if charlie parker were a gunslinger...

Charles Mingus wrote a number titled “Gunslinging Bird” with the subtitle “If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger there’d be a whole lot of dead copycats.”

No doubting the truth of that.

I’ve just cycled 20 miles from “In Search of England” to “In Search of Scotland,” the exercise bike being set up in my study in front of book shelves. All the way I listened to “Fontessa,” a 1960 album by The Modern Jazz Quartet. To be truthful, it didn’t inspire me to ride faster but then I suppose John Lewis never anticipated that one day he’d be used to alleviate the boredom of 25 minutes going nowhere.

However, the thought struck me that, as far as I know, nobody ever copied The Modern Jazz Quartet. It was an acquired taste, a little like coriander and leek soup, and while their chamber-jazz music was immensely popular at the time, I’m not sure the market could have had the resilience to take more than one such band. I enjoyed the sound then and in small doses I enjoy it now. It was certainly unique, partly with the scoring and performance, and partly because of the pairing of Vibraphone and piano in a day when jazz fans would tend to scratch their heads if the front-line didn’t include a saxophone or a clarinet.

Laid back; relaxed and perhaps a little romantic – that was the band’s inimitable style… late night music for half-way between turning down the lights and having a cigarette. Well – the first track anyway. It never worked for me, but then I had other problems; it seemed to work for my friends. Today, laid back and relaxed isn’t the ideal motivator for trying to burn a few more calories than yesterday. Tomorrow, I’ll return to Mingus and something which gallops – perhaps “O.P.” or “Hog Callin’ Blues.”

The album is:  The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife – CBS Jazz Masterpieces 4608222

                        The line-up of Gunslinging Bird is:

                        Dick Williams (tpt) Jimmy Knepper (tb) Booker Ervin,
                        John Handy, Benny Golson, Jerome Richardson (reeds) 
                        Roland Hanna (p) Theodore Cohen (vibes) 
                        Charles Mingus (b) Dannie Richmond (d)

                        Recorded: New York 1^st November 1959.