Album of the Week
People have been paying tribute to Charlie Parker with a whole lotta love since he died in 1955. And not just that. Step out to any decent jam session featuring up and coming players and see the established faces too. They will at some stage play a Charlie Parker number.
These tributes go back a long time. Listen to Rollins Plays for Bird for instance with bebop pioneer Max Roach on it in 1956.
Or The Max Roach 4 Plays Charlie Parker recorded in 1957 issued a couple of years later was a piano less approach like this new one a short lifetime on from alto saxist Jim Snidero’s time.
Don’t even stop there: In the 1960s Stitt Plays Bird had altoist Sonny Stitt with guitarist Jim Hall among the personnel.
Supersax album Plays Bird in 1973 had Warne Marsh among the soloists on an album that featured transcribed solos of Parker’s.
And much more recently Bird at 100 by Vincent Herring, Bobby Watson and Gary Bartz marked the centenary of Charlie Parker’s birth.
One of my favourites besides all these is Bud Powell’s trio album Bud Plays Bird which had to wait many years for its release in the 1990s. I also dug Bird inspired Django Bates Belovèd album, Study of Touch.
Continuing this necessary memorialising given that Parker’s language bebop is still at the core of most contemporary modernistically inclined jazz, Snidero, born in 1958, grew up in Camp Springs, Maryland, near Washington DC., attending come college time the University of North Texas.
In New York Snidero joined future acid jazz organ hero Brother Jack McDuff’s band, recording two albums with McDuff in the early-1980s.
40 years since Snidero’s first album as a leader
This new album Bird Feathers marks 40 years since Snidero made his first album of his own which was called On Time.
Hard to find – a collector’s item – it was produced by Japanese piano legend Toshiko Akiyoshi and featured Mwandishi great Billy Hart.
Recent albums of the saxist’s include last year’s For All We Know.
Bassist Peter Washington steals the show for his soloing on Embraceable You which is worth the price of this new album alone.
Known for his work in the Bill Charlap trio Washington reunites with Snidero and the Wyntonian drummer Joe Farnsworth who is on pianist Eric Scott Reed’s upcoming album Out Late for Smoke Sessions that also includes Nicholas Payton and Eric Alexander in the line-up. We’ve heard a few tracks and they are stunning.
Washington and Farnsworth are on Snidero’s album issued by the same label, US jazz indie Savant, as For All We Know which came out last year. It had a soupçon of a Parker connection given the presence of Parker’s Mood, a theme that is fleshed out far more fully conceptually and in the driving seat on this new release.
What are the tunes?
A studied insouciance is the name of the game
This ain’t a torch ’em, scorch ’em sort of Bird tribute. Nor is it done as a period piece. But wanting the ur text a bit we have gone back to listen to some key recordings of each to bask in all things Bird. Forget notions of a Blue Monday. It’s Bebop Monday thanks to Snidero and pals given how on its own merits the album stacks up at this stage of the 21st century.
1 Bird Feathers
A 1947 quintet version of Bird Feathers.
2 Scrapple from the Apple
Again from 1947.
3 These Foolish Things
Englishman Jack Strachey wrote so called Mayfair song These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You) that had lyrics by compatriot Eric Maschwitz and landed in the 1930s. Bird makes it his own via the language of bebop.
4 Ornithology
Ornithology is a contrafact of How High The Moon – here it’s the original 1946 septet version with Miles Davis, Lucky Thompson et al.
5 Embraceable You
George Gershwin’s Embraceable You. Washington on the Snidero version is 5 star.
6 The Nearness of You
Hoagy Carmichael’s The Nearness of You.
7 Charlie’s Wig
Bird’s own tune Charlie’s Wig. Not often covered much these days so a good choice given that. Plus it’s a fun tune. It’s a contrafact of the Romberg/Hammerstein song covered by Paul Whiteman in the 30s When I Grow Too Old To Dream.
Snidero’s hero Phil Woods did a version with flugel player Bob Lark on In Her Eyes issued in 2006.
8 Confirmation
The Dizzy Gillespie Jazzmen’s first version of Bird classic Confirmation.
9 Lover Man
Synonymous with above all Billie Holiday, the Jimmy Davis, Roger “Ram” Ramirez and James Sherman classic was heart wrenchingly interpreted by Bird in what is seen by some as a study of personal tragedy. We hold the mirror of Bird’s art to his life here as Clint Eastwood did memorably on his moving biopic Bird (1988) staring Forest Whitaker.
Overall then: sonics are fine. Just snap it up as there is nothing to worry about on that account if you are an audiophile snob but it’s not in your face if you are one of those people who want the mastering levels set to 11 because they’re not. Snidero’s alto sound is nice and clean. The balladic sections of the album are exceptionally strong.
Blue Monday? No. Let’s just call today Bebop Monday. The Charlie’s the gift that keeps on giving. Bar none.
MORE FROM MARLBANK
You must be logged in to post a comment.