Charlie Parker on "Cheryl"

On the fifth chorus of his solo on "Cheryl," Bird quotes a large portion of Louis Armstrong's famous cadenza from "West End Blues" (1928). The announcer (whom I believe to be Symphony Sid) immediately notes:

"If you were listening closely there, maybe you noticed Charlie Parker's quotation from a famous Louis Armstrong introduction to 'West End Blues,' showing that sometimes the new school does borrow from the old."

Bird's known for quoting plenty of material from his diverse listenings, including the piccolo obbligato from 'High Society,' but it's rare to hear him quote another contemporaneous musician at length like this. 



This particular recording is from a CD of a friend of mine's, called Early "Bird." Unfortunately, I don't have any other information about when this was recorded, although based on some quick online research, it's likely that this live recording is from a Sunday afternoon broadcast in December 1952, at the Hi Hat in Boston. I'm not sure, though, but the length of this recording (5:22) most closely matches the versions of "Cheryl" I've seen in a few Charlie Parker discographies. When I transcribed this solo, though, I noticed that the recording was in B, not in C—in other words, a half-step down from where Bird likely played it (unless he really did play this version of "Cheryl" down half a step). The recording itself sounds fine, though, and the radio announcer's voice is clear and doesn't seem distorted by speeding-up or down. Yesterday would have been Bird's 92nd birthday, so here's to Bird, still in flight:

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UPDATE: Thanks to Michael Griffin, who alerted me to the fact that this recording is from Carnegie Hall: X-mas '49. The cover art is also pretty wild, which you can check out in another blog post about Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins's two tenor (!) solos on "Compulsion," from Miles Davis's Collectors' Item.