Charlie Parker: August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955
Here’s a wonderful tribute from the always reliable Richard Brody at The New Yorker.
Here’s a poem, written toward the end of my stay at the Noepe Center, summer 2016: Charlie Parker’s Premonition (gratitude to Five:2:One Journal for publishing this one in 2017).
Charlie Parker’s Premonition
At least Bach believed in God—this is what saved him.
Can you fathom that freedom, the peace of such certainty?
In thrall to exigency, at once owned yet refusing ownership
of one’s art. Accepting endowments that, on blessed occasions,
override routine; on hallowed days clamor for consummation
in a voice you alone are capable of divining, or better still,
chosen to channel: a commission you neither oppose nor suppress.
Sadly for the faithless, God’s accessible only through transcription,
and often selects vessels not spiritually suited for the exchange.
How would you handle the hot urgency of some holy inspiration
if it awoke inside your mind, screaming like a starved exile?
Could you mitigate earthly debt in the sacred currency of psalms?
Or would you require synthetic unction to abide the consecration
of a million illimitable miracles—even if you scoff at such stuff?
(2012)
Sometimes art aspires to attract life, and sometimes –all too seldom– life responds.
Sometimes life manages to surpass art: life is where the real art happens, if you are open to it; if you are paying attention. Or if you are lucky.
And sometimes a dignified and generous gentleman (you won’t use his name and you can no longer call him a stranger) surprises you.
“I love music,” he says. “And I walk past your door and always hear your records playing.”
He is holding a pile of records.
“I hear jazz and blues, and those are my two favorite types of music.”
He holds up one of his records, and it’s an artist you both admire.
“There are not many people I know who appreciate this.”
Not many people appreciate jazz and blues, you don’t need to say.
“We should listen to music together sometime,” you say.
“Well, I would like that. I’m caring for my wife and I don’t have a chance to listen to music like I used to.”
You just summed up everything I’ve been trying to write about for the past five years, you don’t say. (You can’t begin to explain, but you think about connections, omens, gifts and messages, and all that this week signifies. And what this encounter may or may not mean, and how it need not represent anything other than what it is: that elusive, soulful human touch.)
He would understand, though. And maybe you’ll get there.
For now, he’s left you with a pile of records.
“I want to find people to give these to,” he says.
I can’t tell you how much this means to me, you say.
And although he is obviously a dignified and generous man, he could not begin to understand how much you mean these words.
