SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

It’s ninety years this year since the birth of the great saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker. He was one of the pioneers of the bebop that was developed in the 1940s and changed the whole world of jazz with a harmonic and rhythmic complexity never before heard. His way of improvising became a guiding-star for generations of not only saxophone players and Jukka Perko assimilated Parker’s ideas in his youth to such extent that at the age of 19 he was invited to join Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band. Among the things he listened to and enjoyed were the recordings with strings that Parker made in the 1940s. There were diverging opinions among jazz critics at the time, but Parker himself regarded those recordings as his best. For some reasons the original arrangements – by Jimmy Carroll and Joe Lipman – got lost during the 1950s and thus they have not been heard for more than fifty years. Now Veli-Matti Halkosalmi has transcribed them from the recordings and, having enjoyed the Parker recordings during my early jazz years, listening to The Voice of America’s Jazz Hours, it was a great pleasure to hear this music again after so many years – and with the clarity, dynamics and presence of a live event as an extra bonus.

 

Besides strings the orchestra also sported harp, French horns and woodwind (occasionally allowed some short solos) with the jazz quartet at the forefront. The arrangements, the memory of which naturally had paled away during the fifty or so years that have eloped since I last heard them, are variable but highly professional and often truly inspired. In a couple of pieces the string writing was close to Mantovani but quite as ingratiating. But these were more or less exceptions. Pieces like What Is This Thing Called Love and the groovy Repetition were enormously effective and Summertime with low tremolo strings hauntingly beautiful. The orchestra played well, many of the musicians visibly enjoying music that they in all likelihood don’t play very frequently.

 

Center stage, in more than one respect, was however Jukka Perko. That his master was Charlie Parker was never in doubt, but far from being a pale epigone he was a vital, personal, inspired full-blood musician, playing with tremendous zest. His whole appearance was bundle of energy with rhythm oozing out of every pore, always alert to inspire his fellow musicians with nods, smiles or appreciating gestures. His trio was terrific. Kirmo Lintinen’s solos were constant masterpieces and Ville Hettala och Teppo Mäkynen were a rhythmic radar coupe, twin souls in their rapport. With all respect for the Helsinki Philharmonic, Confirmation, played by the quartet alone, was the definite highlight. All four of them had extended solos and during Mäkynen’s drum solo the mental temperature in the hall rose to the boiling point. Mäkynen’s solo in Salt Peanuts, was also a delight to ear as well as eye. This 1941 composition by Gillespie and Kenny Clarke, arranged by Vellu Halkosalmi, also encompassed some vocal contributions from the orchestra, and it was a glorious end to the concert proper. But the audience were not satisfied without an encore and the quartet responded with a high octane version of Night in Tunisia.

 

A great evening and I do hope it was recorded. If/when the disc arrives I’ll be among the first to place my order!

 

Göran Forsling