Leo Parker: Rollin' With Leo

Leo Parker may not be a name that instantly springs to mind in the world of late 1940s bebop. There was one point, in 1948, however, when serious people, like Barry Ulanov, regarded Parker as the best baritone saxophonist around—in company with Charlie Parker and Fats Navarro. That is fancy company, so it is worth asking why he is so little remembered today?

Parker was a contemporary of the now better known (or at least remembered) Serge Chaloff. He shared the baritone (after an early stint on alto) as the horn of choice, but resembled Chaloff in no other way other than an affinity for heroin. Chaloff was a real blue blood, from Boston and the New England Conservatory, and had close ties to the classical community, from which he was indirectly descended. Parker was a kid from Washington, DC, black, and from what seems to have been a large family. He was a near contemporary of drummer Osie Johnson, with whom he attended Washington's Armstrong High School, which produced Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, Sonny Greer and John Malachi, among others. It must have been a lot like Mastbaum High in Philadelphia, because there was a lot of talent around and interest in music. It is doubtful that Parker finished high school—Johnson did not—and by eighteen, he was working as a musician at a club in DC that may have been named The Startup.

He must have joined Eckstine's band soon after, switching from alto to baritone saxophone at Eckstine's behest. In the late 1940s, Parker played in several pioneering Savoy sessions with bandmates like John Malachi, Howard McGhee, and Fats Navarro. He was apparently on the band with Coleman Hawkins that recorded "Woody 'n You" (1944), which some call the first bebop recording session. Regardless, Parker was there, and he was accorded increasing solo space as time went on. The musical results mostly depended on Parker's company.

With Dexter Gordon, he always took a bit to get warmed up: once he hit his stride, he made the solo and then some. His recordings with Fats Navarro were excellent, especially "Ice Freezes Red," (1947) which left no doubt about the company he could keep. But then something happened. Nobody thought much of Illinois Jacquet as a jazz player. In his company, Parker was relegated to the freak show of honkers and squeakers. With Sir Charles Thompson, he recorded "Mad Lad" (1947), and that was been beginning of the end for him as a serious jazz player; he rose or fell according to the company he kept. If money—and drugs—were increasingly driving Parker's performance, the result was predictable. As quickly as he rose to prominence in the 1940s, he simply faded in the 1950s. Bebop pioneer or not, he quickly became an also-ran. It was not just Serge Chaloff or Cecil Payne or Pepper Adams who pushed him aside. It was Gerry Mulligan who displaced him in the public eye. Fairly or not, that was the result.

Which brings us to the recording considered. In the 1960s, bop musicians who had receded from view because of drug problems were sometimes accorded a back-from-the-grave recording. Howard McGhee was one such beneficiary; Hampton Hawes was another. Leo Parker was given another shot on Blue Note. He made the most of it, for sure. This was not his first Blue Note recording, but what a great one it is. Any previous doubts about Parker's taste, intonation, or sheer drive are put to rest. His sound, like his predecessor Harry Carney's, is enormous—cavernous in fact. Why Blue Note sat on the recording until 1980 is simply inexplicable. If Parker's harmonic approach is hardly novel, his playing is nevertheless commanding. Dave Burns, a veteran of Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra on trumpet, is something of an eye-opener as well. When one considers the extremes to which some players have gone in search of something different—and sometimes tasteless or just plain weird—Parker's taste and control of his instrument are arresting.

On this recording, Parker really sounds better than ever. "The Lion's Roar" may not break any new ground, but Parker's sound is simply awesome, rolling and guttural, even for a baritone saxophone. On "Bad Girl," a Parker composition, a listener gets a whiff of Charles Mingus. Dave Burns plays a lovely trumpet solo that inevitably leads to the "why not more from him?" question. Parker's out chorus is meditative and soulful, as good one can expect to hear from a baritone. "Rollin With Leo" is a simple twelve-bar blues, relaxed, with a couple of choruses from Burns where he plays lots of pretty notes. Parker's solo is clever, some call-and-response with himself. "Music Hall Beat" is another medium up tune that brings the great Harry Carney to mind. "Jumpin Leo" has Parker lay down some serious bottoms that offer a nice contrast to Burns' middle register excursion. "Talkin the Blues" is just what is says it is. A down-and-out conversation that again evokes Carney, but with real expressiveness. "Mad Lad Returns" is a nod to Parker's past, but only slightly ill-behaved, if at all.

A sentiment to close: this guy could play some. And, at 36, it was encouraging that he could manage recording with a new energy. But just like that, it all came to an end. Parker died in a hotel bathroom soon after, with the official cause of death given as a heart attack. My Heavens, one thinks. Was there no end to the havoc, no limit to the talent destroyed, or no end to the tears shed from swing to bop? Leo Parker, no kin to Charlie Parker, who died at 34, made it two years further than Bird. Put them together, and there was more than enough music for one life, even if they only had 70 years between them.