
[sil.]
Keith David The night of the recording session, he completely fell apart. He wandered naked into the lobby of his hotel and later fell asleep while smoking and set his bed ablaze. The fireman had to shake him violently to wake him. And when he resisted, the police beat him and threw him in jail. Charlie Parker was committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital. There, the man who had helped launched a musical revolution spent the next six months tending a lettuce patch, putting on weight, and playing his saxophone in the hospital band.
[sil.]
Ah, let me lay a question on you.
Shoot.
How long was Cain bad with his brother?
As long as he was " Abel ."
You dig me, Jack , you dig me.
You better dig this next number.
Oww, take it.
[sil.]
Dizzy Gillespie Ooh bop ba bow ooh umap ooh bop ba bow ooh umap
Keith David After Dizzy Gillespie got back to New York from California , he put together his own big band. In part, to show the world that bebop could be every bit as entertaining and danceable as swing music.
[sil.]
Dizzy Gillespie Ooh bop ba bow ooh umap
ALBERT MURRAY Writer
Albert Murray He was the guy most responsible for the dissemination of bop. Charlie Parker was as important as he was in terms of what was actually happening in the music, but the person who was the mentor and from whom other people learned was Dizzy .
Dizzy Gillespie Ooh bop ba bow bugu gumap
Stanley Crouch The thing about Dizzy that was so important was that he was both an extraordinarily intellectual and he was the guy who had this real love of life and great sense of humor. And the unfortunate thing for him, in the over arch of his career was that, the fact that he seemed to have so much fun and tell so many jokes, dance on stage and all that caused people to, to not really realize that he had been the central organizing figure in the bebop era.
[sil.]
Keith David Dizzy Gillespie became the public face of bebop. Everything about him provided colorful copy. His dark-rimmed glasses, his berets, the cheeks that puffed so alarmingly when he played.
[sil.]
Keith David Gillespie broke all kinds of conventions. One of his trombonists was a woman, Melba Liston , whom he hired simply because he loved her sound. And found the arrangement she wrote as challenging as his own. Then he added an extraordinary conga player from Cuba , named, Chano Pozo to the band.
[sil.]
Keith David The tunes like Cubana Be, Cubano Bop, and Manteca; Gillespie helped revive the link between jazz and the infectious rhythms of the Caribbean that New Orleans musicians had first incorporated when the music was born.
[sil.]
Stan Levey He shared everything he knew. He never held back. A lot of guys are secretive about what they know and what they do and this, no, I don't, this chord goes there, but I'm not gonna tell you. He would give you whatever you needed to know. He was rhis wide-open, giving, but at, he would get back what he wanted from you.
Keith David Gillespie struggled always to make bebop accessible to everyone, but for all his showmanship, his brilliant playing, and the drive and precision of his music, he failed to attract a wide audience. "Dancers didn't care whether we played a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th," he said, "they just stand around the bandstand and gawk."
FRANKIE MANNING Dancer
Frankie Manning I was in the army for five years; I came out in 1947 . And I come out of the army, and I hear "bllll bllll ddd ddd." I just could not get accustomed to that I'm, I said, "Well, what is this? What, I mean, what's going on?" you know and I hear all this bebop music. Uhm, I worked with Dizzy's band. I, I say, I formed my own called the Congaroos. I worked with Dizzy's band in 1947 , Dizzy Gillespie's band in Washington D.C. We went on the stage, I gave him my music, Jumpin' at the Woodside, Count Basie . And, ah, he's got this drummer up there, and, and he's giving me all this chika, bomp, kin, pickup, pick, and, and on music here, chi chi chzu chi chi chzu chi chzu, and he's playing this stuff. When we finished to act and I come off, I said to Dizzy , "Ah, can I say these words?" I said to Dizzy , "What the...
You doing?
Frankie Manning ...is this you're doing?" you know.
Right.
Frankie Manning It was different from when I used to see kids out there on the floor swingin'. I just could not understand it. Eventually, I got to understand the music, but it was not music for dancing.
Trying to Play Clean
Keith David By April of 1947 , Charlie Parker was out of the hospital. At least, momentarily free of heroin. And back on 52nd Street , playing at the 3 Deuces with his own quintet. Featuring Max Roach on drums, and a gifted young trumpet player, named Miles Davis .
[sil.]
Keith David Parker discovered that while he had been away, a host of younger musicians had begun to emulate his style.
Wynton Marsalis Everybody wants to play like Charlie Parker after a while. Bass players, tung, tung, dung, dung, dung, tu, dung, tu, dung, tu, dung, bu, dung, dung, dong. Drummers, ra, tat, tu, tat, ka, engu, ku, tut, tut, ku, tip, tip, tip. Piano players, wade, dip, du, bit, wadi, di, du, du, ba, ba, bu, dup, dup, lu, bi, dup, ba, dup, lu, bi, dip. Trumpet players, di, li, dup, duba, duba, dup, dup. Everybody playing the vocabulary of Charlie Parker .
JACKIE McLEAN Saxophone
Jackie McLean As a very young musician that's how I wanted to play, exactly. I didn't care if someone said I sounded like him, that's what I wanted to do and that was all I dreamt of doing. I didn't wanna be original, I wanted to play like Charlie Parker . This week that he was playing at the Apollo was perfect for me and the only way I could get to see him would be not to go to school. So, a few of my friends and I, we would leave home in the morning, and go down in the subway, but instead of going to the Bronx , to our school, we would go down to 225th Street , put our books in one of those lockers in the subway, and go get in front of the theater. And we would sit and watch the movie and then we would wait until it was time for the show. And then, the curtain would come back and there he'd be.
[sil.]
Jackie McLean And of course, we heard all of these great music that we had heard on these recordings. We would enjoy that show and then we would get up and sneak out of an exit on the side and run backstage, so, we could see Bird when he came out to get a breath of air. And he would just say, "How you guys doin'?" you know, "Aren't you supposed to be in school today?" We'd say, "Yeah Bird , but, but like we came down here to see you." He said, "Okay, well, you guys be careful."
Keith David Day after day, Parker continued to refine and push and experiment with the sounds the critics insisted on calling "Bebop." Parker himself, hated the word. "It's just music," he said. "It's trying to play clean and looking for the pretty notes." He was rarely satisfied with his own work and embarrassed too, by the acolytes who are now beginning to follow him from bandstand to bandstand hiding recorders which they turned on whenever he stepped forward to solo and clicked off again, the moment he had finished.
HARRY "SWEETS" EDISON Trumpet
Harry Edison When Charlie Parker came on the scene, he made such an impression on musicians, he would play a melody wrong and if you tell, if you told one of his disciples that melody was wrong, you might get knocked out.
[sil.]
Keith David His admirers were sometimes, scornful of earlier jazz and popular music. But nothing musical was alien to Charlie Parker .
NAT HENTOFF Critic
Nat Hentoff He used to hang out at Charlie's Tavern which was a place jazz musicians hung out at in midtown New York . They had a jukebox and among the jazz records, there was some country music records and that's all that Bird would play. And the guys didn't know what to make out of this, they didn't have the courage to ask the great man why he was playing this awful music, until finally one of them did. " Bird , why do you play those recordings, the country stuff?" And Bird looked at him and said, "Listen, listen to the stories." And of course that's true.
Keith David A friend remembered leaving Parker transfixed in a Manhattan snowstorm late one night, unable to tear himself away from the thump and blare of a salvation army band. Another friend told of driving with him through the countryside when someone remarked idly that livestock loved music. Parker asked the driver to stop. Assembled his horn, stalked into a field and gravely played several choruses to a bewildered cow.
[sil.]
Jackie McLean One day, I came home from school and my mother said to me, she said, "You'll never, you're not gonna believe this, but I got a phone call from Charlie Parker today." And I said, "What?" You know, I was very excited, you know, and I said, "What did he say?" She said, "Well, he wants you to come down to this place called Chateau Gardens tonight, and wear a blue suit, shirt and tie and play for him until he gets there." And I immediately went into the room and began to practice and get ready for this big night for me.
[sil.]
Jackie McLean And when the curtain went back, the people were very disappointed, I might add, when they looked up there and saw me up there. And so, I began to play through the tunes that I knew like, Confirmation, And Now's The Time, and A Night In Tunisia, and Don't Blame Me, and the things that Bird played. Then I looked and saw this crowd surge to the back and I saw Bird come in. I saw a saxophone case up in the air, the people was so close around him that he was holding his saxophone case over his head. And, ah, and, then, then, they followed him all the way to the stage. He took out his horn and walked out there and he said, "Play one with me." And we did one together, then he told me to go sit down.
[sil.]
Jackie McLean You know, played the rest of the night.
[sil.]
Jack Teagarden I'm gonna fill my love with lots of air and blow in Mr. Louis Armstrong in his old rocking chair.
Keith David On May 15th, 1947 , exactly one month after Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball, Louis Armstrong appeared with a small integrated group at New York's town hall. Armstrong's old friend, Jack Teagarden , played trombone. It was still rare to see Blacks and Whites touring together. And Teagarden worried that his presence might cause trouble. Armstrong told him not to worry.
Jack Teagarden Old rocking chair got me, Louis .
Louis Armstrong Old rocking chair got you, partner.
Jack Teagarden Came by my side.
Louis Armstrong And you came by your side.
Jack Teagarden Fetch me some water, some.
Louis Armstrong You know you don't drink water brother.
Jack Teagarden But then you're right.
Keith David The show was a triumph. It led to the formation of Louis Armstrong and his All Stars. They would continue to perform for nearly a quarter of a century. For millions of people who either didn't like or hadn't heard of Charlie Parker and bebop, Louis Armstrong's brand of music was the very definition of jazz.
Jack Teagarden And they fly right my rocking chair.
Louis Armstrong Now, old rocking chair get it?
Jack Teagarden Yeah.
Louis Armstrong Now, rocking chair get it?
Jack Teagarden Yeah.
And judgment day, oh judgment day jim hum jimi ne na you sittin' gettin' chain your rocking chair.
[sil.]
Keith David Two years later, Armstrong was chosen to be the king of the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, the oldest African-American organization in the annual Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans .
[sil.]
Keith David As a proud son of the city, Armstrong felt honored to be king. It had been, he said, his lifetime ambition.
ARVELL SHAW Bass
Arvell Shaw I've never seen anything this beautiful in my life. Here come the King and the Zulus with the band playing, dum, di, dum, dum, dum, singing, you know, the saints and, ah, and they would meet and drink champagne them, and, and it was, ah, this, ah, beautiful thing, you know.
Keith David But to many younger African-Americans, increasingly impatient with segregation and unaware that the Zulus had been formed in part to mock White social clubs, Armstrong in blackface seemed especially grotesque.
GERALD EARLY Writer
Gerald Early I think he was perceived, mistakenly, I think in retrospect as an Uncle Tom. He came out, he was grinning, he had this handkerchief, he was sweating, he's, you know, he's singin' this gravelly voice that at the time, we didn't understand that he was a great singer. He just seemed like an old guy singin' with a gravelly voice. Uhm, and, ah, and we were just there 'cause White people loved him so much that, that made him, that made him very suspect to us and he came out and he sang these con, tunes that seemed rather corny to us and, uhm, so, I think to ah, a new generation, a post World War II generation, a more militant African-American community, he seemed like a throwback. He seemed like something from an earlier time. He seemed like, uhm, a link to minstrelsy that I think many of us at that time, were rather ashamed of.
Keith David After the parade, Armstrong and his All Stars were scheduled to give a concert in New Orleans . But when the city fathers learned that Jack Teagarden was in the band, they refused to let the All Stars play. "I don't care if I never see that city again," Armstrong told a friend, "jazz was born there, and I remember when it wasn't no crime for cats of any color to get together and blow."
Arvell Shaw And that hurt Louis so, he never, he never forgave 'em. That's why Louis is not buried in New Orleans right now because the City of New Orleans would not let us play the concert because we had a White man in the band. Well, he refused to be buried in New Orleans that hurt him so.
This is My Home
Keith David In May of 1949 , a delegation of American musicians landed in Paris for one of the first international jazz festivals ever held. The best known musician was Sidney Bechet who had been one of the first to spread New Orleans jazz around the world; Charlie Parker had been invited as well. The French have been listening to his obscure recordings for years and to Parker's surprise, they now hailed him as a worthy successor to Bechet and Ellington and Armstrong .
GARY GIDDINS Critic
Gary Giddins And when he went to Europe that was probably the one time where audiences and critics and the public really greeted him as a heroic figure. In New York and in the United States who is mostly within the musical community but he never won any of the big, a, a, you know, the trinkets of celebrity hood. He never was on the cover of any major magazine. He never, a, recorded for a major label, not once in his, a, career. Uhm, he was never invited to, you know, be in films. He, he, uhm, he was a musician's musician.
Keith David When Parker returned from Europe he intentionally tried to broaden his audience. He made a series of recordings, popular love songs with a string orchestra. Though some purists detested them they sold better than any other records he had ever made.
BRANFORD MARSALIS Saxophone
Branford Marsalis A lot of people at that time hated that record and they said Charlie Parker sold out. But what he did was absolutely revolutionary because he played these songs, he played them in way them in a way that they had never been played before. He was still Charlie Parker . It's not like he's sold out his identity to play these songs and he played songs that people knew and people bought these records and they loved hearing Charlie Parker playing his records. Here's a song called Just Friends and, uh, you know, "Just friends lovers no more, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh." I mean, if he had just, a, picked up his horn and played it, uh.
[sil.]
Branford Marsalis And then I think they would have a point, and he would come in and he would play this lick.
[sil.]
Branford Marsalis Here, I mean, its, it's unbelievable when you put this record on for the first time. You hear this guy floating across the instrument that way.
[sil.]
This is Christmas morning and the Bird's got a little surprise for you on White Christmas.
[sil.]
Keith David In December of 1949 , a new jazz club dedicated to bebop opened in New York just off 52nd Street . It was named Birdland, after the new king of bop and Parker appeared regularly on its bandstand.
[sil.]
Keith David His fame was beginning to grow and he seemed finally to have found a little domestic peace as well. He had moved in with a dancer named Chan Richardson and adopted her daughter.
CHAN RICHARDSON PARKER Former Wife
Chan Richardson Parker He had an incredible life force. He was above all other facets of men that I had ever known. He was, had a maturity beyond his years in fact he said to me one day, "I'm not one of those boys you're used to." He had a command.
Keith David He and Chan would have 2 children together a son Baird and a daughter named Pree . But nothing was quite as it seemed.
Gary Giddins Parker had multiple personalities, not a disorder, but he just had a lot of personalities. The time he was on New York at the peak of his renown he was leading three lives. He had, uh, the life of a jazz musician which would've been a fulltime job for most people, perfecting your art and performing night after night. He had the, the job as it were of a, a junkie which is also fulltime place which led him, a fulltime job which led him into, you know, terrible places to where the musician might not want to be. And then he led this middle class life as a father and a husband living in the East Village of Manhattan , where he was known by all of his neighbors as somebody who always had a smile on his face. He was friendly. A lot of people didn't know who he was or what he did but he was liked, very well-liked and he managed to play these 3 different roles simultaneously.
Stan Levey Well, he's a con artist. Charlie could con your pants off and he was that way, uh, always on the go, like a moving target. You know, you couldn't, couldn't get him and that intrigued me plus the music, the music, what came out of his horn was incredible.
Keith David On the bandstand, Parker disciplined his furious talent. "More than four choruses," he told a young Milt Jackson , "and you're just practicing," but off the bandstand he was often out of control, insatiable, always wanting more food, more liquor, more women and more drugs. "This is my home," he told a friend as he rolled up his sleeve to inject himself.
Stan Levey A day in the life of Charlie Parker , he would play all night in the club and you go up to Minton's at 9 in the morning, whatever, and play in there until about noon and he had to get more drugs. If you could get a few hours sleep in between would be okay but then you had to get the money for the drugs, it was a constant merry go around 24 hours a day, 24 hours a day. Hocking things, finding money, getting guys to help you with money, total waste of time, complete waste of time. If he had put that time into his music, into his writing, think what would've come out of it, you know.
Chan Richardson Parker He tried to kick many times while he was with me, sometimes very successfully but he told me once, uh, you know, "You can get it out of your body, but you can't get it out of your brain."
Red Rodney Heroin was our badge, the thing that made us different from the rest of the world. It was the thing that said we know, you don't know. It was the thing that gave us membership in a unique club and for this membership, we gave up everything else up in the world, every ambition, every desire, everything. It ruined most of the people. Red Rodney .
Keith David "Jazz was born in a whiskey barrel," said Artie Shaw , "grew up on marijuana and is about to expire on heroin." Marijuana had always been a part of jazz. Louis Armstrong smoked it almost everyday but heroin was different. "Drastic stuff," Armstrong called it and soon it seemed to be everywhere. Dumped into black neighborhoods by organized crime. Heroin's effect was devastating.
Jackie McLean It came on the scene like a tidal wave, I mean, it just appeared after World War II. I began to notice guys on my neighborhood, nodding on the corner, you know, and so we all began to find out that this is what they were, they were nodding because they were taking this, this, thing called "horse." We called it "horse" at that time.
BERTRAND TAVERNIER Filmmaker
Bertrand Tavernier Jazz was a very risky music when you were playing it well. It's a music which is demanding. Where people are sometimes very, very, very, uh, severe, are very, they, they have a lot of, uh, they look for a certain kind of urgency. They, they risk their life. They risk their life. It's a music where people are living on a tight rope. Truly, one wants sometimes to forget that, they want to fight against that. They want to be even higher than the tightrope. So, they want sometimes to forget that. They was to fight against that. They want to be even higher than the tightrope.
Wynton Marsalis When you have that type of extreme relationship to the world that's around you, it's very difficult not to need stimulation. And when you're playing music, jazz, you, you could lose track of time. You're just playing. The world that you're in is perfect. Well, now, as soon as that music is over, that, too, is over. But that dope is always there for you, and the dope is gonna make you maintain that high. The dope is there to tell you, "It's all right, man."
Keith David It was always risky business to try and match Charlie Parker's dazzling technique, his frantic tempos, and his overflowing ideas, but now worshipful musicians began to emulate his addiction as well as his music. In the hope that by sharing it they could somehow share his genius too. " Bird was like fire," the pianist John Lewis remembered, "You couldn't get too close."
Jackie McLean A lot of guys in my community that idolized and worshipped Charlie Parker began to experiment with this drug, including myself. I had 18 years of addiction that's why I can speak about it, uh, and I'm a family man, and I'm a musician, so, uh, my life wasn't that different from Bird's , you know. But it has to do with who your wife is and who your family is and if they can tolerate what goes on, and it's terrible, you know. I mean, I had my mom and my family and my wife and my children, and then I also had this gorilla on my back.
Keith David One by one, many of the most gifted musicians in jazz will be lost for a time to narcotics: Stan Levey , Gerry Mulligan , Art Blakey , John Coltrane , Dexter Gordon , Sonny Stitt , Anita O'Day , Tadd Demeron , Red Rodney , Chet Baker , Sonny Rollins , Art Pepper , Fats Navarro , and 8 of the 16 men in Woody Herman's band. The tenor saxophonist Stan Getz tried to support his habit by holding up a drugstore, spent six months in jail and returned to drugs and alcohol almost the moment he got out. Heroin changed the dynamics of performance.
Wynton Marsalis Dope really took a lot out of the development of the music because the musicians would be playing in jam sessions and you don't rehearse for that. Everybody was high and they didn't want to spend that time working on the music. And then also the social relationship between the musicians changed because the dope addict is trying to get money all the time and they create this clannish environment where if you're not a part of that dope crowd, they don't want to hang with you. And the network of houses musicians used to stay in during segregated times, houses of black families, well, they can't do that now because musicians will come and they're stealing from the people, and they're just having the negative influence. And the musicians themselves become harder and more guarded. And less, there's less love to go around because that dope is sucking all the love up.
[sil.]
Louis Jordan Hey, boy. Hey, boy. Hey! What you doing, man? Hey, what you gonna, what you gonna do? That ain't the piece we're supposed to play. Come on. Well, I guess I better get on in here with him.
Keith David Louis Jordan loved playing jazz with an orchestra, loved singing the blues too. But after the big band craze died away and the bop era began, "Jazzmen played mostly for themselves," he said. " I wanted to play for the people, not just hepcats." He did just that, taking the simplest most crowd-pleasing aspect of swing and producing hit after novelty hit. "With my little band," he said, "I did everything they did with a big band. I made the blues jump."
Louis Jordan Walking with my baby. She got great big feet. She long, lean and lanky, and ain't had nothing to eat but she's my baby. And I love her just the same. Crazy about that woman 'cause Caldonia is her name. Caldonia ! Caldonia ! What make your big head so hard? I love you. Love you just the same. I'll always love you baby 'cause Caldonia is your name. Caldonia ! Caldonia ! What make your big head so hard?
Keith David Millions of black fans who had once followed jazz were now dancing to a new kind of music. It was called Rhythm and Blues.
Sustained Intensity
Keith David In the autumn of 1949 , a steady stream of musicians filed in and out of an apartment building next to a Chinese laundry on West 55th Street in New York City , in its basement was the one-room apartment of Gil Evans , a brilliant freelance arranger. His door was open 24 hours a day, and among the men who stopped by to jam were some of the most gifted musicians in jazz, Gerry Mulligan , Lee Konitz , John Lewis . Evans' closest collaborator was the young trumpet player Miles Davis , an impatient relentless innovator, who, over the next quarter century, would continually push the boundaries of jazz. He had been born in East St. Louis, Illinois , in 1926 , the son of a well-known dentist and gentleman farmer. Doctor Davis raised his son in a kind of cushioned isolation few jazz musicians ever knew, a handsome house in a white neighborhood, a cook, a maid and a 300-acre farm with riding horses. As a boy, Davis was small and shy and so good-looking that classmates called him "Pretty," just to embarrass him. To win acceptance, he would adopt an exaggerated toughness that he never abandoned. He took up the trumpet at 13, and by the time that he was 18, was good enough to sit in with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie when they passed through St. Louis . When he first heard Parker , Miles Davis said, "I decided right then and there that I had to leave St. Louis and live in New York ," and he soon found himself playing regularly with his idol.
Gary Giddins Miles , who is 19 years old when he first, us, was working with Charlie Parker , and, uh, he had the job that every trumpet player would have killed for which was to play in Parker's band. And he was different.
[sil.]
Gary Giddins Most of the serious people, the musicians recognized right away that he had a wonderful lyricism that was quite unusual, and he didn't sound like anybody else. But he had to invent a style because he didn't have the virtuosity of Dizzy Gillespie . So, he started to create a style that was based more on a timbre and melody. Play very few notes but make them the right notes, create a sense of mood.
Keith David Davis was just 23 years old in 1949 , when he began turning up at Gil Evans' apartment. He was eager to find a new showcase for the distinctive, introspective style he was developing.
[sil.]
Wynton Marsalis What Miles has the finest sound and a style that has the more delicate side of his nature. Now, he still has that toughness and that blade up in there so his sound is not weepy or weak. It has another type of delicacy, and it has a sentiment that draws the romance out of the music and presents it to people. His sound is very, very tender to come out of a man. But Lester Young was like that before him. Miles has a vulnerability but he's not afraid of sharing with people that are listening to him. Once he allowed that vulnerability to come into his sound, well then his sound became irresistible.
Keith David Davis and Evans formed an unconventional nine-piece group that included both tuba and French horn. They played just two engagements but a major label, Capitol Records, invited them into the studio to record several of their arrangements.
[sil.]
Keith David Capitol eventually released their tunes on a long-playing album called, Birth of The Cool.
[sil.]
" Bird and Dizz were great, but they weren't sweet," Davis remembered. "We shook people's ears a little softer. Took the music more mainstream."
Wynton Marsalis Now the Birth of The Cool was just a lot of different musicians coming together. A style is soft but intense it's like the, the best encounter that you hear a lot, it is soft but intense. And, uh, sustained intensity, I would say that sustained intensity equals ecstasy. And that's the hard thing, to sustain that intensity.
[sil.]
Gerald Early It was kind of a piercing sort of a sound. It was piercing and mellow at same time and I think that that's what really struck me about, just the loneliness of the human condition. And for some reason I'd rather thought that black people actually captured that very well in, in, in, uh, in music was this kind of loneliness in the human condition that no matter how much you yearn for community and yearn for community, in the end there is this loneliness and there's no way you can escape it. And that's to me, what the best jazz when you hear a soloist off and especially in a slow piece or a ballad piece. It's sort of like the best jazz, to me is always felt-like.
Keith David Like Sidney Bechet and Charlie Parker , Miles Davis had also gone to Paris in 1949 .
[sil.]
Keith David "The trip changed the way I looked at things forever", Davis remembered. " Paris was where I understood that all white people weren't the same." He met Picasso , haunted cafes with Jean-Paul Sartre , and a brief heady romance with the singer, Juliette Greco . "I never felt like that in my life," he said, "it was the freedom of being treated like a human being, like someone important." But that feeling did not last long.
QUINCY TROUPE Biographer
Quincy Troupe I think Miles' demon started in 1949 , when he went to France and he was treated so royally. And he comes back and he's treated just like another black person over here. Just like a little colored boy.
MARGO JEFFERSON Writer
Margo Jefferson No one quite knows what Miles Davis' demons were. Growing up in that very carefully secluded world, where you are taught that you are a privileged creature.
[sil.]
Margo Jefferson You are, at the same time taught, that that is very fragile.
[sil.]
Margo Jefferson And that it might be snatched away from you at any moment but you are a prince or a princess within it. I think the combination of entitlement and bigotry, assault, the assaults of bigotry and caste prejudice, uhm, set something absolutely, uhm, poisonous loose. Also the need in some way to turn himself into his dramatic image of what a really tough street Negro would be. If you're brilliant and Miles Davis , you're gonna do it in a very compelling but kind of murderous way.
Keith David Within weeks of his return from Europe , unable to shake the feeling that he belonged back in Paris and unable to find work, Miles Davis , too, turned to drugs. First snorting heroin, then injecting it directly into his veins.
[sil.]
Keith David To support his habit, "To feed the beast," as he remembered, he stole from friends, pawned his horn, even became a pimp. Davis was jailed for possession in Los Angeles but managed to beat the charge. Then, his own father, desperate to make him quit his habit, had him arrested in the hope that he would check in to a hospital for treatment. Davis refused, cursed his father and returned to drugs. Like Charlie Parker , he was earning a reputation for unreliability. "People started looking at me another way, like I was dirty or something," he remembered. "They looked at me with pity and horror and they haven't looked at me that way before."
Here they are, this is... (crosstalk)
Charlie Parker Hello, hello.
Charlie Parker and... (crosstalk)
Charlie Parker Thank you.
...the famous Dizzy Gillespie . Now, so let's ah.
In 1952 , Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie , who still loved to play together, accepted awards from DownBeat Magazine on the new medium of television.
...best alto sax man of 1951 , Congratulations to you.
Charlie Parker Thank you, thank you.
And, Dizz , this is to you from DownBeat for being one of the top trumpet man of all time.
Dizzy Gillespie Thank you.
Congratulations, Dizz , I mean, Dizzy . I got a little informal.
Dizzy Gillespie Thank you.
You boys got anything more to say?
Charlie Parker Well, Earl , they say, "Music speaks louder than words" so we'd rather voice our opinion that way if you don't mind.
All right, I think that would be all right with everybody. If you really wanna do it.
[sil.]
Keith David Throughout the live broadcast, Parker's face remained impassive. His fierce eyes and the movement of his fingers on the keys, the only outward signs of the effort required to yield such brilliant music.
[sil.]
Keith David Bebop's influence seemed to be everywhere now, altering jazz, in ways even Parker and Gillespie could not have imagined.
[sil.]
Keith David Doug Powell , one of the most influential musicians of the era, brought all of the intricacies of Bebop to the keyboard.
[sil.]
Keith David One pianist said that Powell even "outbirded" Bird and "outdizzied" Dizzy .
[sil.]
Ella Fitzgerald "Ooh bidi bu lu bu di bap ooh di ooh di ooh di ooh di ooh di ooh di ooh di ooh di la leh... (crosstalk)
Keith David Bebop seemed unsingable at first, but Ella Fitzgerald , who had started her career recording pop ballads, embraced it completely.
Ella Fitzgerald ...ooh dil dee ooh dee di di di du biyu bu bee. Ooh bop ba bam ahh gu gu bop... (crosstalk)
Keith David "Bop musicians have more to say than any other musicians playing today", she said. And bop musicians love the way she sounded.
Ella Fitzgerald ...bee di du di lu la du di doo di ooh bop dee ooh bop dee ooh bop dee ooh di ooh bee. I'm just a lonesome babe in the woods. Oh, lady, lady, lady won't you be so good to me? Bop di du di li dee doo du du do eeeh."
[sil.]
The pianist John Lewis also loved Charlie Parker's music but loathed the corrupting influence of his dissipation and drug use. In 1952 , he and other former members of Dizzy Gillespie's Bebop Big band formed a group of their own, the Modern Jazz Quartet.
[sil.]
The quartet rehearsed meticulously. Often wore tuxedos on stage. Refused to banter with the audience, preferred the quiet concert hall to raucous nightclubs. "A lot of people think jazz musicians are dope addicts," the vibraphonist as Milton Jackson said, "but we've proved it isn't so." Like his idol Duke Ellington , John Lewis insisted that his music be presented always with dignity. "I am an American Negro", he once said, "I'm proud of it. And I want to enhance that position."
The Apostle of Hipness
Ralph Ellison Charlie Parker's greatest significance was for the educated white middle-class youth, whose reactions with inconsistencies of American life was the stance of casting off its education, language, dress, manners and all standards. A revolt apolitical in nature, which finds it's most dramatic instance in the figure of the so-called "White Hipster." Ralph Ellison .
Keith David In the midst of the conformity of cold war America , Charlie Parker seemed the "Apostle of hipness." And his admirers convinced themselves that he was a kindred spirit.
ALLEN GINSBERG Poet
Allen Ginsberg I saw the best minds in my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked. Dragging themselves to the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix. Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty in tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities, contemplating jazz.
Gerald Early Whites have always listened to this music, but now you have whites who have some kind of intellectual pretension listening to this music. You have whites like the beats who suddenly are attracted to jazz because they think there's a kind of analogy for what they're doing in literature. You have whites who are Bohemian, who want to adopt a certain kind of lifestyle. Jazz always attracted those kind of people before, but now with bop it really, it really has become, uhm, uhm, almost kinda of institutionalizing jazz, that this, this, that it will attract these kind of elements.
[sil.]
Keith David Parker and his fellow beboppers were flattered by the attention of the beats but bewildered by it too. Bebop was intricate, sophisticated, demanding, only the most highly skilled musicians were capable of playing it. Yet the beats insisted it was simple, spontaneous self-expression. Anybody could do it.
Allen Ginsberg Jazz gives us a way of expressing the spontaneous emotions of the heart, it's like a fountain of instantaneous inspiration that's available to everybody, all you got to do is tune on the radio and put on your record or pick up an ax yourself and blow.
[sil.]
Keith David It was not the first time that jazz enthusiasts had misunderstood both the music and the musicians who made it. It would not be the last.
How can you describe jazz? Well, there are all sorts of definitions. But mainly, mainly it sounds like this.
[sil.]
Louis Armstrong !
Keith David To a good many bebop musicians, Louis Armstrong's music seemed hopelessly out-of-date.
Louis Armstrong Boy... (crosstalk)
Man, that really comes on, Louis .
Louis Armstrong Yes, sir.
Really. You know I've, I got a request. Hah ha.
Louis Armstrong Okay.
I, I wanna hear the Whiffenpoof Song.
Louis Armstrong Oh, yeah? You wanna hear one of them good old Birdland versions eh?
Yes, I'm ready to... (crosstalk)
Dizzy Gillespie himself had once dismissed him as a "has-been." But Bebop had its critics, too, and Armstrong , in a famous appearance at the Hollywood Bowl, made fun of Gillespie's trademark beret and the new music.
Louis Armstrong "Oh, tell me about it. At the tables up at Birdland, the place where Dizzy dwells, with those beards and funny hats, they love so well. Yes, all their riffs they were beaten out there, they walk crazy, cool, and dawn like this, ooby dooby ooby dooby dee ooby da, and the rest... (crosstalk)
Keith David Bebop and the reaction to it opened a huge schism in jazz. Politicizing the music as never before.
Louis Armstrong ...'til the flatted fifths are gone... (crosstalk)
Keith David Tommy Dorsey denounced Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker as musical communists. Sidney Bechet said bebop was already as dead as Abraham Lincoln . Roy Eldridge was more practical and perhaps, more honest. "The Bebop was a good," he said, "but they closed more clubs than they open."
Louis Armstrong Bye bye bebop."
My beloved subjects I bring you a terrible news, terrible. From now on, the official music of Squaresville is bebop.
[sil.]
Take it away Sherwood Trio!
[sil.]
Man, this really bugs me.
Monk
Wynton Marsalis Well, now when you get to Monk , he's my favorite musician. It's like somebody who's the oldest and most wisest sage that ever lived, but somebody who's five years old.
WYNTON MARSALIS Trumpet
Wynton Marsalis Then you have a superior musical mind of organization and logic, a mathematician. Like all of the bebop musicians, any musician in jazz ready to meet Monk's solo, are the most logical, they're masterpieces of logic and extremely consistent. Great composer, like to wear those hats, very funny. You know, Monk has a lot of wit. He music is very, very funny, very extremely syncopated.
OSSIE DAVIS Actor
Ossie Davis Thelonious Monk , The professor with a hat who did strange things with the piano. He is able to conjure out of the keys some strange thing and then he looks on what he has done and chuckles and says to me, "Oh that's good." And he, he tremendously enjoys his own capacity but he doesn't hesitate to share it with you.
[sil.]
Keith David No more mysterious man ever played jazz than Thelonious Sphere Monk . And few created more memorable music. Born in North Carolina in 1917 , he was raised on the west side of New York and steeped himself in gospel music as the teenage accompanist for traveling evangelist. By 1941 , he had become the presiding pianist at Minton's Playhouse in the days when bebop was being born.
CASSANDRA WILSON Singer
Cassandra Wilson Thelonious Monk is one of the jazz pianist who came along and just found the cracks in the middle of the diatonic scale which is what western music is based on. For me, Thelonious Monk dug inside of that and was able to communicate the smaller intervals that existed between.
Keith David He was a big reticent man who played with splayed fingers in a unique percussive style.
LORRAINE GORDON Club Owner
Lorraine Gordon And those fingers were so splayed, they never curved, I was always used to pianists having beautiful curved hands. But Thelonious would go like this and wait a minute before he hit that key and I said, "Oh, my God. Is he gonna make it?" And there, you know, it's never a continuity of flowing music but it was straight-fingered. He's thinking, "I'm gonna hit that," and I just sit there and saying, "Whew, where is it gonna land? Where is it gonna," he was always right, he always landed on the right note.
Keith David At first, casual listeners noticed only Monk's eccentricities. He had his own way of dressing. He often went for days without speaking to anyone. He uses elbows on the keys from time to time and sometimes got up in mid performance to dance in apparent ecstasy.
[sil.]
Keith David Blinded by his odd ways and disconcerted by the novel sounds he made, most critics failed to hear the echoes of the musicians he most admired; the master of Harlem stride, James P. Johnson and his greatest influence, Duke Ellington .
NAT HENTOFF Critic
Nat Hentoff Critics are sometimes extraordinarily obtuse. They claim they wanna hear new things, but new things bother them because they can't categorize them and Monk was really, very badly ah, ah, criticized in DownBeat and other, other of the jazz journals and that affects the work you get.
GEORGE WEIN Promoter
George Wein He and Ellington are the two greatest individual composers that jazz has ever, ah, has ever had. And if Thelonious Monk had a different personality and had the ability to organize and a strength to hold an organization to get in the way that Duke Ellington had that strength, he'll be much more famous and his music will be much more well known.
Keith David He rarely played anyone else's music, he explained, because he was determined to create a demand for his own. Over the years, many of his tunes became standards, 52nd Street Theme, Straight, No Chaser, and Round Midnight.
[sil.]
How are you? Thelonious Monk .
Wynton Marsalis Man, some classic Monk would be like epistrophe, hmm.
[sil.]
Wynton Marsalis You know, and then, then he gets to the bridge and he say as though(ph).
[sil.]
Wynton Marsalis It's just Monk , you know, just deeply rooted in the blues, soulful. He's that little impto doo dee dee, do the half steps, doo dee dee ah dee, gives you then he takes away, then he takes you down into the gutbucket bop, doo loo dee lee dee dee, leaves some space, doo boo doo deet deet deet tee dee, give to you another way, doo doo doo lee doo bee dee, back to the original theme, doo boo dee ooh doo boo dee ooh, that's the two half steps, doo doo dee dee, that's the same half step you know. It's hard to describe really what, 'coz Monk is just so logical and beautiful and just pure.
Keith David In 1951 , New York police found narcotics in the parked car in which he and the pianist, Bud Powell were sitting. The drugs actually belonged to Powell . And when Monk refused to testify against his friend, he was denied a cabaret card. He would not be able to perform in any New York club where liquor was served.
Nat Hentoff He, he had been in, in a sense, banished by both the police because he didn't have a card and by the critics. Musicians knew how good he was, but that didn't help.
Keith David Monk refused to consider leaving New York nor would he take a day job. He stayed at home in his crowded apartment for six long years, bend over the keyboard working on the music that was his obsession. Finally, Riverside Records issued an album of him playing his own compositions. This time, the critic, Nat Hentoff gave it an enthusiastic review in DownBeat. When Monk finally obtained a new cabaret card, he took a quartet into a club in the East Village called "The Five Spot." Big crowds followed, suddenly eager to hear the man the critics had once scorned.
[sil.]
Nat Hentoff The musicians were lined up two and three at the bar. I never was in Chicago when Louis Armstrong played at, with his Hot Five, but it must have been comparable to this. It was just, it's, it was, it was exhilarating, ah, 'coz you never knew what was happening but you knew whatever was happening would never happen again and you'd remember it for the rest of your life.
Keith David Monk had not changed. He still lapsed into long silences, still broke into dance on the bandstand, still played tunes so intricate, one saxophone player remembered, "that when his musicians got lost, it was like falling into an empty elevator shaft." It no longer mattered. After 15 years of obscurity and refusal to compromise, Thelonious Monk was at last hailed as a giant of jazz.
[sil.]
Billie Holiday Autumn in New York , why does it seem so inviting? Autumn in New York , it spells the thrill of first-nighting.
Gerald Early Without question, my favorite Billie Holiday song is "Autumn in New York ."
Billie Holiday Glittering crowds... (crosstalk)
Gerald Early When I hear her singing that I'm ready to cry.
Billie Holiday ...and canyons of steel. (crosstalk)
Gerald Early It's the most beautiful rendition of Autumn in New York I've ever heard in my life.
Billie Holiday ...will make you and me feel... (crosstalk)
GERALD EARLY Writer
Gerald Early I told my wife when I die, I want you to play that. (crosstalk)
Billie Holiday I'm whole(ph).
Gerald Early Her version of Autumn in New York is just beautiful.
Billie Holiday It's autumn in New York that brings the promise of new love. Autumn in New York is often mingled with pain. (crosstalk)
Keith David Like Thelonious Monk , Billie Holiday had lost her cabaret card because of a narcotics conviction. For most of the 1950s she was barred from singing in New York City clubs. But she was still able to sing in other cities and on the concert stage. Her audience grew and year after year, even in the bebop era, critics named her the best vocalist in jazz.
Billie Holiday Autumn in New York ... (crosstalk)
JIMMY ROWLES Piano
Jimmy Rowles You know, ah, she worked at it and she would give it all. She'd get her hand going with that finger and she just, ah, when she sang a ballad, you just comped almost like you din't have to lead her. You just did something behind her that you thought maybe she'd like. And if she liked it, she'd turn a grin at you, you know, and she'd use to turn and grin at me, that made me feel good. I said, " Lady Day likes this."
Billie Holiday Jaded rous and gay divorcees who lunch at the Ritz will tell you that it's divine.
[sil.]
Billie Holiday This autumn in New York , transforms the slums into Mayfair. (crosstalk)
Gerald Early Her voice was already diminished, but it had diminished to a point where she couldn't sing anymore.
Billie Holiday Autumn in New York you'll need no castle in Spain . (crosstalk)
Gerald Early She had lived inside her voice long enough and experienced so much that at this point her limitations turn out to make her the, the, the greatest kind of virtuoso.
Billie Holiday On benches in Central Park . Greet autumn in New York , it's good to live it again.
Cool
Keith David Hundreds of thousands of Americans moved to California after the war, eager to start new lives in a new land of opportunity. They would find a new variation of jazz there as well. Not long after the baritone saxophone player, Gerry Mulligan , played on The Birth of the Cool sessions with Miles Davis , he got himself a regular Monday night gig at The Haig. A small night club on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles .
GARY GIDDINS Critic
Gary Giddins Gerry Mulligan put together a quartet with Chet Baker on the trumpet, Chico Hamilton on drums and Bob Whitlock on bass and ah, the band was so serene and it, it just sounded like the Pacific Ocean that the, the waves, you know, the, the, the air wafting over the West Coast and young people love it. It became very popular on campuses. Time Magazine did a piece about it and in no time at all. It was a new movement "Cool Jazz" or " West Coast Jazz."
Keith David The best known West Coast group was the Quartet headed by Dave Brubeck . He had led an integrated army band during the second World War, then had gone back to school to study music with the French composer Darius Milhaud .
DAVE BRUBECK Piano
Dave Brubeck Darius Milhaud said, "Travel the world and keep your ears open and use everything you hear from other cultures, bring it into the jazz idiom." So when I was in Turkey and heard Turkish musicians playing this rhythm, and I said to him, "What is this rhythm, one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two-three?" Before I finish the bar, they're all going, yah yah yah yah tata, bam dong dong dong dong dada, you, you, and they were playing in 9/8, all improvising just like it was the American blues. And I thought, "Geez, a whole bunch of people can re, improvise it at nine? Why don't I learn how to do that?"
Keith David Brubeck's career had very nearly ended in 1951 when he seriously injured his neck in a swimming accident. From then on, he was forced to change his keyboard style, using driving block chords instead of single note passages. That style would be perfectly complimented by the playing of his alto saxophonist, Paul Desmond . Light, lyrical, romantic, like the sound Desmond himself said, "Of a dry Martini."
Nat Hentoff Paul had this lovely singing kind of sound on the alto. I mean, for example, he was, he was in love with Audrey Hepburn , not that anything ever happened but his music was like she appeared, ah, on screen. It's sort of lightness but yet substance underneath the, the appearance. Just very, very lyrical stuff.
[sil.]
Keith David Each man made the other better.
Dave Brubeck I wanted to do an album. It was called "Time Out" where we would get into a lot of different time signatures that weren't used in jazz like, that's one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two-three, one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two-three and I asked Paul to do something in five.
Keith David At their next rehearsal, Desmond brought in several original melodies.
David Brubeck And I looked at him and I said, " Paul , if you take the first theme" which was, and started with the bridge instead of.
[sil.]
David Brubeck So I said, "Now, put that thing first, repeat it and then go to the bridge." That's kinda how Take Five was born.
[sil.]
Keith David When Brubeck released the album "Time Out", it would sell more than a million copies, something no other jazz LP had ever done. Black, as well as white fans followed the Brubeck Quartet. It was named the favorite group of the readers of the Pittsburgh Courier and Brubeck never forgot that when Willie "The Lion" Smith heard one of his records with being told who's playing, Smith said, "He plays like where the blues was born."
[sil.]
Keith David No one understood better than Dave Brubeck himself the debt he owed to earlier generations of black musicians. In November of 1954 , he was on tour with Duke Ellington , a man he considered the greatest of American composers and a friend when Brubeck's portrait appeared on the cover of Time.
Dave Brubeck I heard him knocked on my hotel room at 7 o'clock in the morning and it was Duke . And he said, " Dave , you're on the cover of Time Magazine," and my heart sank because I wanted to be on the cover after Duke . I didn't wanna be on the cover before Duke because they were doing stories on both of us. The worst thing that could happen to me was that I was there before Duke and he was delivering the magazine to me saying, "Here."
[sil.]
On trumpet is Dizzy Gillespie .
[sil.]
Norman Granz Jazz is a America's own. It is played and listened to by all peoples in harmony together. Pigmentation differences have no place. As in genuine democracy, only performance counts. Norman Granz .
[sil.]
Keith David Year after year, Norman Granz , a California -born promoter led his integrated all-star jazz at the Philharmonic troop all over the country and overseas as well. Some of the greatest names in jazz were part of his group; Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker , Ella Fitzgerald , Stan Getz , Max Roach , Oscar Peterson , Gene Krupa , Buddy Rich , Coleman Hawkins , and Lester Young .
[sil.]
Keith David Granz had two goals in mind; to broaden the audience for jazz and to do so without compromising equal treatment for all musicians, black and white.
[sil.]
Martin Luther King, Jr. We feel that we are right and that we have a legitimate complaint and also we feel that one of the great glories of America is the right to protest for right.
Keith David Throughout the 1950s , as a nationwide civil rights movement began to build momentum, Norman Granz was quietly fighting for change in the world of jazz. If airlines or hotels or restaurants, anywhere Granz's people played, dare tried to discriminate against any of them. He did not hesitate to cancel.
STAN LEVEY Drums
Stan Levey The guy who really started to break it up was Norman Granz . We would tour, and he would just check everybody in to the Hilton Hotel. We'd all show up in the lobby, and they, ah-ah, a lot of, you know, throat- clearing, and say, "This is our group. Let's have our room." He was terrific. Norman really broke a lot of barriers, really great. We just show up. "Here we are."
The Future Unlived
Ralph Ellison While Charlie Parker slowly died like a man dismembering himself with dull razor on a spotlighted stage, his public reacted as though he were doing much the same thing. There's no saxophonist who hoot and honk and roll on the floor. In the end, he had no private life. And his most tragic moments were drained of human significance. Ralph Ellison .
PHIL SCHAAP Historian
Phil Schaap If you're gonna die at the age 34, I'm pretty sure you're not positive you're gonna die at the age of 34, and you may even be thinking you'll live to be 70 just like the Bible says. So, Bird's later career is not just the end of a short run, it's an examination of the future unlived. He's determined to create a new revelation in music that would have the magnitude of his bebop breakthrough. And he's on the hunt, and he's doing well. And then the rug gets pulled out from under him.
Keith David In March of 1954 , Charlie Parker was playing the Oasis Club in Hollywood . He was temporarily off drugs, but bloated and chronically disheveled. His health, undermined but the vast quantities of alcohol he was now consuming. Then, he got a telegram from Chan in New York . Their two-year-old daughter, Pree , had died of pneumonia.
CHAN RICHARDSON PARKER Former Wife
Chan Richardson Parker At the time that Pree was born, she was always ill and no doctor could find out why. And I had a heart specialist, a pediatrician, ah, who discovered she had an opening in, in her heart and this was before open heart surgery.
Keith David The night he got the news, Parker sent four telegrams from Los Angeles to Chan each more incoherent than the last.
Charlie Parker My darling, my daughter's death surprised me more than it did you. Don't fulfill funeral proceedings until I get there. I should be the first one to walk into our chapel. Forgive me for not being there with you while you are at the hospital. Yours most sincerely, your husband, Charlie Parker . My darling, for God's sake, hold on to yourself. Charles Parker .
[sil.]
Charlie Parker Chan , Help. Charlie Parker .
[sil.]
Charlie Parker My daughter is dead. I know it. I will be there as quick as I can. My name is Bird . It is very nice to be out here. People have been very nice to me out here. I'm coming in right away. Take it easy. Let me be the first one to approach you. I am your husband. Sincerely, Charlie Parker .
Chan Richardson Parker For me getting those telegrams was horrific. I was in shock. They were giving me tranquilizers. I wouldn't let loose of her bathrobe that she went to the hospital, and, and then every hour, another telegram and like, you know, it was horrible for me, horrible I'm sure Bird didn't realize and I'm sure he was going through his horror.
Keith David He managed to get through the funeral, but now seemed unable to hold himself together.
[sil.]
Keith David An engagement with a string section in Birdland ended in disaster, but it drained too much and tried to fire the band. The manager fired him instead.
[sil.]
Keith David He went home to Chan , quarreled with her, and try to kill himself by swallowing iodine. Ambulance workers saved him. His drinking got worse. He began riding the subways all night. He seemed frightened now, "On a panic" he called it, suspicious even of his admirers. "They just came out to see the world's most famous junkie," he told a friend.
[sil.]
Keith David One evening, he made his way into a New York club where his old friend, Dizzy Gillespie sat, listening to the band. Parker was rumpled, overweight, disoriented. "Why don't you save me, Dizz ?" He said over and over again, "Why don't you save me?. "I didn't know what to do", Gillespie remembered, "I just didn't know what to say." Parker stumbled back out on to the street.
[sil.]
Nat Hentoff I ran into him one night about three in the morning. I was going downstairs in the Birdland. Bird was coming up, and tears was streaming down his face. He said, "I've gotta talk to you. I've gotta talk to you." I said, "Fine, you'll, there's a, on a coffee shop right in the corner." "No, no, I'll call you tomorrow." But he never called. And I could, it's could, I could have been anybody I think.
JACKIE McLEAN Saxophone
Jackie McLean And he tried I'm sure many times to get himself together, but he was drinking, and that didn't help. And I had rented this horn and used it. And ah, one night I was getting in a cab, and, ah, I had been drinking a lot and Bird was helping me to get in the cab with some other people, and he said, "Here, let me take this," so he took the horn and, of course, ah, about two or three days later when I saw him he didn't have the horn. It was in the pawnshop. And, ah, and I was a little angry at him about that. So, I was playing in the Open Door that Sunday night and he came by to see me play. And I remember that night, he invited to drop me home after the job was over. And I said, no, that's okay, I'll get a cab 'cause I was still a little angry at him, you know.
[sil.]
Keith David On March 9th, 1955 , Parker was scheduled to take the train the Boston for an engagement. On the way, he dropped by the Stanhope Hotel on Upper Fifth Avenue . It was the home of his friend the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter , a member of the Rothschild family and a generous patron of jazz. Parker was clearly ill. And she called the doctor.
Chan Richardson Parker She called the doctor, and the doctor said, "This man needs to be hospitalized." And Bird refused to go to the hospital. And, ah, I think he just given up. His heart just gave up I think. You know, life had been too happy for him really.
Keith David Parker agreed to stay with the Baroness until he felt better.
[sil.]
Keith David Three days later, on Saturday, March 12th, Charlie Parker turned on the Dorsey Brothers' variety show.
[sil.]
Keith David He'd always like the sound of Jimmy Dorsey's saxophone.
[sil.]
Keith David The first act was a juggler.
[sil.]
Keith David Parker laughed, choked, then collapsed. By the time the doctor got there, he was dead. The official cause was pneumonia complicated by cirrhosis of the liver. But he had simply worn himself out. The coroner estimated his age at between 55 and 60. He was really just 34 years old.
[sil.]
Jackie McLean I bought a New York Post and I sat down on the bus, and I rode for several blocks before I opened it. And then when I opened the paper and looked inside, I saw the article which said that Bird was dead, that he had passed away at the Baroness' house. It was awful. You know, it was, it was terrible specially I felt specially bad because I had just seen him the two or three nights before that at the Open Door, and, and being angry about, ah, the horn, ah, had missed the moment that I could have had one more moment with him, you know. Everybody was crushed when Bird , I didn't go to his funeral. I couldn't, I just couldn't go. I couldn't be able, couldn't be a part of that.
Keith David When Parker was finally buried in his hometown of Kansas City , his mother ordered that no jazz was to be played during the services.
[sil.]
Keith David By then, his most avid followers had already covered walls in Greenwich Village with the slogan, " Bird Lives".
[sil.]
Gary Giddin I think the real legacy of Charlie Parker was the uncorrupted humanity of his music that's why it lives. You can analyze it as long as you want, but ultimately, it's the, it's the beauty and the perfection and, ah, the, the refusal to compromise in any way that moves us and will continue to move us.
Coda
Keith David Middleweight champion, Sugar Ray Robinson was Miles Davis' hero. Davis admired the elegance with which he dispatched his opponents, admired Robinson's clothes, his good looks, and the women who seemed always to be on his arm. "When he got into the ring" Davis remembered, "he never smiled. It was all business." Inspired by Robinson's seriousness about his craft, and finally weary of the life of his own addiction was forcing him to lead. Davis resolved in 1954 to kick his habit. Characteristically, he decided to do it on his own. He had just finished an engagement with Max Roach in Hollywood and rode the bus half way across the continent to his father's farm outside East St. Louis . His father told him he could do nothing for him except offer his love. The rest of it he said, "You got to do for yourself." Davis did. He moved into a two-room apartment on the second floor of his father's guest house and locked the door. For seven days, as the craving for drugs raged, he neither ate nor drunk shivering with cold and struggling to keep from screaming with the pain that tortured his joints. Then he remembered, "One day was over, just like that. I walked outside into the clean sweet air over my father's house. And when he saw me, he had this big smile in his face, and we just hugged each other and cried." "All I could think of," Miles Davis recalled, "was playing music and making up for all the time I had lost."
A Film By KEN BURNS Written By GEOFFREY C. WARD Produced By KEN BURNS LYNN NOVICK Co-Producers PETER MILLER VICTORIA GOHL Episode Editor SANDRA MARIE CHRISTIE Supervising Film Editor PAUL BARNES Narrated By KEITH DAVID Voices SAMUEL L. JACKSON DELROY LINDO ANTHONY LaPAGLIA KEVIN CONWAY Cinematography BUDDY SQUIRES KEN BURNS Associate Producers SARAH BOTSTEIN NATALIE BULLOCK BROWN SHOLA LYNCH Consulting Producer MADISON DAVIS LACY Senior Creative Consultant WYNTON MARSALIS Senior Advisor DAN MORGENSTERN Board of Advisors MICHAEL CHERTOK JAMES LINCOLN COLLIER STANLEY CROUCH MICHAEL CUSCUNA DAYTON DUNCAN JULIE DUNFEY GERALD EARLY TOM EVERED GARY GIDDINS MATT GLASER JOANNA GRONING ERIC HOBSBAUM ROBIN D.G. KELLEY CHARLIE LOURIE ALLEN LOWE ALBERT MURRAY DANIEL OKRENT BRUCE BOYD RAEBURN LOREN SCHOENBERG GUNTHER SCHULLER MARGARET WASHINTON Post-Production Coordinators CRAIG MELLISH AARON VEGA Additional Editing AARON VEGA Associate Editor BARNARD D. JAFFIER Assistant Editor DAVID McMAHON Editing Assistant in Charge of Narration TIM CLARK Production Associate KARA E. MICKLEY Additional Cinematography STEPHEN McCARTHY Assistant Camera ELIZABETH DORY ANNE MARIE FENDRICK DAVID A. FORD ANNE GWYNN ROGER HAYDOCK VIRGINIE PICHOT ANTHONY SAVINI JOHN TANZER WADE WHITLEY ANDREW YARME Sound Recording MARK DICHTER CHARLES FITZPATRICK PETER G. MILLER BRUCE PERLMAN MICHAEL REILLY WILLIAM SAROKIN GEORGE SHAFNACKER JOHN ZECCA Chief Financial Officer BRENDA HEATH Coordinating Producer PAM TUBRIDY BAUCOM Administrative Assistants SUSAN YEATON BUTLER PATTY LAWLOR Supervising Sound Editor IRA SPIEGEL Dialogue Editor MARLENA GRZASLEWICZ Music Editor JENNIFER DUNNINGTON Assistant Sound Editors MARIUSZ GLABINSKI BRIAN PRESTIA Re-Recording Mixer DOMINICK TAVELLA SOUND ONE Animation Stand Photography THE FRAME SHOP Edward Joyce and Edward Searles Archival Still Photography PAUL CHRISTENSEN Digital Image Restoration CHRIS LEARY Voice-Over Recording A RECORDING STUDIOS Lou Verrico Negative Matching NOELLE PENRAAT Title Design CHURCH MAIN, INC. JAMES MADDEN Color DUART FILM LABS Video Post-Production THE TAPE HOUSE/ NEW YORK Spirit Data Cine Film Transfer JOHN J. DOWDELL III Archival Film Transfers RICK PAGLIAROLI On-Line Editor JOE SALLERES Film Editing Equipment THE BOSTON CONNECTION Dwight Cody Legal Services ROBERT N. GOLD THOMAS R. LEVY Music "Salt Peanuts" Written by John Gillespie and Kenneth Clark Courtesy of Universal-MCA Music Publishing, A Division of Universal Studios, Inc. (ASCAP) Performed by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie Courtesy of Musicraft/Sire Records Group by arrangement with Warner Special Products "Dexterity" Written and performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Universal-Dutchess Music Corporation, (BMI) and Savoy Entertainment Group Denon Corporation ( USA ) "Dizzy Atmosphere" "Groovin' High" Written by John Gillespie Courtesy of Universal-MCA Music Publishing A Division of Universal Studios, Inc. (ASCAP) Performed by Charlie Parker and Dizzzy Gillespie Courtesy of Musicraft/Sire Records Group by arrangement with Warner Special Products "All of Me" Written by Seymour H. Simons and Gerald Marks Courtesy of Marlong Music Performed by Frank Sinatra Courtesy of Columbia Records by arrangement with Sony Music Licensing "Dewey Square (Prezology)" "Scrapple from the Apple" "Yardbird Suite" "Ornithology" "Now's the Time" Written and performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Atlantic Music Corp. and Savoy Entertainment Group Spotlite Records ( UK ) "Celebrity" Written and performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Atlantic Music Corp. and Laser Swing Productions Courtesy of Norman Granz and Jacques Muyal "Moose the Mooche" Written by and performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Atlantic Music Corp. and Savoy Entertainment Group Spotlite Records ( UK ) "Boperation" Written by Howard McGhee and Fats Navarro Courtesy of Twenty-Eighth Street Music and Second Floor Music Performed by Fats Navarro and Kenny Clarke Courtesy of Blue Note Records, a Division of Capitol Records, Inc. Under License from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets "Lover Man" Written by Jimmy Davis , Roger Ramirez and Jimmy Sherman Courtesy of Universal-MCA Music Publishing, A Division of Universal Studios, Inc. (ASCAP) Performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Savoy Entertainment Group Spotlite Records ( UK ) "Oop Bob Sha Bam" Written by John Gillespie and Walter Fuller Courtesy of Music Sales Corporation Performed by Dizzy Gillespie "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" Written and performed by Hank Williams Courtesy of Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. Used by Permission All Rights Reserved and Mercury Nashville Records, Under License from Universal Music Enterprises "Manteca" Written by John Gillespie and Chano Pozo Courtesy of Music Sales Corporation (ASCAP)and Twenty-Eighth Street Music Performed by Dizzy Gillespie Courtesy of The RCA Records Label of BMG Entertainment "The Baseball Quadrille" Arranged by Paul Maybery Performed by The Dodworth Saxhorn Band "Chi Chi" Written and performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Atlantic Music Corp. and the Verve Music Group, Under License from Universal Music Enterprises "Confirmation" Written by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Atlantic Music Corp. Performed by Jackie McLean Courtesy of Blue Note Records, a Division of Capitol Records, Inc. Under License from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets "Confirmation" Written by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Atlantic Music Corp. Performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Blue Note Records a Division of Capitol Records, Inc. Under License from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets "Rockin' Chair" Written by Hoagy Charmichael Courtesy of PSO Ltd. (ASCAP) o/b/o Hoagy Publishing (ASCAP)/ Peer International Corporation (BMI) Performed by Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden Courtesy of The RCA Records Label of BMG Entertainment "When the Saints Go Marching In" Traditional, arranged by Louis Armstrong Courtesy of Edwin H. Morris Co., A Division of MPL Communications, Inc. (ASCAP) Performed by Louis Armstrong and his All Stars Courtesy of Columbia Records by arrangement with Sony Music Licensing "Klaunsrance" Written by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Atlantic Music Corp. and Savoy Entertainment Group Denon Corporation "Just Friends" Written by John Klenner and Sam M. Lewis Courtesy of EMI Robbins Catalog Inc. Performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of the Verve Music Group Under License from Universal Music Enterprises "White Christmas" Written by Irving Berlin Courtesy of Irving Berlin Music Company (ASCAP) Performed by Charlie Parker "Bebop" Written by John Gillespie Courtesy of Universal-MCA Music Publishing, A Division of Universal Studios, Inc. (ASCAP) Performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Savoy Entertainment Group Denon Corporation ( USA ) "Don't Blame Me" Written by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh Courtesy of EMI Robbins Catalog Inc. Performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy Savoy Entertainment Group Spotlite Records ( UK ) "Boplicity" Written by Cleo Henry Courtesy of Sophisticate Music Performed by Miles Davis Courtesy of Blue Note Records, a Division of Capitol Records, Inc. Under License from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets "Caldonia" Written by Fleecie Moore Performed by Louis Jordan Courtesy of Cherio Corp. (BMI) "Venus DeMilo" Written by Gerry Mulligan Courtesy of Beechwood Music Corp. Performed by Miles Davis Courtesy of Blue Note Records, a Division of Capitol Records, Inc. Under License from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets "Moon Dreams" Written by Chummy MacGregor and Johnny Mercer Courtesy of WB Music Corp. (ASCAP) Performed by Miles Davis Courtesy of Blue Note Records, a Division of Capitol Records, Inc. Under License from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets "The Hymn (Superman)" " Charlie's Wig" Written and performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Universal-Dutchess Music Corporation (BMI) and Savoy Entertainment Group Spotlite Records ( UK ) "Hot House" Written by Tadd Dameron Courtesy of WB Music Corp. (ASCAP) Performed by Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie "Get Happy" By Harold Arlen and Ted Kochler Courtesy of Warner Bros., Inc.(ASCAP) and S.A. Music Co. Performed by Bud Powell "Oh! Lady be Good" Music and Lyrics by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin Courtesy of WB Music Corp./ New World Music Company (ASCAP) Performed by Ella Fitzgerald "Whiffenpoof Song" Written by Tod Galloway Meade Minnigerode , George S. Pomeroy , Rudy Vallee , and Moss Hart Courtesy of EMI Miller Catalog Inc. Performed by Louis Armstrong "Blue Monk " "Five Spot Blues" "Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lucs-Are" Written and performed by Thelonious Monk Courtesy of Thelonious Music Corp. "Epistrophy" Written by Theolonious Monk and Kenneth Clarke Courtesy of Embassy Music Corporation (BMI) Performed by Theonious Monk Courtesy of Blue Note Records, a Division of Capitol Records, Inc. Under License from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets "Autumn in New York " Written by Vernon Duke Courtesy of Kay Duke Music/ BMG Songs, Inc. (ASCAP) Performed by Billie Holiday Courtesy of the Verve Music Group, Under License from Universal Music Enterprises "Walkin' Shoes" Written and performed by Gerry Mulligan Courtesy of Criterion Music Corp. and Blue Note Records, a Division of Capitol Records, Inc. Under License from EMI-Capitol Music Special Markets "Blue Rondo a la Turk" Written by Dave Brubeck Performed by The Dave Brubeck Quartet by arrangement with Derry Music Company "Take Five" Written by Paul Desmond Performed by The Dave Brubeck Quartet by arrangement with Desmond Music Company and Derry Music Company "Blues After Dark" Written by Benny Golson Courtesy of Time Step Music Performed by Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Stitt Jazz at the Philharmonic Laser Swing Productions, Courtesy of Norman Granz and Jacques Muyal "Out of Nowhere" Written by Edward Heyman and John W. Green Courtesy of Famous Music Performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Savoy Entertainment Group Spotlite Records ( UK ) "Embraceable You" Written by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin Courtesy of WB Music Corp./ Chappell /New World Music Company, Ltd.(Admistered by WB Music Corp.) (ASCAP) Performed by Charlie Parker Courtesy of Savoy Entertainment Group Spotlite Records ( UK ) "Getting Sentimental Over You" Written by George Bassman and Ned Washington Courtesy of EMI Mills Music, Inc. Performed by Tommy Dorsey Courtesy of The RCA Records Label of BMG Entertainment "Generique" Written and performed by Miles Davis Courtesy of EMI Mills Music, Inc. and Columbia Records by arrangement with Sony Music Licensing ARCHIVAL STILL IMAGES Frank Driggs Collection Duncan Schiedt Collection Archive Photos Anthony Barboza Collection Bibliothque Nationale de France Blue Note Records, A Division of Capitol Records, Inc. Jean-Philippe Charbonnier Columbia Records Berenice Abbott , Commerce Graphics Ltd., Inc. Corbis Images Culver Pictures, Inc. Discotheque Municipale Villefrance de Rouergue Fantasy, Inc. Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University Stan Levey Prints Photographs Division, Library of Congress Metronome Collection Mosaic Images The Municipal Archives of the City of New York National Archives Humanities and Social Science Library, The New York Public Library Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library Thom Nolan Michael Ochs Archives.com The Bob parent Archive Chan Parker Francis Paudras Collection Saint Louis Public Library Salvation Army National Archives The Sony Photo Library Buddy Squires Union Pacific Railroad Museum Collection Special Collections, The University of Missouri-Kansas City Dave Brubeck Collection, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, The University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA Harry Ransom Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin Universal Music Enterprises Carolyn White Ken Whitten Collection JAZZ ART PHOTOGRAPHY Joe Alper Al Avakian Esther Bubley William Claxton Bob Douglas Lee Friedlander William P. Gottlieb Austin Hansen Leroy Henderson Paul J. Hoeffler Don Hunstein Herman Leonard Bob Parent Chuck Stewart Lee Tanner Francis Wolff ARCHIVAL FILM Chertok Associates, Inc. "Jazz On Film" John E. Allen Archives Archive Films Jessica Berman-Bogdan and Holly Cara Price Michael Blackwood Productions, Inc. Mark Cantor /Celluloid Improvisations CBS News Archives Jackie Gleason Enterprises, LLC Grinberg Film Libraries Historic Films Archive, LLC Hot Shots/Cool Cuts Image Bank INA Institut National de l'Audiovisuel Bud Powell Footage Courtesy of "Jazz au Blue Note," Jean-Christophe Averty , 1960 J. Fred MacDonald Associates Hal Miller National Archives NBC Television News Archive Timex All Star Jazz Shows Courtesy of Lawrence White Tokyo Broadcasting System UCLA Film and Television Archive "Pull My Daisy " by Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie Courtesy of Robert Frank and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Historical footage from "Improvisation" by Laser Swing Productions, Courtesy of Norman Granz and Jacques Muyal Permission granted by the Estate of Duke Ellington under license by CMG Worldwide, Inc. LOUIS ARMSTRONG EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION, INC. David Gold Phoebe Jacobs Oscar Cohen LOUIS ARMSTRONG HOUSE AND ARCHIVES Michael Cogswell , Director Sole and Exclusive Representative: Oscar Cohen , President Associated Booking Corporation, New York, NY for LOUIS ARMSTRONG EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION, INC. LOUIS ARMSTRONG HOUSE AND ARCHIVES LOUIS ARMSTRONG ESTATE Archival Research Anne Connan Elisabeth Hartjens Anne Legrand Production Assistants Marie DuMont Seith Mann Post-Production Assistants Sarah Burns Rick Kaplan Patrick Kerr Joshua LeBlanc Christopher Ohlson Adrienne Sockwell Alex Webb Interns Heather Autry Conor Guy Christopher Brunelle Kimberly Johnson Stephen Bydal Justin Levy Peter Condon Justin Lundstrom Nate Danilezyk Hannah Readnour Madeleine Dorsey Andy Ritzo Bianca Escobar Katherine Robinson Matthew Frucci Karen Royce Richard Gallup J.P. Sarro Zaki Gordon Marianne Wall EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS Philip Guarascio Dennis Bolen Ward Chamberlin Luana Floccuzio Margaret Holmes Judy Hu Skip Roberts Dianne Romanelli Special Thanks The People of Walpole, New Hampshire Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University The Blue Note Mr. and Mrs. Norman Halper Alan Marino Smalls The Unitarian Church of Walpole Village Vanguard The Williams Club Ed Arrendell Allen Mahone Jenny Bagert Peter Maniura Tracey Bauer Betty McGettigen Michael Beach Don McManus Aaron Bell William Miles Blue Note Records Mosaic Records Kevin Bradley Don Mueller Eric McKinley Brown Marty Olinick Lilly Burns Charles Parham Tim Clark Francis Paudras Michael Cogswell David Peck Oscar Cohen Oxford University Press Owen Comora Mark Polyocan Beth Courtney Peter Pullman Rosiland Cron Latanya Richardson DaCapo Press, Inc. Fred Russo Stanley Dance Charles Schuerhoff Russ Dantzler Wendy Shay Ann Dowd Janet Sommer Deslyn Downes Greg Smith Shawn Elliot Roger Guenveur Smith Alex Gatje Sony Music Rob Gibson Steeplechase Films Allen Ginsberg Susanna Steisel Ira Gitler Genevieve Stewart James Graham Lee Tanner Jan Grenci Tole's Variety and Sunoco Edward Herrmann Trackwise Inc. Michael Hill Angela Troisi Hogan Jazz Archive Univ. of California Press Robert Hurwitz Univ. of South Carolina Press Franz Jackson Ken Vail Phoebe Jacobs David Waingarten The Jazz Gallery, NYC Waves Antiques Calvin Jefferson Scott Wenzel Dennis Jeter John Wilmot Johnston's Jukeboxes Adam Wolman Gene Jones Yellow Wood Arnaud Lartigue Lee Young National Publicity DAN KLORES ASSOCIATES Produced in Cooperation with BBC Produced in Association with WETA-TV, WASHINGTON For WETA Executive in Charge of Production DALTON DELAN Project Director DAVID S. THOMPSON Associate Producer KAREN KENTON Publicity DEWEY BLANTON TRACEY CLARK-STAJKA President CEO SHARON P. ROCKEFELLER A Production of Florentine Films Executive Producer KEN BURNS 2000 , The Jazz Film Project, Inc. All Rights Reserved Funding Provided by General Motors Corporation Public Broadcasting Service The Park Foundation Corporation for Public Broadcasting The PEW Charitable Trusts Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism Funding Provided by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation The National Endowment for the Humanities The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reva and David Logan Foundation Helen and Peter Bing The National Endowments for the Arts
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