"I Knew the Real Charlie Parker" - Sonny Rollins

[Music] Charlie Parker was our God he was a prophet we know Charlie Parker's music and love it and we know part of his story which is the Tabloid side the senior side the troubles but there's another side to Charlie Parker that not too many people talk about Sonny Rollins was there and now he tells us the other side of Charlie Parker Charlie Parker represented the new black artist if he saw him in performance he was very dignified so he was going against the grain a most black musicians had this entertained a little bit you know I mean look at dizzy nothing wrong with that that's just the way you come up and maybe as a type of person Disney is unfortunately by being an Entertainer you prohibited that next social Step In Black integration into the American culture because you were stereotyped as being an Entertainer even though some great musicians entertainers look at Louis Jordan he was my man that he was the first guy that got me into music really listening to him playing the sex and nothing wrong with that I'm not putting these people down at all that's the that's the era that they came up and that that was a Norm at that time except people like Coleman Hawkins cut the mold so I'm sure there are others we were of the age when Charlie Parker was the guy that we kind of heard his music more in our head although I never lost touch with any of the older people but I mean if you're 15 years old today you're going to be into hip-hop if you're 15 years old as we were in that time you were going to be into Bebop Charlie Parker who was a guy that's very dignified when he played and he was playing so much fantastic music highly intricate involved complicated intellectual that he had to be recognized as not just great music but as these person that was an artist not an Entertainer that was very important for us because we were coming up after the war a lot of people wanted to be treated a little better in the American uh mainstream Charlie Parker to us represented that and it was a very great figure I think culturing is sort of taking over that mantle now with a lot of people but bird was definitely um our inspiration foreign [Music]

Channel: Jazz Video Guy

Views: 25,328

Keywords: Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Bebop, Dizzy Gillespie

Id: SCerNb5S7yE

Length: 2min 57sec (177 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 27 2023