Jazz is rife with apocryphal stories that tell in mysterious, almost religious, ways an inner tale of the character and mission of the musician.
Harry “Sweets” Edison, a lynchpin of the Basie band and a tasteful trumpet player extraordinaire, once remarked in mocking tones that Charlie Parker’s devotees were committed to Bird in such a deluded manner that if he played a wrong note and it was pointed out by a present and knowledgeable musical mind, that person might get knocked out cold by an enraged true-believing Bird watcher who felt that their man could do no wrong.
Barry Harris, the great Detroit pianist, tells of meeting Bud Powell, his eventual mentor and the greatest of the bop keyboardists, at the Alvin Hotel, across the street from Birdland, on New York’s legendary 52nd street.
Bud’s shoes had been taken from him by his self-appointed keeper, one Altivia Edwards – also known as ‘Buttercup’ – so that he couldn’t wander out into the street and get lost because he sometimes seemed to exist in a state of foolish grace.
Harris said he heard a knock on his door. He answered, and there stood a sock-footed Powell. Without as much as the most meager introduction (Harris was a total stranger at the time), Bud said, “You got any shoes I can wear?”
An amazed Harris replied, “I got some shoes.”
Bud slipped his feet into the shoes, walked out the door and wandered away. A few minutes later Harris was confronted by “Buttercup” and cursed out for assisting Saint Bud.
Years later, when retelling the story, he would raise his hands skyward in wonder and slyly remark, “How do I refuse shoes to Bud Powell?”
A British jazz journalist standing in the rear at a Miles Davis concert was the first to greet Miles as he came off stage. Mesmerized by the music and damn near speechless, she blurted out, “Miles, that was one of the greatest sets I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Miles self-embraced and in the midst of the throes of his own muse, glared right into her in classic demonic Davis fashion and hoarse-whispered, “Yeah, but how do I look?”
These stories tell us that Charlie Parker held the jazz status of the Sun King. His acolytes invested everything they had in his being and his stumble or fall would certainly become the same for them, thus his perfection became their one truth.
Bud Powell, an unsocialized genius, lived in a state of grace. His relatively short life is filled with these tales of sweet suffering and mental anguish. They’re even reflected in his greatest compositions: “Glass Enclosure,” “Oblivion,” “Un Poco Loco (A Little Crazy).”
Miles, the greatest individual star in jazz’s short history, is that star because he went beyond jazz, becoming an American and then world icon. He had a whole lot of stuff running around in his head besides music.
The ethic of style
Sonny Rollins is the arguably the last great jazz star from what I like to call the romantic or initiating period of jazz. He is what remains of what was once a localized, regional, black working-class evolving art that hadn’t quite yet been overwhelmed by the American corporate mind and was dominated by the ethic, not of genius, but of style.
In the world of Rollins’ youth, great music men lived in the community. You could literally go to their houses and talk to them about their art. They were accessible and willing.
I conjured the stories of Parker, Powell and Davis because Rollins himself has told us that they were his mentors. In the Sonny Rollins Podcast, an online documentary that followed him on tour, in several interview segments he says this about these three giants.
“Charlie Parker, he was our God.”
“Bud Powell was the great professor of bop. He was our Mozart. He lived on 141st and Edgecombe Ave. I used to go up there with Jackie Mc Clean and Roy Haynes and listen to him practice and play his latest compositions.”
“Miles was the great seeker. He was restless and never liked to stay still. I loved him as the greatest bop trumpeter, because he figured out how to create a style that was a kind of foil for the velocity and execution of both Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. He brought that inner lyrical thing that was missing. People didn’t like or understand it at first, but he made them listen. He turned everything around. I’m a lot like him in that I don’t sit on my laurels. I have to change.”
This one comes straight from his sister, Gloria.
Gloria said, “My grandmother was very pious. At the dinner table she would say grace. It would be long and drawn out and grave. We had to bow our heads. One evening Gran was saying grace and she was going on and on and on. We were kids. Sonny was the baby. As Gran meandered on thanking the Lord for this and that Sonny suddenly looked up and then over at her and said, clear as a bell, ‘Hold it, Gran.’ He then turned and reached over and flipped the ‘on’ switch to the radio, and the Lone Ranger’s theme came bouncing into the room and rode over my grandmother saying grace. It was maybe the funniest moment of my young life. I laugh out loud thinking about it today.”
John Coltrane once said while listening to Rollins (they were best friends) with a group of musicians, “Sonny can play any song and make it sound as if he either wrote it or that it has been written specifically for him. I have to find tunes that fit me, but he can make any song his own.”
On that evening as his West Indian grandmother gave thanks, he turned and with a twist of his young wrist he changed that most common evening into a night of amazing grace.
Sonny Rollins will perform at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis at 8 p.m. Saturday, September 19. The show is presented by Jazz St. Louis and sponsored by World Wide Technology, Inc. Tickets are $125, $50 and $35. Call 314-516-4949 or visit www.touhill.org/jazz.
