Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker

3. Hootie Blues

chapter 3 Hootie Blues Arriving in Chicago early the next morning after his abrupt departure from home and family in Kansas City, Charlie headed straight for a jam sessionatthe65Club,hopingtohustleupafewgigsandaplacetostay.He worked his way through the crowd, borrowed a saxophone, stepped up to the microphone, and stopped the show with his quicksilver execution and ideas. Vocalist Billy Eckstine, saxophonist Budd Johnson, and other musicians gathered at the bar took note of the brilliant young stranger. Eckstine recounted how Charlie dazzled the crowd that morning: ThevoguethenwastohaveaBreakfastDanceononedayoftheweek.Every club in Chicago at some time or another would have a Breakfast Dance with the show going on at 6:30 in the morning. One spot there, the 65 Club had a Breakfast Dance one morning and they had a little combo with King Kolax on trumpet, a kid named Goon Gardner, who could swing like mad, on alto, John Simmons on bass and Kansas Fields, drums. It was more or less a jam show, for after the show all the musicians would blow in there. We were standing around one morning when a guy comes up that looks like he just got off a freight car: the raggedest guy you’d want to 40 • chapter 3 see at this moment. And he asks Goon: “Say man can I come up and blow your horn?” Now Goon was always a kind of lazy cat. Anybody that wanted togetonthestandandblow,justaslongasGooncouldgotothebarandtalk with the chicks, it was all right with him. So he said: “Yes, man, go ahead.” And this cat gets up there, and I’m telling you he blew the bell off that thing!ItwasCharlieParker,justcomeinfromKansasCityonafreighttrain. I guess Bird was no more than about 18 then, but playing like you never heard—wailing alto. . . . He blew so much until he upset everybody in the joint, and Goon took him home, gave him some clothes to put on and got himafewgigs.Birddidn’thaveahorn,naturally,soGoonlenthimaclarinet to go and make gigs on. According to what Goon told me, one day he looked for Bird, and Bird, the clarinet and all was gone—back somewheres.1 Charlieleftasabruptlyashearrived.Withoutsayinggoodbye,hepawned Gardner’s clarinet and caught a freight train to New York, where he turned up unannounced on Buster Smith’s doorstep. SmithtookCharlieinoverhiswife’sobjections.“Charliegotdownhearted when it looked like I wasn’t going to send for them [the band], so he just caught a train and hoboed up there [New York]. . . . He sure did look awful when he got in,” Smith observed. “He’d worn his shoes so long that his legs were all swollen up. He stayed up there with me for a good while at my apartment.”2 WithlittlemoneytospareandoutofrespecttoSmith,Charlie stayed straight. Charlie’sarrivalcoincidedwiththeopeningofthe1939World’sFair.The fair, held at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, celebrated the future with displaysoftear-shapedautomobiles,robots,dishwashers,andnylonstockings . Forty-five million visitors streamed through the fair’s Futurama, the League of Nations, and Perisphere. The fair’s excitement and promise of a bright future reverberated throughout New York, still struggling to recover its footing from the blow of the Great Depression. Along-establishedentertainmentMecca,Harlemrolledouttheredcarpet for visitors to the World’s Fair. Located in Upper Manhattan, Harlem rangedfrom110thStreetonitssouthedge(whichwasthenorthernboundaryofCentralPark )totheEastRiver,westtoMorningsidePark,easttoFifth Avenue,andnorthto155thStreet.TheApolloTheater,alongwiththeSavoy, Renaissance,andStatePalaceballrooms,featuredJimmyLunceford,Lucky Hootie Blues • 41 Millinder, and other top bands. Small’s Paradise and other nightclubs dottingHarlemshowcasedall -starcombos.Charliejoinedthethrongsmaking theroundsinHarlem.HepausedawestruckinfrontoftheSavoyBallroom, where in a few years he would make his national debut. Like all newly arrived musicians, Charlie had to wait to join union local 802. Meanwhile, he worked busing tables at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack where Art Tatum played solo piano. Charlie absorbed Tatum’s technique of interpolating melodies at breakneck tempos. After work, he frequented jam sessions at the Uptown House, a popular gathering spot for modernists, where he put to good use the lessons he learned from Tatum. Clark Monroe operated the Uptown House, a smoky basement club in a brownstonelocatedat198West134thStreetintheheartofHarlem’sentertainmentdistrict .Monroe,agregarious,dapper,handsomeladies’man,was knownasthe“darkGable,”becauseofhisresemblancetomatineeidolClark Gable.Originallyaspeakeasy,theUptownHouseoperatedasanafter-hours club. The music started late and continued well past the 4:00 a.m. curfew for clubs. Pianist Allen Tinney fronted the band and ran the jam session. Charlie and other young musicians, hoping for a break, lined up to take the stage and challenge more experienced players. Most older musicians failed to appreciate Charlie’s ideas and tone, but they grudgingly admired his masterful technique. Charlie found a friend and musical foil in guitarist William...