Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker

6. Dewey Square

chapter 6 Dewey Square When Charlie and Doris returned to New York City on Easter Monday, April 7, 1947, they moved into the Dewey Square Hotel at 201 and 203 West 117th Street. One of the largest hotels in Harlem, the Dewey Square Hotel featured 250 luxurious rooms. That evening friends and fans threw a welcome home party for Charlie at Small’s Paradise. The next night Charlie stopped by the Savoy Ballroom and sat in with the Dizzy Gillespie big band. After the show, Charlie asked Gillespie if he could work with the big band while he assembled a quintet for the Three Deuces. Gillespie feared Charlie would bring drugs in the band. Despite having much to lose from beingassociatedwithapossibledrugbust,GillespiehiredCharlieanyway. As Charlie’s career crashed in California, Gillespie’s had soared nationally . After returning to New York from the engagement at Billy Berg’s in February1946,Gillespieemergedasatopbandleaderandestablishedbebop with mainstream jazz audiences. In March, he formed a seventeen-piece bigband,featuringTheloniousMonk,RayBrown,MiltJackson,andKenny Clarke. Gillespie recorded prolifically and toured nationally, capped off by a December swing across the South with Ella Fitzgerald. Unlike the earlier 106 • chapter 6 southerntourwiththeHep-Sationsof1945revue,thebandandnewmusic were well received—thanks to Ella Fitzgerald. Her popularity and strong drawattheboxofficevalidatedGillespieandthebebopmovement.Inturn, she received a new musical language, bebop.1 The next week, Charlie confirmed Gillespie’s worst fears by showing up highfortheband’sopeningnightattheMcKinleyTheaterintheBronx.Miles DavisrecalledhowCharlie’sdebutwiththebandendedonasournote.“On thenightweopenedattheMcKinley,Birdwasuponstagenoddingoutand playing nothing but his own solos. He wouldn’t play behind nobody else. EventhepeopleintheaudienceweremakingfunofBirdwhilehewasnodding up there on stage. So Dizzy, who was fed up with Bird anyway, fired him after that first gig.”2 Arranger Gil Fuller and Davis urged Gillespie to give Charlie another chance, but Gillespie remained adamant. Forthenextcoupleofweeks,Charliemadetherounds,sittinginonlatenight jam sessions in Harlem and on 52nd Street. Word of Charlie’s return spreadswiftlythroughoutthehipstercommunity.MetronomeheraldedCharlie ’s triumphal return and renewed vigor: TheBirdcamebacktoNewYorkinApril,aftermorethanayearontheWest Coast, came back to a musician’s community wildly eager to see and hear him again. The night he arrived in town the word went around from one clubtoanother,fromonebartoanother.“Bird’sbackintown!”whisperedin sepulchraltones,usuallyreservedforreligiousleadersandrevolutionaries. Everysessionheappearedatforthenextfewweekswasballyhooeddaysin advance among the beboppers as another Bird-letter day and attendance was compulsory for those who wished to continue in the bebop school. Happily, in spite of strong reports to the contrary, the Bird showed up in New York in good health. Forty pounds heavier than usual, still a brilliant musical thinker, still the most influential bebopper of them all if not yet in full possession of his technique, tone and taste.3 TalesofCharlie’sexploitspassedfromhipstertohipster.Embellishedwith each retelling, his legends assumed mythic proportions. CharliehandpickedthegroupfortheThreeDeuces.HechoseMilesDavis as his foil in the front line. Unlike Gillespie, who challenged Charlie at every turn, Davis played under his flowing solos. Charlie built the rhythm Dewey Square • 107 section around Max Roach, a melodic percussionist who set a steady pulse on the ride cymbal, creating a flowing carpet of sound. This freed Roach to create a polyrhythmic texture with the high hat and bass drum.4 Meeting the demands of Charlie’s abrupt rhythmic shifts fully realized Roach’s texturedapproach .CharlieroundedouttherhythmsectionwithTommyPotter, formerbassistwiththeBillyEckstineband,andDukeJordan,thepianistin the house band at the Three Deuces. Charlie called for daily rehearsals and then failed to show up, leaving Davis to rehearse the group at Teddy Reig’s apartment or the Nola Studios. Charlie’scharismaandcelebritycreatedademandforthequintet.FiftySecond Street, after declining during the war years, underwent a renaissance ,sparkedbythepopularityofbebop.MilesDavisexplained,“Thetwo records Bird had recorded for Dial out in Los Angeles had been released. . . . They had been released in late 1946 and were now big jazz hits. So, with 52ndStreetopenagainandBirdbackintown,theclubownerswantedBird. Everybodywasafterhim.TheywantedsmallbandsagainandtheyfeltBird would pack them in. They offered him $800 a week for four weeks at the Three Deuces. . . . He paid me and Max $135 a week and Tommy and Duke $125.Birdmadethemosthehadevermadeinhislife,$280aweek.”5 Forthe first time, Charlie and Doris enjoyed a degree of financial security. Doris put money in the bank and bought Charlie a new wardrobe of Broadway pinstripe suits, shoes, shirts, and silk ties. InlateApril,thequintetopenedattheThreeDeucesoppositetheLennie Tristano trio to overflow crowds. Charlie, glad to be back on Fifty-Second Street,graciouslyworkedtheroom,charmingpatronsandmusiciansalike. PianistTristano,whohadbeenblindsinceinfancy,fondlyrecalledCharlie’s professionalcourtesyandthoughtfulness.“Icansaythat[Charlie]hasbeen nicertomethananybodyinthebusiness,”Tristanojudged.“Mygroupwas oppositehisattheThreeDeuces.Hesatthroughmyentirefirstsetlistening intently. When it was all over, the two fellows I was playing with left the stand, leaving me alone. They knew I could get around all right, but Bird didn’t know that; he thought I was hung up for the moment. He rushed up...