Bird Up!

[Pete C]

I just came across this today:

Featured Artist: The Charlie Parker Remix Project

CD Title: Bird Up

Year: 2003

Record Label: Savoy Jazz

Style: Acid Jazz

Review: The Bird Up CD is credited to a collective entity known as “The Charlie Parker Remix Project…” Well, how provocative is that? The answer, I suppose, depends on how you take it. Really, the whole idea of remixing and reworking the classic Savoy recordings of Charlie Parker in light of current technology and musical trends is risky at the very least. Does Bird really need to be remixed and recontextualized? It’s offensive to even suggest such heresy—Parker always has been and will remain an icon of hipness. But who says this is about making bebop cool for the kids? Listened to without prejudice, Bird Up comes across as an interesting collaboration by very different musicians with the jazz of Charlie Parker and his associates as the jumping off point. One emerges from the experience with both renewed respect for Bird’s genius as well as admiration for the new visions expressed by the Remix Project.
Producer Matthew Backer has assembled an impressive cast from all across the musical spectrum to reinterpret the original music—artists from hip-hop and dance music like RZA and producer Dan the Automator are featured alongside distinguished jazz players like Hubert Laws & Ravi Coltrane, generations of rockers from Garth Hudson of the Band to System of a Down singer Serj Tankian, as well the genre-bending classical ensemble the Kronos Quartet. Some tracks are more successful than others, but the CD overall has a good flow. Some tracks aren’t much more than old recordings augmented by electronic beats and/or raps, while others are radically worked over. “Salt Peanuts (The Mr. Peanut Chronicles)” certainly fits into the latter category, with Hal Willner overseeing a jam by Dr. John and the Kronos Quartet along with Bird & Diz’s original recording of “Salt Peanuts.” The effect is oddly reminiscent of the Hot Club of France and is one of the album’s most stunning tracks. Two separate tracks are graced by the lines of flautist Hubert Laws, himself a pioneering figure in the history of what has become known as hip-hop by virtue of his early seventies collaborations with Gil Scott-Herron. Me’shell NdegeOcello and Raymond Angry add some nice grooves on “Relaxin’ at Camarillo (August 29).”

In general, I found the more experimental tracks were satisfying, and I didn’t feel the lion’s share of the vocals added much. The abstract nature of bebop is part of its core appeal; Red Hawk chanting “Now’s the Time” on the opening “Now’s the Time (No Time Like Now)” slightly weakened the effect of the actual song “Now’s the Time,” though I liked Deke Damascus’s soprano sax and some of the production flourishes on that track. I did, however, enjoy the use of found voices (especially the sample of the Muppet Burt) by Dan the Automator on “Steeplechase (Sittin’ on 22s).”

Hip-hop and jazz have, at best, an ambiguous relationship. There have been groups like Diggable Planets who have successfully integrated the two forms, and it is possible to trace a lineage between the two musics through proto-rappers like Herron and the Last Poets. One, however, can easily take that too far—I mean, if you are finding extensions of bebop in, say, gangsta rap, you’ve probably tortured a lot of logic in the process. In any case, what reemerges in this reimagining of Charlie Parker is the power of his brand of jazz as popular music. The liner notes by Touré make reference to jazz as “American Classical music,” but that’s missing the point entirely—apart from being unfairly dismissive of composers like Cage, Copeland, Adams, Glass, et al, who actually write music that deserves that title, something like “Now’s the Time” has no pretense of being other than popular music. There are exceptions in the jazz canon--pieces like Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige” and Davis & Evans’ “Sketches of Spain” explicitly work in a classical framework—but the rhythm of bebop, like the rhythm of hip hop or dance music, is about getting you to move. Bird Up will make you tap your feet and maybe get up off your…seat and dance, all with the melodic and harmonic richness unique to jazz.

Reviewed by: Ted Kane

* * *

JULY 28, 2003 - Rolling Stone
Serj, Automator Remix Parker
Sax giant gets turntable treatment this fall

Dan the Automator, System of a Down's Serj Tankian and Me'Shell Ndegeocello are among the artists who are tweaking the music of legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker for Bird Up: The Charlie Parker Remix Project, due October 21st on Savoy Records.

The Automator, who is more accustomed to tinkering with artists like Beck and Air, takes on a pair of Parker originals, "Perhaps" and "Steeplechase." "It's like coming full-circle," he says. "I get to re-interpret music that inspired me when I was starting to make tracks, so as maybe to inspire others. I hope, too, that maybe these remix records might introduce Charlie Parker to a new audience."

Producer Matthew Backer masterminded the twelve-track album, reaching out to an eclectic array of artists and encouraging each to use the original songs from the early era of Parker's career (1944-1948) as a starting point.

"Charlie Parker is godlike," Backer says. "The idea was to create a new revolution in honor of the original revolution, which gave birth to many of these people -- even though some may not have known it before they were offered this opportunity."

Bird Up track listing:

"Now's the Time (No Time Like Now)," Red Hawk (featuring Deke Damascus)
"Relaxin' at Camarillo (August 29)," Me'shell Ndegeocello
"Salt Peanuts (The Mr. Peanut Chronicles)," Hal Willner and Mocean Worker (featuring the Kronos Quartet and Dr. John)
"Bird of Paradise (Gone)," Serj Tankian
"Congo Blues (Silencer)," Donk (featuring Ravi Coltrane and Wild Children)
"Steeplechase (Sittin' on 22's)," Dan the Automator
"Cheers (X-ecutioners Style)," Rob Swift (featuring the X-ecutioners)
"A Night in Tunisia (Downpour)," Donk (featuring Donk & the Coconut Tree and Kodo)
"Shadows of Nuff," Hal Willner and Mocean Worker
"Perhaps (Someday the Roof Will Get Fixed)," Dan the Automator
"Barbados (Where Fish Fly)," Matthew Backer for the Alien Among (featuring Hubert Laws and Redback)
"Constellation" El-P


- Colin Devenish

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

Astor Piazzolla just got the remix treatment, too.

[Sergio Zamora]

I don't see RZA in the track listing.

[Tom Storer]

How completely devoid of interest.

[SinginSumo]

Though I hesitate to make a value judgement without hearing the music, my expectations are that this disc might be completely devoid of taste as well.

[HenryMc]

I wont hesitate

go away guys and play with your programmers and leave bird to the ages...it would be like fixing the smile on the mona lisa

[hearsay]

You guys are just moldy figs. I, for one, am really into the idea of taking something sublime and turning it into something mediocre.

[Cem]

I think it's all in the intent and it usually shows. Those who find value in something and wanna experiment with it to see where else they can take it or where else it can take them, often seem to succeed. Those who have run out of ideas and wanna revise something of beauty, because it's next on the list (kinda like most Holywood remakes) often butcher it.

[Chris D]

Is there no grave safe from robbery?

[Salvador Dali Lama]

goddamn.

[Sergio Zamora]

Well, I'm a fan of El-P, RZA, and somewhat of Dan the Automator, so I'd be curious to hear it, though I predict it's going to suck.

Personally, I don't think anything is sacred, and that any recorded sound is fair game and can be exploited. I don't see what makes Charlie Parker any differrent than James Brown or P-Funk when it comes to being a sampling source. This will still probably suck, but I say let'em try.

[hearsay]

I agree with you Sergio, I don't think anything has to be sacred, and I'm fond of some of those artists' work too. However, when they set out specifically to make a Bird remix project I'm extremely skeptical, as I would be of a James Brown remix project. I feel like no matter what it is, it's unneccesary, but maybe they'll suprise me.

[Salvador Dali Lama]

EL-P will just take the sample, put some grainy sounding drums and some fuzzy ass pseudo-techno bassline under it and call it a day.

I was a major fan of his up until his solo album. Really it was about up until coflow broke up and def jux got started. I haven't liked anything he's made since. Keeping in mind, the Cannibal Ox record was done like 5 years ago.