Re-recording Bird
Finland hands out the Yrjo Award tonight in Tampere, and nobody has printed the winner yet. Marc Ribot's first all instrumental record since 2014 arrives, and The Bridge is the film that kept Charlie Parker's own alto.
LioraTonight in Tampere, Finland hands out its most prestigious jazz prize, and nobody knows the winner yet. The prize is a different piece of art every year. Later, Clint Eastwood keeps Charlie Parker's own solos and replaces the band underneath them. It's Friday. Let's go.
LioraIt's Friday, October 30th. This is The Daily Quintet. I'm Liora. Five stories from the world of jazz, in about ten minutes. Here we go.
One. The Lead: The Finnish Jazz Federation gives out the Yrjo Award tonight in Tampere
LioraAt seven o'clock tonight, in Tampere, Finland, somebody wins the Yrjo Award.
The Finnish Jazz Federation has given it since 1967, to a distinguished Finnish jazz musician, and calls it the most prestigious recognition in the field. The room is Tullikamarin Pakkahuone, inside Friday's program at the Tampere Jazz Happening.
Nobody knows the name yet. Neither the Federation nor the festival has printed it. Then the winner plays a short concert.
Three more prizes go out in the same room. The Andania, since 1988, for long work on behalf of Finnish jazz, which the Federation's event page says is being awarded this year. The Taimi, started in 2023, for a young musician, with dates at three Finnish festivals. And the Varjo-Yrjo, the Shadow Yrjo, from Yleisradio's Jazzradio.
LioraHere is the part worth knowing. The Yrjo is an object, and a different artist makes it every year. This year's is by the printmaker Mari Hallapuro.
Last year it went to the singer Aili Ikonen, who said from the stage that her heart "always beats for jazz and for the freedom of expression that I feel is its essence."
And tonight is a first. This is the first Tampere Jazz Happening programmed by Martyna van Nieuwland, who took over from the retiring Juhamatti Kauppinen.
Two. Listen to This: Marc Ribot's "Hurry Red Telephone" is out today on Pi Recordings
LioraThree records carry today's date. The one to play is Marc Ribot's.
"Hurry Red Telephone," on Pi Recordings, out today on CD and vinyl. The label calls it his first all instrumental album since 2014's "Live at the Village Vanguard," made with Chad Taylor and the late bassist Henry Grimes. Taylor is back on drums.
Here is the tip. Go to "New Monster," fourteen minutes and fifty seven seconds, and wait for David Watson's bagpipe. The label says he brings an Albert Ayler like intensity.
Ribot, on Grimes: "It took a while to find a way to start again after Henry died."
LioraTwo more. Mack Avenue has Christian McBride and Ursa Major, "Points of Light," the band's debut, with Nicole Glover, Mike King, Ely Perlman and Savannah Harris. The label calls it McBride's Art Blakey era. And Intakt in Zurich dates Anna Webber's nine player record today, although its own page still says preorder.
Now the hard one. Cannes, May 1988. Clint Eastwood premieres a film about Charlie Parker, and he will not take a sound alike. He keeps Parker's own solos off old tapes and replaces the band underneath them. Silas has it.
Three. The Bridge: Re-recording Bird: Clint Eastwood wanted Charlie Parker's real alto in his film Bird
LioraOne true story from this music's history, every day. Silas tells it, I ask the questions. Silas, where are we?
SilasCannes, France. May 21st, 1988. A new film called Bird has its premiere. Clint Eastwood directed it and produced it. Forest Whitaker plays Charlie Parker, and he'll win Best Actor at Cannes for it.
The story I want, though, is the sound. A film about Parker needs Parker's alto to sound like Parker. Not a sound-alike. Bird himself.
LioraSo where does a movie find Charlie Parker?
SilasOn tape. Eastwood finds a set of "rare, unissued" tapes of some of Parker's longer solos. The catch is the sound. On many of those tapes it's poor, especially the piano, bass, and drums.
So Eastwood and his musical director, the alto player Lennie Niehaus, take the tapes to a studio. They have an engineer try something. Pull Parker's solos out on their own, and wipe out everything else.
LioraWipe out the whole band?
SilasThe whole rhythm section. The isolated solos sound fine, so they keep them. Then new players lay down new tracks underneath. The Christian Science Monitor named pianists Monty Alexander and Barry Harris, bassists Ray Brown and Ron Carter, and drummer John Guerin, "and others." The Chicago Reader described the same method.
How many solos got this treatment? The reporting doesn't say. What it does say is that on screen you hear Parker's real notes, with a band recorded for the film around them.
LioraHow did jazz people take that?
SilasThey split. Gary Giddins, the jazz critic at the Village Voice, defended it. He called it "a brilliant touch in the movie," and the only way to use Parker's music "instead of using a sound-alike." About the soundtrack album, he was more careful. On a record, he said, he didn't mind scratchiness, "because it's Bird; it's Max Roach. It's the way it was done that day."
Herb Pomeroy saw it differently. He was a trumpeter and a Berklee teacher who worked with Parker. He said taking those solos out of their real context is "totally untruthful." He added, "It's lacking in artistic integrity."
LioraUntruthful. That's a hard word.
SilasIt wasn't the only worry. The Monitor's piece raised another. Once this kind of tampering starts, there may be no end to it, and the artists have no control over it. In the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum had his own complaint. Viewers, he wrote, only now and then get to hear Parker's solos whole, without interruption.
Then, the next March, by the published results, Bird won the Academy Award for Best Sound. One film catalog also lists a technical prize for Bird at Cannes. That's a single source, and nobody has checked it against the festival's own record, so take it lightly. Either way, the sound people argued over is the sound that won.
LioraBird's own notes, over a band made for the movie. A brilliant touch or untruthful, depending on who you ask.
That's The Bridge. Back to today, right after this.
Four. On the Road: Tonight's ticket is Snug Harbor in New Orleans
LioraTonight, coast to coast.
Tonight's ticket is in New Orleans.
Snug Harbor bills it Jason Marsalis presents the Music of Ellis Marsalis. Two sets, half past seven and half past nine, doors at seven and nine. Forty six ninety five. The club names nobody but the leader.
Now the sweep.
In New York, Birdland has the middle night of Ron Carter's Foursight Quartet, with Renee Rosnes, Jimmy Greene and Payton Crossley. Half past eight and half past ten. The early set reads sales ended. The late one is sixty one twenty one, plus twenty dollars a head in food or drink, per set.
In Chicago, the Jazz Showcase has the Mike Stern Quintet, the second of four nights. No Friday time printed, only the club's standing eight and ten. Forty dollars, fifty five for preferred seating.
LioraIn Los Angeles, Catalina has Monique Renee's tribute to Teena Marie. Doors at seven, show at half past eight, forty six seventy.
Five. One More Note: The French national library dates "Moanin'" to October 30, 1958, in Hackensack
LioraOne more date. Sixty eight years ago today, the French national library puts Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in Hackensack, New Jersey, cutting "Moanin'." One notice in the same library says New York instead.
One more birthday, and one more death. Clifford Brown was born on this date in 1930, in Wilmington, Delaware. Chu Berry died on this date in 1941. And one of the library's discs of that Blakey session carries four bonus tracks. One of them is "I Remember Clifford."
Outro
LioraThat's the Quintet. If today's show earned it, follow The Daily Quintet wherever you listen.
The Daily Quintet is an AI-crafted production, researched and checked by humans. Every listing you heard came from the venue or the festival's own organizer.
That's your Friday. I'm Liora. See you tomorrow.