This weekend, like thousands of New Yorkers, I was a part of a transfixed audience who witnessed what has become known over the last 15 yrs as The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. I was revived, refreshed, and renewed as musicians paid homage to all those legends who have come before and paved the way so that the art form can transcend to higher heights.
Yes, the temperature was hot and so was the music, red hot! As the heat became more and more unforgiving and the smell of barbeque and hot sauce permeated the still air, we fanned, swayed, bopped, snapped and clapped to the hypnotic arrangements of Miss Lezlie Harrison, Mr. Marc Cary, Mr. Roy Hargrove, the legendary Mr. Chico Hamilton, Mr. Maurice Brown, Mr. Todd Williams, and Miss Cassandra Wilson who filled in for Miss Abbey Lincoln. The heat would have been too much for Miss Lincoln. That’s alright, the lady has earned the right to stay cool.
To say that these artists are talented would be an understatement of gross proportions. They are possessed with the energy of their way pavers: Mr. Charlie Parker, Mr. Miles Davis, Mr. John Coltrane, Mr. Clifford Brown, Miss Billie Holliday, Miss Nina Simone, Miss Ella Fitzgerald, Miss Sarah Vaughan, Miss Dinah Washington, Mr. Thelonius Monk, and most recently, Mr. Max Roach, Mr. Jon Lucien, Mr. Sekou Sundiata, and other music makers that have ascended.
Many thanks to this weekend’s bandleaders and their equally possessed ensembles. Uptown and downtown-Bird lives and so does Jazz!
