Martin Gray's epic biographical poem chronicles the life of one of the twentieth century's most pivotal musical figures, from his humble beginnings in Kansas City through his pioneering of the breakthrough musical form of bebop to his early tragic death in the Park Avenue apartment of a European countess. Writing in iambic trimeters and syncopated hexameters, Gray dances nimbly along in a way that echoes Bird's blazing, fast-fingered solos. Gray's use of the poetic form reflects the rhythms of jazz and the beat hat lies at the heart of bebop. Blues for Bird is like a piece of jazz itself: exciting, innovative, and constantly surprising. This book not only functions as a primer on Bird, but as an introduction to the musical nature of jazz.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"A must for all Parker fans!" -- Howard Rumsey, the Lighthouse All Stars
"Brings out unsuspected mythic aspects of Parker, and the resonances set up in the poem are many and effective." -- Literary Review of Canada
"Focused, full of life, and incredibly well informed . . . Charlie Parker is so real that we can breathe him in." -- The Blindman's Rainbow
"Martin Gray's cadence is a perfect compliment to the poetry of jazz." -- Stan Levey, jazz drummer
"The nearly 300 page narrative should be dubbed the 'Bird Bible.'" -- allaboutjazz.com
"This is a collection that needs to be read, nay to be sung, by anyone claiming to love poetry." -- Iota Poetry Quarterly
"Brings out unsuspected mythic aspects of Parker, and the resonances set up in the poem are many and effective." -- Literary Review of Canada
"Focused, full of life, and incredibly well informed . . . Charlie Parker is so real that we can breathe him in." -- The Blindman's Rainbow
"Martin Gray's cadence is a perfect compliment to the poetry of jazz." -- Stan Levey, jazz drummer
"The nearly 300 page narrative should be dubbed the 'Bird Bible.'" -- allaboutjazz.com
"This is a collection that needs to be read, nay to be sung, by anyone claiming to love poetry." -- Iota Poetry Quarterly
About the Author
Martin Gray is one of the world's foremost scholars of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poetry. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A poet's feel for a jazzman's life,
By A Customer
This review is from: Blues for Bird (Paperback)
This bird plays a saxophone. He's Charlie "Bird" Parker, virtuoso, pure-souled devotee of his art, incorrigible drunk and wastrel, hero, the stuff human contradictions are made of. Read here about Bird: his sad life of struggle, his incomparable gifts as a performer, his musicianship, his place in a passionate fellowship of black musicians. Gray writes it all down in a sequence of short poems, all cast in the same measure - his version of the classical trimeter. Three beats to the line; but the rhythms weave round the beat like a jazzman's improvisations. Try this: He played all colors too -/ orange yellow green/ all forty shades of blue/ as if he played this for/ every blue there was./ Red may raise the heart/ and green redeem the world/ especially in spring/ but blue expresses soul,/ the hunger each of us/ has for the her or him/ who rests there deep within/ making of each a whole.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Epic anti-epic,
By walt mead (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blues for Bird (Paperback)
How can you write an epic today when the world is no longer 'story-shaped'? You can go back and translate 'Beowulf', as Seamus Heaney, has done, or you can be like Martin Gray and write an epic life in quantum bursts of three-stress energy.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Accessible poetry,
By A Customer
This review is from: Blues for Bird (Paperback)
Somebody ought to make a bunch of CDs, with an actor reading these highly accessible poems against a backdrop of Charlie Parker's music. They'd be a wow!
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Hear the tale of a Bird his flights upon the horn for almost twenty years beginning at fifteen ending at thirty-four. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Bob Newman New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Hear the tale of a Bird his flights upon the horn for almost twenty years beginning at fifteen ending at thirty-four. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Bob Newman New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 1
book:
1
book
cites this book:
- Bird: The Legend Of Charlie Parker (Da Capo Paperback) by Robert Reisner in Front Matter
- Mocambo Nights: Poems from the Mocambopo ReadingSeries by Patrick Lane in Back Matter
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