Capturing the Soul of Charlie Parker

LA Jazz 2001, USC’s annual celebration of America’s music, opened Monday night at Bovard Auditorium with an unusually attractive event--a re-creation of the classic “Charlie Parker With Strings” recordings.

It’s a project that immediately raises a single imperative question in the minds of anyone familiar with the originals: Who can possibly take the Parker role in a set of performances that include some of his finest playing? The LA Jazz 2001 answer was the best possible choice: alto saxophonist Charles McPherson.

A superb bebop player, McPherson has the ability to simulate Parker so effectively that his playing was used by Clint Eastwood in the film “Bird” to supplement passages from Parker’s own efforts. Beyond his Parker-like skills, however, McPherson has long been a gifted improviser in his own right, employing the dialect of bebop to build a distinctively original style.

The material for the performance, with one exception, dated from the first Parker with strings album, his most successful set of recordings (six 78-rpm numbers, released in 1950). The accompaniment--a small string ensemble with oboe and English horn--was provided by the USC Thornton Jazz Strings, conducted by Shelly Berg. McPherson’s rhythm section--pianist Randy Porter, bassist Jeff Littleton and drummer Chuck McPherson (son of the alto sax player)--added appropriate underpinning.

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The magic of the music became instantly apparent when the opening phrases of the first number, “If I Should Lose You,” triggered a literal gasp of pleasure from the audience--clearly filled with listeners familiar with the originals. Other, equally impactive pieces followed: “Everything Happens to Me,” “April in Paris,” “I’ll Remember April” and the memorable “Just Friends,” Parker’s single best-selling recording.

The arrangements (with the exception of Joe Lipman’s chart for “I’ll Remember April”) were the Jimmy Carroll orchestrations from the album. And Porter added a version of “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was,” presumably because the original wasn’t available.

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What made it all come together, however, was McPherson’s stunning ability to recall Parker without imitating him, to find both the character and the soul of the music without losing his own musical sense of self. The result was a marvelous musical experience, and it was tragic that Bovard was only half-filled for the event, which opened with an appearance by the Acoustic Jazz Quartet.

McPherson noted that he was initially reluctant to do a project so closely associated with Parker. But one can only hope that the performance will be repeated again, in an appropriate venue with the sort of promotion that properly identifies it as an important jazz event.

* LA Jazz 2001 continues through Saturday at USC’s Bovard Auditorium with performances by Richard Bona, Eric Marienthal, the Steps Ahead Quintet, Cecil Bridgewater, Vanessa Rubin and others. Ticket information from the USC Spectrum office: (213) 740-2167.