Charlie Parker Heads on the DB

[musicman5string]

Hey all-
Anyone practice Bird heads much? I've been getting back into them lately. These are the ones I've been focusing on:

Anthropology
Au Privave
Billie's Bounce
Blues For Alice
Confirmation
Donna Lee
Moose The Mooche
Now's The Time
Ornithology
Scrapple From The Apple
Yardbird Suite
Segment

Technically speaking, "Now's The Time" and "Yardbird Suite" are the easiest; "Confirmation" (bridge) and "Donna Lee" are probably the hardest. I got alot of work to do on these. Anyone else play these much?

[bassdogEmer]

hey Musicman -
I have been playing Charlie Parker heads on the DB for a few years now and I can tell you that they become a lot easier if you play them with the Bow. That said, I do play them pizz as well but I have found a few parts of diff melodies are just damn near impossible to play correctly in the DB. Also - this could greatly depend on your set up as well. Personally, I am not and never really have been a low action guy - I have heard some cats with the strings super low that can play just about anything - for me it's a just a personal choice. anyways - try the heads with the bow. I just learned 'segment" which i found pretty easy to play Pizz - check that one out.

[Clay_Bass]

I dont play alot of them but scrapple from the apple is one of my favorite heads to play.

[Zachmozach]

Au Privave is the only one I've touched on DB that and My little suede shoes. On electric though I love Donna Lee and Blues for alice. I really thought Au Privave wasn't really all that challenging although it's not there at tempo yet for me.

[musicman5string]

About 12 years ago I tried to learn Donna Lee on electric when I was getting into Jaco (gee, no one's done that... ) and couldn't figure out any fingerings to save my life. Recently I spent about an hour with it and got it pretty clean...so either I've gotten better at fingerings or I was a lazy sh!t back then...probably both.
Anyway, it's not quite as bad as I thought on upright, although I cannot play it at tempo.
Thinking about bassists who have played Bird heads, I'd like to compile a list....
"Donna Lee": Jaco, NHOP
"Scrapple": George Mraz, John Clayton
"Segment": Dave Holland
"Ornithology": NHOP
"Au Privave": Dave Holland
"Billie's Bounce": Gary Peacock
Those are off the top of my head. Anyone think of any else?

[Aaron Saunders]

Playing out of the Omnibook

Some of them are very doable, some of them are TOTAL chops busters, and some are a pain in the ass. I've only really attempted Billie's Bounce, but I'm going to try my hand at Scrapple (SO many people love playing this tune, I really should look at it) as well as Donna Lee and Au Privave.

Other nice chops buster -- Groovin' High. Day-um. That was (and remains to be) a pain in the tuckus.

[pao_bass]

donna lee is quite fun to play on the DB, of course, undertempo...
for me, it's quite an effective exercise to get you warmed up, or just for plain enjoyment.

we're planning to cover donna lee on a gig one time with me on DB doing a unison with the piano. sounds great, but very tiring!

[Aaron Saunders]

Man, that usually sounds SO cool. Anyone remember that NHOP video on YouTube where he played a bebop head (Oleo, I think) in unison with the sax player?

[Ric Vice]

Originally Posted by musicman5string

Hey all-
Anyone practice Bird heads much? I've been getting back into them lately. These are the ones I've been focusing on:



Technically speaking, "Now's The Time" and "Yardbird Suite" are the easiest; "Confirmation" (bridge) and "Donna Lee" are probably the hardest. I got alot of work to do on these. Anyone else play these much?

Musicman
Although, I've certianly learned some of the Parker heads
specifically, Scrapple, since I wanted to get into the Jim Hall, Don Thompson version with a guitar player friend of mine I haven't really concentrated on shedding a lot of them. If I wan't to bebop, I play the Laverne Walk by Oscar Pettiford or any other of Oscar's originals. It's not that I don't like those Parker heads, I just prefer the Pettiford heads since the were composed by a bass player and a founding be bopper.

Ric

[AdaGio³]

What about dexterity? thats a fun head to play on bass

[winston]

I've been working up "Ornithology" "Blues For Alice" and "Anthropology" for a while. By the way has it been resolved whether "Donna Lee" was written by Parker or Miles Davis (who claimed it was his)?

Originally Posted by Ric Vice

If I wan't to bebop, I play the Laverne Walk by Oscar Pettiford or any other of Oscar's originals. It's not that I don't like those Parker heads, I just prefer the Pettiford heads since the were composed by a bass player and a founding be bopper.

Only OP playing I've heard is on the "Monk Plays Duke" album but I've been shedding the Brown/Peterson/Thigpen version of Tricrotism. Can you recommend some good OP tracks?

[bribass]

Originally Posted by musicman5string

Hey all-
Anyone practice Bird heads much? I've been getting back into them lately. These are the ones I've been focusing on:

Anthropology
Au Privave
Billie's Bounce
Blues For Alice
Confirmation
Donna Lee
Moose The Mooche
Now's The Time
Ornithology
Scrapple From The Apple
Yardbird Suite
Segment

Technically speaking, "Now's The Time" and "Yardbird Suite" are the easiest; "Confirmation" (bridge) and "Donna Lee" are probably the hardest. I got alot of work to do on these. Anyone else play these much?

I've done Au Privave, Ornithology, and Scrapple as bass features for a long time. Lately I've been working on Confirmation trying to get it up to a decent tempo.
An obscure one I used to like is Laird Baird.

BassDogEmer is right. Practice them arco. It really helps. Also listen to them alot , so you really know what they sound like then practice them painstakingly slow, trying to make as little mistakes as possible. When you do that your body learns what it's like to play them correctly, not what it's like to keep engraining the same mistake at a faster tempo. Also this way you eliminate as much "noise" between notes as possible. When you play it faster later on you'll see the benefits of realizing that if you can't play it slow, you can't play it fast.

BG

[musicman5string]

I could see one of the benefits of playing them arco would be some legato phrasing, which I try to do pizz anyways, but I see your point.

[dchan]

On the subject of who composed Donna Lee:

I can't really remember parts of an essay I read on this subject, but I'll try to rehash much of it:

The eminent trumpet players of the Bebop era were Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro. The essay starts out with a quote by someone (either a bebop musician or someone involved in the Jazz scene at the time) that Fats Navarro was the better trumpet player out of the two.

The essay then delves into a whole story of the piece and its background.

Miles Davis, as we all know, was not a trumpet virtuoso, and he was even less so in the mid 40's. On the Charlie Parker Dial Records recordings, he sounds somewhat overwhelmed by the speed of many of the pieces. The virtuosity of bebop musicians is an important part of why this composition was created.

The writer states that the the trumpet player that Miles most admired was Fats. I do not remember the reason stated, but upon listening to Fats and Dizzy, I can see why Miles admired him so much rather than Dizzy.

The essay then goes into the background on Indiana, which is what Donna Lee was based on. After delving into this, the writer shifts attention towards a recording made before Donna Lee was recorded. This recording, featuring Fats Navarro and I believe Tadd Dameron and baritone saxophonist Leo Parker, was another Indiana contrafact named Ice Freezes Red.

The writer states that the head of this piece is sort of like a sandlot football creation rather than the polished heads of Confirmation and Donna Lee. It certainly sounds less polished. This is especially true after the second "A" theme when the piano comes in solo, and the trumpet and sax come in to finish off the head.

After the Leo Parker's solo, Fats Navarro comes in. The writer now presents this solo transcribed. The solo starts almost exactly like the beginning of Donna Lee, only without the G-A flat-G trill at the beginning. And by almost exactly, I mean it's almost impossible to tell them apart. The solo then breaks towards a different but similar direction that Donna Lee goes towards.

And this is on a recording that precedes Donna Lee by, I believe, a few months. The writer argues that the fact that Miles Davis held Fats Navarro up to high esteem points towards Donna Lee being a Davis rather than a Charlie Parker piece.

My thoughts on this are that this piece does not sound like a typical Charlie Parker tune. His tunes sound like his solos, which sound happy and wry. They are, in my opinion, like audio versions his smile and demeanor. Of course, I mean his clean and off-drugs demeanor, not his drugged-up and backstabbing demeanor. Also his music never seems to change until the time of his death, which may have been due to the fact that he was drugged-up.

Also, Miles' music from later periods speaks to me that he definitely could have been the composer of the serpentine tune.

Why does Miles write this, the writer asks? Remember, Miles is not the virtuoso that everyone else seems to be on the Bebop scene. They're all running circles around him and playing things so effortlessly. The only way that Miles can keep up is by catching up to them in terms of virtuosity, which never happened. Or he can make them stumble despite their virtuosity. And that he did, on a piece based on the introduction of a Fats Navarro solo on a piece based on Indiana.

Donna Lee, the writer argues, is a satire on the virtuosity of these bop musicians. It has haunted many a player for years.

[TheSuzie]

Originally Posted by Ric Vice

Musicman
Although, I've certianly learned some of the Parker heads
specifically, Scrapple, since I wanted to get into the Jim Hall, Don Thompson version with a guitar player friend of mine I haven't really concentrated on shedding a lot of them.

That specific live version of Scrapple is one of my favorite all time recordings, I forget about it for a little while but then come back to it and listen obsessively for a period of time before drifting off to other things. Maybe some day I will actually learn to play some of that stuff.

Peace,
S

[jallenbass]

Originally Posted by Ric Vice

Musicman
Although, I've certianly learned some of the Parker heads
specifically, Scrapple, since I wanted to get into the Jim Hall, Don Thompson version with a guitar player friend of mine I haven't really concentrated on shedding a lot of them.

What's the name of that recording?

[musicman5string]

dchan-
interesting; I've read before about Donna Lee being Miles' tune, but not from that perspective.
either which way, it's a nice head and challenging to play on the bass.

[Zachmozach]

I actually remember reading that when Gil Evans had asked miles for some of his music for some project he had brought him the original donna lee and it had been in Miles' possesion and handwriting. Somone else might know more on this or the exact story instead of whatevers left about somehting I read some time ago.

[Mike Goodbar]

Originally Posted by AdaGio³

What about dexterity?

I ask myself that everytime I pick up the bass.


I've attempted a few Parker heads in the shed, but only played "Yardbird Suite," "Au Privave" and "Ornithology" in public, both pizz and arco. I'd should really try to bust out Donna Lee on upright (played it on electric incessantly back in the day).

[Paul Warburton]

Originally Posted by jallenbass

What's the name of that recording?

Jim Hall Live. Horizon. W- Don Thomson and Terry Clarke.
Live from Bourbon St. in Toronto.

And, don't forget to play that pedal point intro.