Article published in the journal More Jazz (II -2009)
Chasin'the bird
Do not cry for me, 'cause I'm going to Kansas City
to produce beauty, we experience pain.
Charlie ParkerI saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical starving crawling through the streets, black at dawn looking for a fix furious angel heads scorched by ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, those poor and ragged and cavernous eyes and smoke rose high in the supernatural darkness of cold water departments floating across the tops of the cities contemplating jazz. Howling
. Allen Ginsberg
, self-taught as Monk and many others, it would Bird if it had not been in place and the right time: a social and cultural environment that stimulated his addictive need and creativity, besides being a safety valve to marginalization. To the surprise of many, including jerifaltes the music of New York of the importance of Joe Hammond and Joe Glaser of Chicago, Kansas City was a hotbed of night clubs that had not closed its doors during Prohibition ( Volstead Act) nor during the early 30's, indifferent to the depression that plagued the country. Night clubs with live music until dawn moment when the musicians returned to bring the instruments to their inns. "The clubs Did not close. About 7:00 in the morning the cleanup man Would you eat and all the guys at the bar Would move out of the way. And the bartender Them Would serve at the table while the place got clean up. Then They Would go back to the bar. The clubs jump up 24 hours a day, "said Jay McShann, famous musician. Kansas City, thanks to its importance in the market for livestock and wheat, had become the main commercial center of a large geographical area from Houston to Denver, besides entertainment venue, attracting small and large customers due to Southwest charm of its cabarets, gambling halls, night clubs, brothels ... organized crime syndicate.
"Boss" Tom Pendergast was the chief a despotic po Pulistan Democrat mayor, however, awarded with honors any review on the history of jazz. Paradigmatic case of the link between the underworld and the arts, especially jazz, always to the power where unbridled leisure breaks. Edward Murrow, a journalist with the Omaha World-Hearld , advised his readers: "If you want to see Some sin, forget Paris and go to Kansas City. With the possible exception of Such renowned centers as Singapore and Port Said, Kansas City no industry has the Greatest in the world. " Pendergast of Kansas City made a sleazy precedent of Las Vegas, thanks for the game generated a profit of 100 million dollars annually and one million from the sale of illegal drugs, not in vain Kansas City was the headquarters from which distributed cocaine, morphine and heroin across the Southwest. All this not inconsiderable sum the figures resulting from prostitution and alcohol. However, prices were equally attractive. In the Reno Club, where he worked Count Basie Orchestra, the paradigm of style and greater Kansas City landmark, the beer was five cents, fifteen cents whiskey, marijuana cigarettes were sold to three units for a quarter and room visits to two dollars.
The so called "prosperity Pendergast, a municipality as tolerant as corrupt and a welcoming environment for most social services, led an effect called on the music community, impoverished by the Depression. Musicians from other cities in ever greater numbers, came to participate in the bonanza and the mid-30's the city of Kansas City had emerged as a potential rival to New York and Chicago because the collection of jazz talent moving through the downtown. The streets of Kansas City embodied a climate of abundant opportunities and the rule of Pendergast shelter at the trough. Nowhere in North America was more work for musicians, nor more bands ( Twelve Clouds Of Joy Andy Kirk or Blue Devils Walter Page, to name two historic). Nor more talent blowing the brass.
In 1935 the level of the saxophonists who struggled in Kansas City was a legend. Ben Webster with the band Twelve Clouds of Joy , Lester Young in the Reno Club, Herschel Evans - archrival Lester, Dick Wilson, Douglas Buck, Herman Walter, Henry Bridges, Eddie Barefield, Prof Smith ... And the battle heading into the club Cherry Blossom, in 1934, among the best saxophonist of the moment, Coleman Hawkins, and Kansas City trio formed by Lester Young, Ben Webster and Herschel Evans. a legendary jam session - way past the dawn until noon, which Lester Young enthroned as the new ruler of the saxophone, the mirror of generations on the road. Echoes of the news spread like wildfire and not long after Fletcher Henderson would offer the post of Hawkins, the east from Europe. The word of mouth and radio broadcasts were not long in attracting the large cities to the bigwigs of the industry. Joe Hammond, individual capital in the release of Benny Goodman as the King of Swing, in 1935 stunned the radio to listen to Count Basie's band came to town with a contract under his arm, but eventually would give back Basie and signed with Decca Dave's Krapp. Joe Glaser, Louis Armstrong's manager, lost either eye. Gone were pioneers in Kansas City bands, including the Bennie Moten, whose legacy would lead to the highest levels Count Basie. Such
licentious atmosphere was implemented is a musical style characteristic of much modernity and wealth, fostered mainly by the steady work, the concentration of talent and lack of commercial pressures. In Kansas City one said to the musicians to play or how to play: the musicians were free to follow their guidelines and create cravings. The gangsters who ran the club did not require more than music and lively dance. The ingredients of this style boiling under pressure, the tradition of Southwest blues, the sounds of big bands the Northeast and the informal nature of Harlem jam sessions with his improvised solos.
And there was a callow Charlie Parker, whose highly impressionable formative years coincided with the reign of Pendergast, infiltrated the club after having outsmarted the goalkeepers and his mother, perched on a gallery from where panoramic could see in everything that happened in Reno Club. And there heard Charlie Parker notes, melodies, rehearsing with his fingers on imaginary keys, fantasized to be playing with Lester Young, emulated poses, received enthusiastic approval whistles ... While Lester Young wrote pages of history, Charlie Parker received his education. Yes, Parker had an innate talent, a prodigious memory. Nothing in an inappropriate environment. Kansas City, with his unbounded amalgam of disparate influences, was for many the drive belt to a style that had his back to the big bands to create solo and increasingly elusive to the general public, a shortcut to Minton's Playhouse toward the bebop . However, Charlie Parker gave no lessons, no one was available for guidance: the musicians slept during Bird day and had only opportunity to listen. When they were addressed always evaded questions and joked sarcastically about his pubescence. Thus, Parker was resolved without the help his doubts: how to prepare the tabs, blowing, filling the keys, and use your fingers to extract different qualities of the same note ... there are many details involved with a saxophone resulting sounds. Without a consistent method, the placement of his fingers was revealed product of observation. No one had placed his fingers as a good teacher would. Very often he was unable to produce a certain note, but I knew how it sounded. The notes were nocturnal absorbed, everything was classified to be retrieved later. His musical ideas troubadour had left behind their ability to execute.
Migration Basie's band, which played without written music, something unusual in those days, coincided with the end of the great age, said the decline of the corruption that had boosted the local economy during the worst years of depression. The Kansas City Star newspaper drew forth a series of articles denouncing electoral fraud perpetrated by the Pendergast machine, fake addresses used to register hundreds Feedback ghosts. The forces of opposition to Boss Tom closed ranks around a reformist committee. U.S. Attorney Maurice Milligan, supported by Senator Lloyd C. Stark, reported evidence that Pendergast had defrauded the state more than half a million dollars in taxes, not to mention the goings on illegal gambling. The prosecutor also revealed the web of corporations Pendergast empire had a monopoly on the construction and public employment, ultimately the entire trafficking of influences. Even the intervention of Senator Harry.S.Truman, emulating Lloyd C. Stark, could save Pendergast. As soon as the head fell, sentenced to 14 months in prison for tax evasion, like the grating shortcut to Al Capone, a gang of thugs did so strategically located, including the police chief. Up to 259 defendants were convicted. In unison, the bands personal reduced until it disappears, the best musicians emigrated advantage gained fame and live music gave way to the canned music jukebox.
... Stark's agents descend on Kansas City, enforcing state liquor restrictions to the letter of the law and forcing clubs on 12th and 18th Streets to shut down at 2 A.M. and remain closed on Sunday. The curtailed operating hours immediately eroded the quantity and quality of nightlife in Kansas City. Facing decreased revenues from the loss of late night and early morning customers, club owners scaled back on entertainment by replacing musicians with jukeboxes. Musicians relying exclusively on club work soon found themselves looking for day jobs."
Los días de expendedurías de licor, la prostitució n, el tráfico de nar cóticos en las esquinas, la corrupción police, the gangsters ... they were history. With the arrival of the new mayor, Bryce Smith, who consider themselves Reform, began a campaign to clean up the image and the streets of Kansas City. In addition to gambling and brothels, the new administration closed the clubs run by gangsters where jazz musicians had grown up. In 1939, just weeks after the sentence Pendergast, Charlie Parker took up and left Kansas City, never to return as a resident. Determined, prepared, fully committed to jazz, tireless and full of ambition. "There was one thing I wanted to do. He Did not worry about anything else - as long as I Could Play That horn" Jay McShann said. Jazz had become his f orm of life, jealous of any interference. He had learned first hand of the best soloists, heard, reescuchado, slowed each alone in his gramophone ... struggled to get out their ideas impelled by new ones, crossing boundaries and exploding without restraint, their wings outstretched. Now's the time.
His conquests are like a dream, forget to wake up when the applause they bring back, to him that is so far living their day and a half minutes. Julio Cortázar
