It is no deep revelation that a strong relationship exists between math and music. Twelve notes in total, and countless variations thereof spinning out into the infinite, with the most virtuosic using the geometry of music to create a language. The dominant language of the music scene in the mid-20th century was jazz, and nobody, and I mean nobody, played like alto-saxophonist Charlie Parker. Friend and collaborator (and jazz giant in his own right) Dizzy Gillespie said of Parker’s playing that it contained “sanctified rhythms,” a shorthand way of expressing the fractal-like patterns in Parker’s breakneck bebop, melodies within melodies, calls-and-responses to multiple other instruments, all at once.
What struck me first about Dave Chisholm’s new graphic novel biography “Chasin’ the Bird: Charlie Parker in California,” out now from Z2 Comics, was that he seized upon these “sanctified rhythms” in Charlie’s own life, and found stories within the story of Parker’s short stint on the West Coast, and how the music of one man, tormented genius that he was, shaped an entire generation of musicians and music fans alike.
Written, illustrated, and lettered by Dave ChisholmCover by Dave Chisholm
Colored by Peter MarkowskiChasin’ The Bird tells the story of Charlie Parker’s time in L.A.
December 1945 began a tumultuous two year-stint for Bird bumming around L.A., showing up at jam sessions, crashing on people’s couches, causing havoc in public places, and recording some of his most groundbreaking tracks.
The graphic novel explores Bird’s relationship with the characters and events he encountered during his time in L.A. including recording some of his signature songs with Dial Record founder Ross Russell, a brief but influential stay at the home of famed jazz photographer William Claxton, a party for the ages at the ranch home of artist Jirayr Zorthian, and others who found themselves in the orbit of the jazz genius. Named after Charlie Parker’s 1947 standard, Chasin’ the Bird adapts one of the sunnier, but darker chapters in the life of Bird, beautifully written and illustrated by Dave Chisholm. Foreword by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Told in six vignettes (or choruses, as Chisholm aptly titles them) and two suitably breathtaking intro/outro scenes, the graphic novel focuses on the jazz saxophonist’s brief stint in California- of near-mythic nightclub appearances, and the friends, admirers, lovers, pupils, and hangers-on that surrounded Parker during this era. Each vignette is from a different person’s perspective, each person a prism reflecting Parker’s light. While I say light, it should be noted that “Yardbird” or “Bird” (as he was nicknamed) was a man hounded by his demons, who battled depression and drug addiction for all of his adult life, which led to it being tragically cut short at just 34 years of age. Bird, as gifted as the man was at playing the sax, was equally as gifted in the art of self-destruction. However, for one night, and one last West Coast gig at Jack’s Basket Room, the Los Angeles nightclub that opens and closes the graphic novel, you might believe that the man was, in fact, a god amongst men.
Chisholm expertly sets the stage in the intro, the eager anticipation of the crowd waiting to hear again from Bird, who had gone into some mysterious (and much conjectured) seclusion. Between precise coloring of the dark, neon lit club and the body language of an audience literally on the edge of their seat, readers are invited to sit up and take notice as well. This is history in the making, Chisholm has you feeling, and as Parker takes his first breath to start his set, potential hanging in the air, the perspective switches to the faces of the protagonists of the vignettes. With a mixture of awe, anticipation, concern, and love, the faces in the crowd say it all – Parker’s light just burned brighter than most.
Each vignette is a dialogue between the reader and one of the audience members, save for the Dizzy Gillespie chapter that begins the graphic novel, explaining how Parker and he ended up in California in the first place. The protagonists each address the reader directly, and informally- a surefire way to draw the reader quickly into the story, giving a sort of interviewer/interviewee vibe. As each person recounts their interactions with Bird, Chisholm (assisted on color duties by Peter Markoski) also plays around stylistically, with some stories retaining simple six-panel grids, and others, almost virtuosic in their own right, favoring large splash pages, or borderless panels that blur both space and time. While some formats work better than others, and I certainly don’t expect Chisholm to go wildly experimental with each chapter, as that might dilute the narrative, some stylistic choices do wonders for the chapter’s narrative.
Continued belowFor instance, the sixth chorus/chapter is told from the perspective of Ross Russell, Dial Records label owner, and while the story is fairly straightforward – Russell is trying to track down his golden goose (Bird) after another one of the musician’s disappearances- its style mirrors that of a Darwyn Cooke “Parker” adaptation, a two-toned, washed color noir that is perhaps the most literal version of “Chasin’ the Bird.” The decision to switch things up each chapter to make each narrative stand on their own must have been an idea easy enough to conceive of, but an altogether different (and likely difficult) one to actually produce. You wouldn’t know it, though, as Chisholm seems game to show off his own skills here, and each chapter exhibits clear and clean storytelling, even as the styles he’s working in shifts dramatically.
I first noticed Dave Chisholm’s work through “Dream Another Dream,” the Winsor McCay “Little Nemo in Slumberland” Eisner-winning tribute book released a few years back from Locust Moon. For me, Chisholm’s dazzling panel layout and an eye for what might make for a truly memorable dream of Nemo’s was one of the many standout pieces from that incredible book (I still have visions of Chisholm’s wide-eyed, looming sphinx in my own nightmares). Chisholm again showed up on my radar earlier this year with “Canopus,” a sci-fi mystery that felt personal in the same way Jeff Lemire’s “Trillium” did (similar spacesuit-wearing protagonists notwithstanding). Here again, “Canopus” shows readers that Chisholm is unafraid to experiment with structure, both literally on the page as well as narratively within the story. Chisholm, a musician as well as cartoonist, embraces the jazz of comics storytelling, finding new ways to present images on a page, chasing his own birds.
I grew up as a jazz admirer, but Charlie Parker’s music, much like the man himself, always felt unknowable. There is a complexity in his music that to an untrained ear (and even many trained ears) is simply on another level. We can understand the notes, we can hear the melody, we just can’t quite put together how the hell he achieves them. It’s a surface level understanding for most of us, and I think for much of the Beat Generation, this surface level extended to the man himself- he was an iconic emblem of Jazz, and Jazz Musicians. A man who refused to bow to the notion of music as business, or entertainment. Music was an art form, and a language, and nobody was as voracious as he was at trying to understand and decode that language. What’s really great about “Chasin’ the Bird,” I think, is that in the attempt to humanize Parker, Chisholm never lets us forget Bird was, and is, an icon. His shadow looms large over not just his peers at the time, but the entire landscape of music since him. Jazz legend Miles Davis is oft quoted as saying “You can tell the history of jazz in four words – Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker.” Strong praise, considering the source.
Circling back to the “sanctified rhythms” of Parker’s music, I’d like to end by noting how music itself is portrayed on the page, that is, the sound. Sound effects are no stranger to comics- in fact, they are a staple, but music itself seems trickier. Oftentimes it’s just a couple musical notes that float along or beside an instrument, sometimes it’s a full music bar with supplemental lyrics, traveling through the empty space in panels, surrounding characters, blending in with the environment. While these are clearly serviceable methods to portray the evidence of sound within a scene, what Chisholm does with his intro/outro of the book, and his portrayal of Bird’s music as fractals, is truly remarkable. Now, we could just refer to them as geometric shapes – mostly squares and rectangles – but I think that is being too simplistic.
I think Chisholm has found the perfect translation for Bird’s music on the page, these precise clean, overlapping, shapes of sound, flooding the darkly lit club with a bright neon light. The notes don’t trip over each other, but erupt from Parker’s sax at such a rate as to lay on top of one another, forming winding patterns in the air, surrounding Parker, and blanketing the audience. It is these fractal patterns that help us understand what Parker made was perhaps more than just music, but language, and music indeed as conversation. These same geometric rhythms metaphorically permeate “Chasin’ the Bird,” small stories of Parker the man, leading to his larger myth, informing the history of jazz, and, if you would believe critic and scholar Stanley Crouch, telling the story of Charlie Parker is telling the story of America itself, in all it’s tangled, difficult glory.
