[JPL] Charlie Parker and the food of Jazz

[Jon Burr]

Re: Bird

Where did his nickname come from? There are diverging accounts out there.

"Bird" is a contraction of his actual nickname, which was "Yardbird." One account (I don't recall the source) said that it was bestowed upon him by members of Basie's band, who would spot him as a youngster hanging out in the yard outside the Kansas City club where they were in residence, listening to the band as an underage wannabe. This is the most reliable, in my opinion. I'll try to dig out the source.

Here's a published reference to his "full nickname" -
http://www.cmgww.com/music/parker/about/biography.html

Hold the fried chicken!

Jon


>
>Well Charlie Parker's nickname throughout his life was 'Bird'. There are a number of accounts as to why. One is that it described the way he played - he was able to control the saxophone with such fluency that he sounded like a bird. But another says that he developed this nickname because he had a profound love for deep-fried chicken. In relation to this, i watched 'Rockwiz' the other night and a random bit of trivia that came out was that the great jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald once sung for a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial (in my opinion Fitzgerald is the second-best jazz vocalist ever - next to Billie Holiday).
>
>So it seems that the food of Jazz is deep-fried chicken. I am just so unsatisfied with this! Jazz is very cool, and well deep-fried chicken...just sucks. But then again, Jazz /is/ American music so it has to have American food. The New Orleans Cafe <http://www.neworleanscafe.com.au/> in Crows Nest Sydney interpret Jazz food as basically southern food - Cajun and Jambalaya (and they do make a good Jambalaya). Maybe this is historically accurate, but i think we should develop a new food for Jazz, something cool, swave, colourful and a little radical.


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