30 BEBOP: THE MUSIC AND ITS PLAYERS tures was new to jazz when Parker employed them; Armstrong often accented the highest notes of phrases, Sidney Bechet used the weak-to- strong phrasing of eighth notes, and Coleman Hawkins was fond of long strings of swing eighth notes. But the particular combination of these ingredients produced a distinctive sound. In more moderate tempos C= 125-200) he usually intermingled eighth-note and sixteenth-note phrases in varying proportions. In tempos below J = 125 most of his phrases were in sixteenth and thirty-second notes, His skill in playing ‘many notes per second and organizing them into coherent and interest- ing phrases was extraordinary in the 1940s, for few players could equal ‘him in this rogaed. Parke, lite all important improviser, developed « personal reper- tory of melodic formulas that he used in the course of improvising. He found many ways to reshape, combine, and phrase these formulas, so that no two choruses were just alike. But his “spontaneous” perfor: ‘manees were actually precomposed in part, This preparation was abso- Jutely necessary, for no one can create fluent, coherent melodies in real ‘me without having a well-rchearsed bag of melbdic. tricks ready. His well-practiced melodic patterns are essential identifiers of his style. Because Parker’s recorded legacy is extensive itis possible not only 10 compile alist of Parkex’s favorite figures but to see how he used these figures in different contexts. A study of is hundreds of choruses of the blues in BY, F, and C and dozens of choruses of I Got Riylim, What Is This Thing Called Love?, How High the Moon, and others shows that his improvising was largely formulaic. The ei of the theme were sarely significant in shaping his solo; instead, he favored a certain reper- ‘ory of formulas for the blues in B*, a slightly different repertory for the blues in F, a much different one for 4 Night én Tunisia in D minor, and 50 on. Some phrases in his vocabulary came from swing, either un- changed or modified; others he created. But'whether using borrowed o ‘original melodic formulas, his way of combining and organizing them ‘was his own, Parker's formulas fall into several categories. Some are only a few notes long and are adaptable to many harmonic contexts, They tend to be the figures he (and his imitators) used most often, for they oocar in many different.keys and pieces. Others form complete phrases with, well-defined harmonic implications, and are correspondingly rare. Most occur on 2 variety of pitches, but others appear on only one or two pitch levels. A few occur only in a single group of pieces in a single key. Included below are his most common figures plus a few of the rare ones that are particularly idiosyneratic? TIE PARKER STYLE 31 1A B ‘Dwo short figures, IA and 2A, occur more frequently than any others. Each appears once every eight or nine measures, on the average, in hie sos, Te fe (whch Coleman Hans los) sana ing arpeggio, usually played as a triplet, as in the frst two versions, ‘When preceded by an upper o lower neighbor, ts shown in the second and third versions, 1 requently begins a phrase, although it may occur anywhere in a phrase. Figure 2A, an inverted mordént (showa in three different variants), is even simpler in construction and easier to play than the ascending arpeggio of 1A, Because ofits brevity and simplicity the motive appears in almost any context, and is an incidental compo- nent in a number of more complex figures, such as 2B, Parker's early role model, Lester Young, also made extensive use of 2A, and even played 2B in his 1936 solo in Shoe Shine Boy.* This latter figure occurs at the beginning of Parker's solo in The Jumpin’ Blues of 1942, and reappears as the beginning of the Orsitiology theme in 1946, Figure 1B contains a rising arpeggio, as in 1A, but tums back on itself. Though it is as easy to play as 1A, it appears less than one-Sifth as often. 3 ame ow or ow Ranking third in order of frequency isthe more extended Figure 3. Teoccurs in several different pitch shapes, all of which contain a charac~ teristic feature of the harmonic minor scale: the raised 7th and lowered 6th scale degrees (B and A? in this example), which function as the 3rd and minor 9th of « dominant minor-ninth chord. Because of its strong harmonic implications this figure nearly always occurs where there is a ‘Vi-l harmonic relationship, especially # secondary dominant relationship, such as the [V7-I]i progression in measures 8 and 9 of the. bhies (G?-Cum in the blues in BY), 4A Bae o = « 3 ‘The chromatic motions of Figures 44—F are hardly distinctive; pointing thea oat is rather like pointing out the frequent use of some common prepositions in literary works. For example, the five-note chro~ matic ascent of Figure 4F was 2 favorite of Lester Young as well as Parker. Yet these bits are important components of the language; in articular, the simplest of these Figures, 44, is part of what David ‘Baker has termed the “bebop dominant seale” and the “bebop major scale SA 3B sc ee (=p ee ees ‘The chromatic Figure 5A appears occasionally in solos by Coleman ‘Hawkins and Roy Eldridge, but often in the rhythmic configuration of quarter-cighth-cighth, not the three eighth notes that Parker favored. ‘Figure SB is moze distinctive and became onc of the most frequently copied of Parkers figures. He may have learned it from the beginning of Ellington's Concerto for Coote (or Do Nothin’ Til You Hear from Me). ‘Figure SC is combination of 1A and an extension of 5B. og, oe a Sam gry one 9 pyr har cul Ont chu? cnt nA IB ba? ar uit a Briefly, Figures 6A and 6B are common tonic chord embellish ‘ments; Figure 7—a short-note ascent or descent—is a frequent phrase beginning; Figure 8 incorporates both the raised 9th and lowered 9th of dominant chord; Figure 9 becaniea bebop cliché for approsching he chord in measure 9 of the blues; Figure 10 occurs most frequently over ‘the IV*7 chord (as in measure 5 of the bines); and Figures 11A and 11B typicelly occur over the ii-V progression. 2 ‘The famous “latted fifth” of bebop played a relatively small role in Parker's playing; many solos contain not 2 single instance of it. But when he did use it he usually called attention to it in a swiking way, as showa in Figure 12, 13A 138 ay? ents SS vie PS ee4 BEBOP: THE MUSIC AND IT PLAYERS i“ orn 154 138 16 Car ‘The remaining figures shown above are less common but aurally striking, nonetheless: 13A and 13B emphasize the augmented 5th of dominant chord, as in the progression [V/-IJIV; Figure 14 touches on the 13th, augmented 11th, and 9th of a dominant chord; Figures 15A and 15B are built upoa diminished 7th chords (although Parker was, probably thinking of dominant sevenths with flatted ninths in 15A); and Figure 16 is built upon a whole-tone seal. Tn addition to favoring the patterns shown above, Parker was fond of quoting bits of melodies, often with humorous intent. In doing so he ‘was following 2 tradition well established in earlier jazz by Louis Arm- strong and others. Usually these quotations appear in the informal performances, although some eppcar in the studio recordings as well. His favorites were the opening of the clarinet descant of High Society, ‘THE PARKER STYLE 38 opening of Grainger’s Country Gardons, which he used over and over again as a coda. Parker's solos often have an inevitability about them; they seem to hheve been crested by aman who mew exactly where he was going and ‘what to play next. His style seems to'have internal logic and consistency. ‘The great umber of players who copied his style probably sensed! this quality in his musi, which is way they copied him in th frst place. But ‘what makes his style so consistent within itself? ‘Muck of the compelling nature of his improvising had to do with his command of the instrument and of his musical language. He had the technical equipment to play whatever he wanted to play, whenever he wanted to play it. And he hed a sense of swing that almost never vwavered.#0 Even when bis personal life and physical condition were in chaos his capacity to make coherent rmusic was nearly unshakable.1! The sheer energy and self-confidence of his playing surely contributed to his music's impact on listeners. But lying beneath the surface of most of his improvisations is another factor that helps generate the sense of rightness in his music. ‘Typically entire phrases, and even entire choruses and groupings of choruses, are goal-oriented; they arrive on a final note that lies at the end of a lengthy stepwise descent. ‘To see this scalar descent in microcosm, one need only re-examine some of his favorite melodie formulas, In Figure 3 an, om rt ou aa * “ there is a five-note scalar descent to the third of the dominant chord B jn this example), then a rise (sometimes filled in by chordal leaps, sometimes not) to the minor ninth of the dominant chord (A* in this example) and 2 final descent to the fifth of the tonic chord (G here). Thus, there is an-underlying descent of a seventh, folded over to stay within the mid-range of the saxophone, In Figures 4A, 4D, and 4E the short descents are obvious, and they are only slightly veiled in Figures 5A, 5B, SC, 9, and 10, In 114 and LIB they are-embedded within broken chord figuration. In 15A the central descent is ftom E* to E; but the initial high F and the final D are also part ofthis descent, though the‘To see fully how these scalar descents work, one must delve into a solo. Here is the opening chorus of his great solo in The Closer, J=280 Seale nn 4 blues from the Jazz at the Philharmonic concert of 18 September 1949.12 The downward stems indicate the actual rhythms of his impro- vised melody; the upward stems connected by an extended beam ind?- cate the notes of the scalar descent, which begins in the third full ‘measure, The breaks in the beam indicat places where he interrupts the sealar descent and then returns to the note 6a which he left off. He ingeniously disguises the descent with an unpredictable array of chordal leaps; shifs of register, and repetitions. ‘The shifts of register, such as the A to G in measure 10, are dramatically effective. They are also necessary, for unfolded, the descent that underlies this chorus would span four octaves! Not all of his solos exhibit a scalar organization as clearly as this one. Slow solos, such as the beautiful Parker's Mood, take 2 (se below), six scalar descents'with other motions. And some faster pieces have ‘upward as well as downward séalar activity, But the great majority of his solos contain extensive sections of scalar descents; they are among the most striking elements in his musical vocabulary, Further, this scalar puna o1sun ou ‘Was he aware of this aspect of his music? He never spoke of it publicly, and his colleagues fhave not reported him discussing it with them, But surely he knew, if at « subconscious and nonverbal level, of| the rightness of certain choices of notes at certain moments in musical time, And just as it has been with other great makers of music, Packer's choices turn out to have a logic oftheir own, a logic that extends beyond simply applying melodic formulas at harmonically appropriate times (aotice how effortlessly his melody in The Closer seems to glide from one pattern to the next, especially in measures 6 through 11). Sensitive listeners—including the many players who incorporated this procedure into their personal styles—may sense that logic intuitively, and analysis reveals at least part of that logic, ‘The preceding discussion of Parker's techniques of improvisation may suggest that the individual performance was of little importance, thatonce he arrived at his system of improvising he could produce great solos consistently and almost effortessiy. There is some truth in this supposition; the many alternate takes available for study allows us to hear one brilliant solo after another, created within minutes of one another on the same chord structure. How does one decide which solo is the best among the various takes of Out of Nowhere, Ohi Chi, or any number of other pieces? But there also were moments of particular brilliance when he surpassed himself. Here is list of some of his finest recorded moments: Koko, take 2 (Cherokee) —26 November 1945; Sevoy 597 (reissued on Savoy CD 70737) Ornithology, take 4 (Hom High the Moon) and A Night in Tunisia, ake 28 March 1946; Dial 1002 (reissued on Spotlize 101) A Night in Tunisia, Dizzy Atmosphere (I Got Rhythm), and Groovin’ High (Whispering) —29 September 1947; Roost 2234 (and a vari- exy of bootleg reissues)—a broadcast performance from Car negie Hall Embraccable You, 2 takes (ballad) 28 October 1947; Dial 1024 (ee issued on Spotlite 104) Out of Nowhere,-3 takes, and Don't Blame Me (ballad) —4 November 1947; Dial 1021 and LPs (reissued on Spotlite 105) Donna Lee (Indiana) —8 November 1947; Spotiite 108—a broadcast perfgrmance Parker's Mood, the 2 complete takes (slow blues) —18 September 1948; Savoy 936 and 12000 (reissued on Savoy $500) Perhaps, the + complete takes (bhues)—24 September 1948; Savoy 938