Charlie Parker probably looms large in the lives of most saxophone players. His short but massive contribution has been a frequent source of inspiration in quite varied ways for my own works including Savoy Trifle (1988), A-Synchronous Au-Privave (1989), Chase the Bird (1991) and entropology (2002). Hey Jazz Fans! is the latest instalment. Many years ago a friend gave me a record called Devil May Care (or maybe I gave it to him and then ‘borrowed’ it back) of cheesy jazz songster and self-confessed hipster Bob Dorough. (Dorough’s finest hour was singing the sycophantic "Nothing like you has ever been seen before "on Miles Davis’ album Sorcerer.) One of the tracks on Devil May Care was a scat-style vocal version of Parker’s Yardbird Suite featuring banal lyrics to every note of Parker’s legendary solo from the LP Bird Symbols.
I guess I always dreamed of some terrible revenge that could be exacted for this desecration and through the use of interactive software, I finally found a way. In Hey Jazz Fans! notes on the Alto Sax are mapped to bites of Dorough’s Yardbird, allowing the live performer to trigger 30 or so chunks or Dorough at will. In effect just by playing the original Parker solo the performer can like a vengeful and caring devil, rip Dorough’s version apart phrase by phrase. And when you improvise… well it feels good.
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