Charlie Parker -Bird Massey Hall - All The Things You Are - 1953

On Friday, May 15th, 1953, Charlie Parker (Bird), Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus, and Max Roach performed at Massey Hall in Toronto, at an event sponsored by the New Jazz Society. No other gig in Bird’s life has been so thoroughly documented. There’s even a well researched and entertaining book about it, Quintet Of The Year, by Geoffrey Haydon.

The recording of “All The Things You Are” made that night makes clear the dichotomy between Bud’s genius and his decline. While comping behind Bird’s solo, he seems to discover an entirely new conception on the spot, creating streams of chord voicings, four to the bar, much like rhythm guitarists of the Swing Era, but considerably more sophisticated. There is no evidence of him ever attempting this concept before Massey Hall. It provides Bird a shimmering backdrop that offsets the sound of his plastic saxophone, the aural equivalent of costume jewelry, if you will. Unfortunately, as Bud attempts to continue this over the course of Dizzy’s solo, he sails off the edge of the earth. Caught up in the rapture, he loses his place in the form, to the point where Dizzy has to return to the melody to get him back on track. This is a symptom of his growing neurological impairment, and he loses his place at other moments, all well, though not as noticeably. This would have been impossible earlier in his career. (Bud’s impairment was the direct result of a 1945 police beating in Philadelphia, in which he was repeatedly clubbed about the head.)

Because he lived life in double time, Bird was in a very different place by 1953. The competitive edge that had existed from the moment he met Diz in 1942 may have finally lost its impetus. In 1947, just six years earlier, Bird had been little more than a cult figure, whereas Dizzy had been branded “Mr. Bebop”. By the time he and Diz shared the stage at Massey Hall, however, Bird had been granted the recognition he deserved many times over. He presumably understood that his career was past its peak and his body was giving out. He was entering old age and he knew it. As he announces “Salt Peanuts” (in his classic stage voice) he refers to Dizzy as “my worthy constituent”, an oblique reference to the architect-of-bebop conflicts. (I pasted this announcement at the beginning of “All The Things You Are”.) These words have been parsed over the years in search of Bird’s true meaning, but the clearest indication of his feelings toward Dizzy may be in his tone of voice. It conveys warmth and sly humor, without an iota of ill-will. Combined with the mood that infused his playing that night, he might well have meant “All is forgiven”.