NRR Project: ‘Ko Ko’
Written by Charlie Parker
Performed by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Curley Russell,
Max Roach, and Dizzy Gillespie
Recorded Nov. 26, 1945
3:01
A new chapter in jazz starts here. Charlie Parker (1920-1955) is responsible.
The young saxophonist practiced incessantly and quickly became a virtuoso. However, he wanted more out of jazz than the usual melody-based improvisations. They were boring and predictable to him, and he longed to express a music that he heard but could not quite articulate.
"I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used all the time at the time,” he said, “and I kept thinking there's bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes but I couldn't play it ... Well, that night I was working over 'Cherokee' and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.”
Parker’s ability to write new tunes over standard chord changes, his speed, his inventiveness, gave him the power to soar free above the musical conventions of the day. It remained only for him to record it. A musicians’ strike from 1942 through 1944 meant that no new music could be recorded. It was during this lull that “bebop” developed. This new style consisted of music definitely not crafted with the dance floor in mind. Faster tempos, complex rhythmic approaches, unusual harmonies, and a general sense of cutting free from the crowd-pleasing ethos of the swing era informed this new music.
On Nov. 26, 1945, Parker, trumpeter Miles Davis, trumpeter and pianist Dizzy Gillespie, bassist Curley Russell, and drummer Max Roach gathered in New York for a recording session. The tune we know as “Ko Ko” was derived from the chord changes in Ray Noble’s 1938 composition “Cherokee.” Parker took these basic building blocks and squeezed out something new and unique, involved, complex, and challenging. “KoKo” is also performed at breakneck speed.
The overall effect is bracing – Parker is making it up as he goes, turning the contents of his head into notes in the air. The traditional jazz musicians and listeners were initially off-put by the new music’s strangeness, but soon “bebop” would become the dominant expressive mode of jazz. And it all started here.
The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: Fiorello LaGuardia reads the comics.
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