Paul Desmond Chats with Bird

By / Interviews / , , ,

Here is another little tidbit that while not exactly being breaking news, is still something that a lot of people have still not yet seen.

In an inspiring interview presented in both text and audio with Charlie Parker conducted by Paul Desmond, the two legends discuss a myriad of fascinating topics.

Some of the highlights

  • Charlie Parker thought that music “should be very clean, very precise – as clean as possible anyway – you know, and more or less to the people, you know, something they could understand, something that was beautiful…”
  • For a period of 3 to 4 years, Bird used to practice 11 to 15 hours a day.
  • As evidenced by his incredibly rigorous practice schedule, he held study of music in very high regard. Says Bird, “Study is absolutely necessary, in all forms. It’s just like any talent that’s born within somebody, it’s like a good pair of shoes when you put a shine on it, you know. Like schooling brings out the polish of any talent that happens anywhere in the world.”
  • He had plans to travel to Europe and study with modern classical composer, Edgar Varese at the Academy of Music in Paris.

UPDATE: The page with the audio file that I was linking to no longer exists, so you can listen to the interview below, and read the transcript off from Mel Martin’s site, at http://www.melmartin.com/html_pages/Interviews/bird_desmond.html [Sorry(!), but this web page has disappeared since the original publication of this article]