Post-Parker String Dates

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

The genius of Charlie Parker's studio recordings with strings in 1949, 1950 and 1952 for the Mercury and Clef labels produced by Norman wasn't the merging of bop and fiddles. In Parker's case, the unification was something of a happy accident when he turned up at a Carnegie Hall, Granz-produced recording session at the tail end of 1947 asking to solo over Neal Hefti's Repetition. The true genius of Parker and strings is that he knew exactly what to do with them.

Rather than bend to the natural melancholy of strings, Parker played bop solos lyrically, soaring in and out of the strings and treating the violins as a backdrop for his vision. Parker had all the respect in the world for classical music and symphonic strings, but not at the expense of his art. The results, of course, were magical.

Today, this observation sounds rather obvious, but back then, Parker's jazz approach was radical and would remain unmatched for years. Some might argue that no other jazz artist has ever topped Parker's use of strings.

Yesterday, I was listening to Parker and became curious about which jazz-strings sessions followed his successful dates for Mercury, since the great Granz had obviously come up with a winning recipe for merging the two forms. So I went through the Verve discography and was surprised at how few string sessions were recorded in the years following Parker's dates and how poorly they hold up. [Pictured above, Norman Granz]

To be sure, Parker with strings wasn't the first time jazz and strings intermingled. Flush band leaders like Artie Shaw, Harry James and Tommy Dorsey added string sections to their orchestras in the 1940s. But Parker and Granz set a new standard, so I isolated Verve jazz recordings with strings from 1950 to 1954. The list includes the Ralph Burns Sextet with Strings in 1951 (too neo-classical and tedious), the Benny Carter Quartet with Joe Glover in 1953 and '54 (too syrupy), Harry Carney in 1954 (too sluggish and odd, like a walrus trying to wriggle into a ballet tutu), Dizzy Gillespie in 1954 (lousy song choices and mambo-heavy arrangements by Johnny Richards) and Ben Webster in 1954 with Ralph Burns (painfully sincere and affected).

By my accounting, only George Wallington with Strings in 1954 and Buddy De Franco with Oscar Peterson and strings on the George Gershwin Songbook albumin 1954 wound up with better song choices, interesting string arrangements and a lyrical outcome on Verve. The arranger on the Wallington session was Sonny Lawrence or George Brackman (the discography isn't sure), while Buddy's session was the handiwork of Russ Garcia.

Outside of the Verve label, the only artist who came close to Parker with strings during this period was James Moody in Paris in 1951 for the Vogue label. And even then, Moody, in all of his sublime greatness, didn't match or top Parker's beauty, grace and yearning. Yet more evidence of why Parker, to this day, remains one of post-war jazz's most exceptional and exciting artists with the clearest vision.

JazzWax note: Clifford Brown with Strings was recorded in 1955 and is outside the parameter of this post.

JazzWax tracks: Here are artists' attempts at recording with strings for the Verve label between 1950 to 1954, as well as James Moody's Vogue session. To be clear, I'm not dismissing any of the recordings below, just noting that they don't hold up and fall way short of Parker's recordings with strings... 

Here's Charlie Parker playing April in Paris...

Here's Ralph Burns with Lee Konitz playing Vignette at Verney's...

Here's Benny Carter with the Joe Glover Orchestra playing Blue Star...

Here's Harry Carney on We're in Love Again...

Here's Dizzy Gillespie with Johnny Richards' arrangement of Silhouette...

Here's Ben Webster on Do Nothing Til You Hear From Me...

Here's George Wallington with strings on Autumn in New York and Moonlight in Vermont...

Here's Buddy De Franco and Oscar Peterson playing It Ain't Necessarily So...

Here's James Moody with strings playing Les Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves)...

And here again is Charlie Parker playing Everything Happens to Me. I rest my case...

Used with permission by Marc Myers