Bird is back.
How fantastic that sounds! Yes indeed, the Bird you know and love has returned, his powerful wings beating the air. In every corner of this planet – from Novosibirsk to Timbuktu – people are going to gaze up at the sky, spy the shadow of that magnificent Bird and cheer. And the world will be filled once more with radiant sunlight.
The time is 1963. Years since people last heard the name Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. Where is Bird, and what is he up to? Jazz lovers around the world whisper these questions. He can’t be dead yet, can he? Because we never heard about him passing away. But you know, someone might say, I haven’t heard anything about him still being alive either.
The last news anyone had about Bird was that he had been taken into the mansion of his patron, Baroness Nica, where he was battling various ailments. Jazz fans are well aware that Bird is a junkie. Heroin – that deadly, pure white powder. Rumor had it that on top of his addiction he was struggling with acute pneumonia, a variety of internal maladies, the symptoms of diabetes and even mental illness. If he was fortunate enough to survive all this, he must have been too infirm to ever pick up his instrument again. That’s how Bird vanished from sight, transforming into a beautiful jazz legend. Around the year 1955.
Fast forward to the summer of 1963. Charlie Parker picks up his alto sax again and records an album in a studio outside of New York. And that album’s title is Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova!
Can you believe it?
You’d better. Because it happened.
It really did.
This was the opening of a piece I wrote back in college. It was the first time that anything I wrote got published, and the first time I was paid a fee for something I’d written, though it was only a pittance.
Naturally, there’s no such record as Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova. Charlie Parker passed away on 12 March 1955, and it wasn’t until 1962 that bossa nova broke through, spurred on by performances by Stan Getz and others. But if Bird had survived until the 1960s, and if he had become interested in bossa nova and performed it . . . That was the setup for the review I wrote about this imaginary record.
The editor of the literary magazine at the university who published this article never doubted it was an actual album and ran it as an ordinary piece of music criticism. The editor’s younger brother, a friend of mine, sold him on it, telling him I’d written some good stuff and that they should use my work. (The magazine folded after four issues. My review was in issue no. 3.)
A precious tape that Charlie Parker left behind had been discovered by accident in the vaults of a record company and had only recently seen the light of day – that was the premise I cooked up for the article. Maybe I shouldn’t be the one to judge, but I still think this story is plausible in all its details, and the writing has real punch. So much so that in the end I nearly came to believe that the record actually existed.
There was considerable reaction to my article when the magazine published it. This was a small, low-key college journal, generally ignored. But there seemed to be quite a few readers who still idolized Charlie Parker, and the editor received a series of letters complaining about my moronic joke and thoughtless sacrilege. Do other people lack a sense of humor? Or is my sense of humor kind of twisted? Hard to say. Some people apparently took the article at face value and even went to record shops in search of the album.
The editor kicked up a bit of a fuss about my tricking him. I didn’t actually lie to him, but merely omitted a detailed explanation. He must have been secretly pleased that the article got so much attention, even though most of it was negative. Proof of that came when he told me he’d like to see whatever else I wrote, criticism or original work. ( The magazine disappeared before I could show him another piece.)
My article went on as follows:
. . . Who would ever have imagined a lineup as unusual as this – Charlie Parker and Antônio Carlos Jobim joining forces? Jimmy Raney on guitar, Jobim on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, Roy Haynes on drums – a dream rhythm section so amazing it makes your heart pound just hearing the names. And on alto sax – who else but Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker.
Here are the names of the tracks:
Side A
(1) Corcovado
(2) Once I Loved (O Amor em Paz)
(3) Just Friends
(4) Bye Bye Blues (Chega de Saudade)
Side B
(1) Out of Nowhere
(2) How Insensitive (Insensatez)
(3) Once Again (Outra Vez)
(4) Dindi
With the exception of ‘Just Friends’ and ‘Out of Nowhere’ these are all well-known pieces composed by Jobim. The two pieces not by Jobim are both standards familiar from Parker’s early, magnificent performances, though of course here they are done in a bossa nova rhythm, a totally new style. (And on these two pieces only the pianist wasn’t Jobim but the versatile veteran Hank Jones.)
So, lover of jazz that you are, what’s your first reaction when you hear the title Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova? A yelp of surprise, I would imagine, followed close on by feelings of curiosity and anticipation. But soon wariness must raise its head – like ominous dark clouds appearing on what had been a beautiful, sunny hillside. (...)
I’ll omit the rest of the article, which is simply a further description, with all the suitable embellishments. The above gives you an idea of the kind of music I was talking about. Of course it’s music that doesn’t actually exist. Or at least, music that couldn’t possibly exist.
I’ll wrap up that story there and talk about something that took place years later.
For a long time I’d totally forgotten that I’d written that article back in college. My life after school turned out to be more harried and busy than I ever could have imagined, and that review of a make-believe album was nothing more than a lighthearted, irresponsible joke I’d played when I was young. But close to fifteen years later, the article unexpectedly re-emerged into my life like a boomerang you threw whirling back at you when you least expect it.
I was in New York on business and, with time on my hands, took a walk near my hotel, ducking inside a small, secondhand-record shop I came across on East 14th Street. And in the Charlie Parker section I found, of all things, a record called Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova. It looked like a bootleg, a privately pressed recording. A white jacket with no drawing or photo on the front, just the title in sullen black letters. On the back was a list of the tracks and the musicians. Surprisingly, the list of songs and musicians was exactly as I’d invented them in college. And likewise, Hank Jones sat in for Jobim on two tracks.
I stood there, stock-still, speechless, record in hand. It felt like some small internal part of me had gone numb. I looked around again. Was this really New York? Yes, this was downtown New York – no doubt about it. And I was actually here, in a small used-record shop. I hadn’t wandered into some fantasy world. And neither was I having a super-realistic dream.
I slipped the record out of its jacket. It had a white label, with the title and names of the songs. No sign of a record company logo. I examined the vinyl itself and found four distinct tracks on each side. I went over and asked the long-haired young guy at the register if I could take a listen to the album. No, he replied. The store turntable’s broken. Sorry about that.
The price on the record was $35. I wavered for a long time about whether to buy it. In the end I left the shop empty-handed. I figured, it’s got to be somebody’s idea of a silly joke. Somebody, on a whim, had faked a record based on my long-ago description of an imaginary recording. Took a different record that had four tracks on each side, soaked it in water, peeled off the label and glued on a homemade one. Any way you looked at it, it was ridiculous to pay $35 for a bogus record like that.
I went to a Spanish restaurant near the hotel and had some beer and a simple dinner by myself. As I was strolling around aimlessly afterwards, a wave of regret suddenly welled up in me. I should have bought that record after all. Even if it was a fake, and way overpriced, I should have gotten it, at the very least as a souvenir of all the twists and turns my life had taken. I went straight back to East 14th Street. I hurried, but the record shop was closed by the time I got there. On the shutter was a sign that said the shop opened at 11.30 a.m. and closed at 7.30 p.m. on weekdays.
The next morning, just before noon, I went to the shop again. A middle-aged guy – thinning hair, in a disheveled, round-neck sweater – was sipping coffee and reading the sports section of the paper. The coffee seemed freshly brewed, for a pleasant smell wafted faintly through the shop. The shop had just opened, and I was the only customer. An old tune by Pharoah Sanders filtered through the small speaker on the ceiling. My guess was the man was the owner.
I thumbed through the Charlie Parker section, but the record was nowhere to be found. I was sure I’d returned it to this section yesterday. Thinking it might have got mixed in elsewhere, I rifled through every bin in the jazz section. But as hard as I looked, no luck. Had someone else bought it? I went over to the register and spoke to the middle-aged guy. ‘I’m looking for a jazz record I saw here yesterday.’
‘Which record?’ he asked, eyes never wavering from the New York Times.
‘Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova,’ I said.
He laid down his paper, took off his thin, metal-framed reading glasses and slowly turned to face me. ‘I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?’
I did. The man said nothing and took another sip of coffee. He shook his head slightly. ‘There’s no such record.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘If you’d like Perry Como Sings Jimi Hendrix, we have that in stock.’
‘Perry Como Sings –’ I got that far before I realized he was pulling my leg. He was the type who kept a straight face. ‘But I really did see it,’ I insisted. ‘I was sure it was produced as a joke, I mean.’
‘You saw that record here?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. Right here.’ I described the record, the jacket and the songs on it. How it’d been priced at $35.
‘There’s gotta be some mistake. We’ve never had that kind of record. I do all the purchasing and pricing of jazz records myself, and if a record like that crossed my desk, I would definitely have remembered it. Whether I wanted to or not.’
He shook his head and put his reading glasses back on. He returned to the sports section, but then, as if he’d had second thoughts, he removed his glasses, smiled and gazed steadily at me. ‘But if you ever do get hold of that record,’ he said, ‘let me listen to it, okay?’
How fantastic that sounds! Yes indeed, the Bird you know and love has returned, his powerful wings beating the air. In every corner of this planet – from Novosibirsk to Timbuktu – people are going to gaze up at the sky, spy the shadow of that magnificent Bird and cheer. And the world will be filled once more with radiant sunlight.
The time is 1963. Years since people last heard the name Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. Where is Bird, and what is he up to? Jazz lovers around the world whisper these questions. He can’t be dead yet, can he? Because we never heard about him passing away. But you know, someone might say, I haven’t heard anything about him still being alive either.The last news anyone had about Bird was that he had been taken into the mansion of his patron, Baroness Nica, where he was battling various ailments. Jazz fans are well aware that Bird is a junkie. Heroin – that deadly, pure white powder. Rumor had it that on top of his addiction he was struggling with acute pneumonia, a variety of internal maladies, the symptoms of diabetes and even mental illness. If he was fortunate enough to survive all this, he must have been too infirm to ever pick up his instrument again. That’s how Bird vanished from sight, transforming into a beautiful jazz legend. Around the year 1955.
Fast forward to the summer of 1963. Charlie Parker picks up his alto sax again and records an album in a studio outside of New York. And that album’s title is Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova!
Can you believe it?
You’d better. Because it happened.
It really did.
This was the opening of a piece I wrote back in college. It was the first time that anything I wrote got published, and the first time I was paid a fee for something I’d written, though it was only a pittance.
Naturally, there’s no such record as Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova. Charlie Parker passed away on 12 March 1955, and it wasn’t until 1962 that bossa nova broke through, spurred on by performances by Stan Getz and others. But if Bird had survived until the 1960s, and if he had become interested in bossa nova and performed it . . . That was the setup for the review I wrote about this imaginary record.
The editor of the literary magazine at the university who published this article never doubted it was an actual album and ran it as an ordinary piece of music criticism. The editor’s younger brother, a friend of mine, sold him on it, telling him I’d written some good stuff and that they should use my work. (The magazine folded after four issues. My review was in issue no. 3.)
A precious tape that Charlie Parker left behind had been discovered by accident in the vaults of a record company and had only recently seen the light of day – that was the premise I cooked up for the article. Maybe I shouldn’t be the one to judge, but I still think this story is plausible in all its details, and the writing has real punch. So much so that in the end I nearly came to believe that the record actually existed.
There was considerable reaction to my article when the magazine published it. This was a small, low-key college journal, generally ignored. But there seemed to be quite a few readers who still idolized Charlie Parker, and the editor received a series of letters complaining about my moronic joke and thoughtless sacrilege. Do other people lack a sense of humor? Or is my sense of humor kind of twisted? Hard to say. Some people apparently took the article at face value and even went to record shops in search of the album.
The editor kicked up a bit of a fuss about my tricking him. I didn’t actually lie to him, but merely omitted a detailed explanation. He must have been secretly pleased that the article got so much attention, even though most of it was negative. Proof of that came when he told me he’d like to see whatever else I wrote, criticism or original work. ( The magazine disappeared before I could show him another piece.)
My article went on as follows:
. . . Who would ever have imagined a lineup as unusual as this – Charlie Parker and Antônio Carlos Jobim joining forces? Jimmy Raney on guitar, Jobim on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, Roy Haynes on drums – a dream rhythm section so amazing it makes your heart pound just hearing the names. And on alto sax – who else but Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker.
Here are the names of the tracks:
Side A
(1) Corcovado
(2) Once I Loved (O Amor em Paz)
(3) Just Friends
(4) Bye Bye Blues (Chega de Saudade)
Side B
(1) Out of Nowhere
(2) How Insensitive (Insensatez)
(3) Once Again (Outra Vez)
(4) Dindi
With the exception of ‘Just Friends’ and ‘Out of Nowhere’ these are all well-known pieces composed by Jobim. The two pieces not by Jobim are both standards familiar from Parker’s early, magnificent performances, though of course here they are done in a bossa nova rhythm, a totally new style. (And on these two pieces only the pianist wasn’t Jobim but the versatile veteran Hank Jones.)
So, lover of jazz that you are, what’s your first reaction when you hear the title Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova? A yelp of surprise, I would imagine, followed close on by feelings of curiosity and anticipation. But soon wariness must raise its head – like ominous dark clouds appearing on what had been a beautiful, sunny hillside. (...)
I’ll omit the rest of the article, which is simply a further description, with all the suitable embellishments. The above gives you an idea of the kind of music I was talking about. Of course it’s music that doesn’t actually exist. Or at least, music that couldn’t possibly exist.
I’ll wrap up that story there and talk about something that took place years later.
For a long time I’d totally forgotten that I’d written that article back in college. My life after school turned out to be more harried and busy than I ever could have imagined, and that review of a make-believe album was nothing more than a lighthearted, irresponsible joke I’d played when I was young. But close to fifteen years later, the article unexpectedly re-emerged into my life like a boomerang you threw whirling back at you when you least expect it.
I was in New York on business and, with time on my hands, took a walk near my hotel, ducking inside a small, secondhand-record shop I came across on East 14th Street. And in the Charlie Parker section I found, of all things, a record called Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova. It looked like a bootleg, a privately pressed recording. A white jacket with no drawing or photo on the front, just the title in sullen black letters. On the back was a list of the tracks and the musicians. Surprisingly, the list of songs and musicians was exactly as I’d invented them in college. And likewise, Hank Jones sat in for Jobim on two tracks.
I stood there, stock-still, speechless, record in hand. It felt like some small internal part of me had gone numb. I looked around again. Was this really New York? Yes, this was downtown New York – no doubt about it. And I was actually here, in a small used-record shop. I hadn’t wandered into some fantasy world. And neither was I having a super-realistic dream.
I slipped the record out of its jacket. It had a white label, with the title and names of the songs. No sign of a record company logo. I examined the vinyl itself and found four distinct tracks on each side. I went over and asked the long-haired young guy at the register if I could take a listen to the album. No, he replied. The store turntable’s broken. Sorry about that.
The price on the record was $35. I wavered for a long time about whether to buy it. In the end I left the shop empty-handed. I figured, it’s got to be somebody’s idea of a silly joke. Somebody, on a whim, had faked a record based on my long-ago description of an imaginary recording. Took a different record that had four tracks on each side, soaked it in water, peeled off the label and glued on a homemade one. Any way you looked at it, it was ridiculous to pay $35 for a bogus record like that.
I went to a Spanish restaurant near the hotel and had some beer and a simple dinner by myself. As I was strolling around aimlessly afterwards, a wave of regret suddenly welled up in me. I should have bought that record after all. Even if it was a fake, and way overpriced, I should have gotten it, at the very least as a souvenir of all the twists and turns my life had taken. I went straight back to East 14th Street. I hurried, but the record shop was closed by the time I got there. On the shutter was a sign that said the shop opened at 11.30 a.m. and closed at 7.30 p.m. on weekdays.
The next morning, just before noon, I went to the shop again. A middle-aged guy – thinning hair, in a disheveled, round-neck sweater – was sipping coffee and reading the sports section of the paper. The coffee seemed freshly brewed, for a pleasant smell wafted faintly through the shop. The shop had just opened, and I was the only customer. An old tune by Pharoah Sanders filtered through the small speaker on the ceiling. My guess was the man was the owner.
I thumbed through the Charlie Parker section, but the record was nowhere to be found. I was sure I’d returned it to this section yesterday. Thinking it might have got mixed in elsewhere, I rifled through every bin in the jazz section. But as hard as I looked, no luck. Had someone else bought it? I went over to the register and spoke to the middle-aged guy. ‘I’m looking for a jazz record I saw here yesterday.’
‘Which record?’ he asked, eyes never wavering from the New York Times.
‘Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova,’ I said.
He laid down his paper, took off his thin, metal-framed reading glasses and slowly turned to face me. ‘I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?’
I did. The man said nothing and took another sip of coffee. He shook his head slightly. ‘There’s no such record.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘If you’d like Perry Como Sings Jimi Hendrix, we have that in stock.’
‘Perry Como Sings –’ I got that far before I realized he was pulling my leg. He was the type who kept a straight face. ‘But I really did see it,’ I insisted. ‘I was sure it was produced as a joke, I mean.’
‘You saw that record here?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. Right here.’ I described the record, the jacket and the songs on it. How it’d been priced at $35.
‘There’s gotta be some mistake. We’ve never had that kind of record. I do all the purchasing and pricing of jazz records myself, and if a record like that crossed my desk, I would definitely have remembered it. Whether I wanted to or not.’
He shook his head and put his reading glasses back on. He returned to the sports section, but then, as if he’d had second thoughts, he removed his glasses, smiled and gazed steadily at me. ‘But if you ever do get hold of that record,’ he said, ‘let me listen to it, okay?’
by Haruki Murakami, Granta | Read more:
Image: gray318
