Word: parkers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...City were good, happy times for jazz musicians, and the surviving Kansas City jazzmen have learned how to deal with the disappointments of the intervening years; when they get together, they share joy, humor, and open affection. Jazz fans already know about the tragedies of Kansas City--how Charlie Parker died an addict, destitute and disillusioned at 35, how a disastrous gig with the U.S. Army ravaged Lester Young's unique and delicate personality. Bitter recollections of these stories would not touch anyone not already familiar with them...
...more. Sublime recordings of "South" and "Moten Swing" by the Benny Moten Orchestra, descendant of the Oklahoma City Blue Devils and ancestor of the Count Basie band, play under the opening and closing credits; the only other period music accompanies the brief snippets of antique footage--Basie, Turner, Young, Parker--that pepper the body of the film. These are truly gratifying. "We were doing rock and roll before anybody heard of it." Turner grumbles. We have all heard this sort of talk before, but a 1955 clip of Turner performing his "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" (later covered by Bill Haley...
...film's contribution to jazz mythology will be modest. Eddie Durham tells of how Basie's "One O'Clock Jump" was renamed when radio censors vetoed the original title, "Blue Balls." McShann provides yet another anecdote about how Parker came to be called Yardbird. Ricker's 24 hours of rough footage doubtless contained many more interesting stories, but as a movie, not an oral history project, the film's wonderful sense of pace easily offsets an occasional choppiness in cutting from one bull session to another...
...comfortable Carter primary majorities in both states, Democrats gave smashing victories to Ted Kennedy: 47% to 41% in Connecticut, and 59% to 41% in New York. Suddenly, the race that only a week earlier appeared all but over now offered at least a stir of life. Crowed Carey Parker, one of Kennedy's speechwriters: "We felt as if we had pushed and pushed, and the whole dam just burst." Said Richard Drayne, a high-level Kennedy adviser: "The President has been living in a house of cards, and it is finally collapsing...
...soul, blues, much Motown and Stax, as well as reggae. Costello, in Lou Reed's phrase, "wants to be Black." One of the two covers is an old Sam and Dave song, the rousing, "I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down." Charmingly, it comes out sounding like Graham Parker and the Rumour. Influences being what they are, maybe it was supposed...