On this day, during three different decades, four trailblazers were born. Each luminous. Each wholly individual. Each unwaveringly true to themselves.
This past weekend as part of Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage, we celebrated saxophone icon Charlie Parker at New York City’s annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. Now in its 32nd year, the free festival pays homage to Parker over a three-day celebration that features performances from a variety of world-class musicians. CPJF takes place in two locations: Harlem’s historic Marcus Garvey Park and Tompkins Square Park in the East Village — symbolic of Parker’s dwellings when he lived in the city. I was honored to be part of the festival’s lineup this year as resident DJ.
As a DJ, it’s important to curate an experience that tells a story. That story is yours to tell through the music you dig and mine, and you decide on a direction that inspires you.
My inspiration was August 29, the day Charlie Parker was born in 1920. Not only was Charlie Parker born on August 29, but so were three more of my heroes — illustrious GRAMMY®-winning bassist and vocalist Meshell Ndegeocello, innovative vocal giant Dinah Washington, and the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. This quadrumvirate of artists born on the same day not only informed my DJ sets at the festival, but got me to thinking about the extraordinary potency of this date and what their shared birthdays can pull our focus toward.
I thought about the ways to approach the intertwining of these four individual geniuses. As a native New Yorker, the first thing I reflected on was their respective birthplaces: Charlie Parker and Michael Jackson both come from Midwest cities — Kansas City, KS and Gary, IN, respectively. Dinah hailed from the Deep South, in Tuscaloosa. Ndegeocello is from D.C. I thought about how these regions laid powerful foundations through black cultural traditions and how this inspired them artistically, but also how they all — at some point in their lives — made The Big Apple their home. New York City would become important to each of them as it pertained to the expansion of their craft and their personal growth.
When I asked Ndegeocello what it meant to her to share a birthday with these towering figures, her response intrigued me. A legend in her own right as a barrier-breaking veteran with 30 years in the music business as a solo recording artist, she also reminded me that in addition to the artists I’d identified, it is also the birthday of directors William Friedkin (The Exorcist) and Richard Attenborough (Gandhi), and it is also the day Hurricane Katrina set upon New Orleans, Louisiana — all adding to the profundity of this date.
She also mused on the idea of perfectionism, a stereotype that is so often associated with those born under the astrological sign of Virgo. When we listen to the technical prowess of Charlie Parker on his horn or hear about the methodical and incessant studying Michael Jackson did of his heroes, or the articulation and clarity that frames the soul of Dinah’s vocal execution — let alone consider the work ethics of fellow Virgos like Beyoncé, Kobe Bryant, and Wayne Shorter (who, like Ndegeocello, wrote songs called “Virgo”) — it’s easy to deduce that perfectionism is central to the ways they each arrived at the apexes of their careers. However, Ndegecello offered me another perspective. “I can speak for myself; I am not looking for perfection. I just know when it feels right. And I can’t imagine Charlie Parker thinking about perfection. I think [his artistry] was a total, cathartic release of his expertise and emotion.”
This was a revelation for me, as I thought about herself, Parker, Washington, and Jackson. The catharsis she referenced is distinctly heard and felt, for instance, on her latest album, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin, a love letter to the writer, activist, and one of the 20th century’s greatest cultural critics, during his centennial anniversary. Or witnessed during Michael Jackson’s epic “Billie Jean” dance sequence during the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards. Or when Charlie Parker played “Lover Man,” or when Dinah sang “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes.” Each has a mystical presence and an inimitable, effortless swagger. Their respective etherealness is quite the opposite of the rigor attached to the Virgoan archetype. This is not to say there isn’t a meticulous element to each of these artists, but the idea of perfectionism is far too limiting, and after talking to Ndegeocello — likely, an overall misnomer.
Charlie Parker is one of the most paramount and influential musicians of all time, developing a lexicon that shifted culture and helped re-shape American music as a whole. His phrasing, rhythmic ingenuity, harmonic genius, and brilliant melodic sense earned him a rightful place on the Mount Rushmore of jazz. His compositions, his technological innovations are still being anatomized by the best musicians of today, emphasizing the continual modernity of his artistry.
Parker passed away in March of 1955, only three years before Michael Jackson was born. While born almost four decades apart, I think it’s important to remember that Jackson was a devout student of jazz, and enthusiastic in his appreciation of the artform. As a teenager, he cited Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Johnny Mercer as among his favorites.
Arguably the greatest dancer of the last century, Jackson shook the earth when he debuted his Moonwalk on Motown 25 in the spring of 1983. A decade earlier he revealed his unmatched version of the robot dance in 1973 on Soul Train. But in 1977, Michael Jackson also showed off his incredible tap dancing skills on the Jackson family’s television variety program alongside the great Nicholas Brothers in an awe-inspiring, intergenerational, and profound cultural moment. Jackson, who was on the brink of unthinkable superstardom (he was soon to make his big screen debut, starring in The Wiz, and his breakthrough solo album, Off the Wall, was soon to follow) was also trading fours with tap icons who were born in 1914 and 1921, respectively.
Then, there are the two artists to whom Michael owed perhaps the greatest debts: Sammy Davis, Jr. and Quincy Jones. No one on the planet could remotely relate to Michael’s genius, multitudinous talent, and childhood stardom more than Davis, who got his start in show business as a toddler. And when Jackson’s label pushed back on his choice to have Quincy Jones produce what would become the most important album of the century, arguing that Jones was too much of a “jazz guy,” Jackson insisted on Jones being the man for the job, likely because of, in part, Jones’s deep roots in jazz and his phenomenal arrangements and orchestrations.
With all of this in mind, it wouldn’t be far-fetched at all to think that Charlie Parker was on Jackson’s list of inspirations. As a child he was singing with a high level of sophistication, often on songs with tricky time signatures, that had lots of changes, and required a musical skill set parallel to that of a great jazz musician.
Take “All the Things You Are,” a song both Parker and Jackson recorded. Jackson’s 1973 version definitely sounds like it was made for the time he sang it, with electric piano, a funky groove, and the signature strings inextricable from much of ’70s disco. But the structure of the 1939 Jerome Kern standard remains intact, particularly the intricate and frequent modulations that give the song its beauty and create an exquisite framework for an improvisor like Charlie Parker to astonish us with, which he did when he played it in 1945 with Dizzy Gillespie. Jackson also worked with The Mizell Brothers, who produced jazz artists like Donald Byrd and Bobbi Humphrey.
It’s absolutely worth also noting that legendary organist Jimmy Smith laid an unforgettable solo on Jackson’s “Bad” in 1987. And, jazz musicians were mutually drawn to Jackson’s catalogue, including Vijay Iyer, Joey DeFrancesco, Lester Bowie, Kenny Burrell, Grover Washington, Jr., and most notably, Miles Davis, who recorded a beautiful hit version of Jackson’s 1982 ballad, “Human Nature.”
Dinah Washington’s pioneering amalgamation of gospel, blues, and jazz made her a rhythm & blues progenitor, whose distinctive voice inspired countless singers, including Nancy Wilson, Esther Phillips, Diane Schuur, and Amy Winehouse. Along with Parker, with whom she shared concert billing in the 1950s, she extended the styles of black music. Before Aretha Franklin would take the baton from Washington and shoot to stratospheric realms, Washington laid the foundation for what it could look like for an artist to blur the lines of genre and gain pop notoriety, as she did with hits like 1960’s “You’ve Got What It Takes,” with Brook Benton, reaching #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Hot R&B songs chart.
This achievement by Washington is central to her legacy, but it remains both praiseworthy and essential to keep front of mind. Especially when we consider how black women are still striving for the freedoms their white women counterparts have to transcend genre and categories without judgment, apology, or subsequent societal retribution.
Meshell Ndegeocello has taken that baton passed from Dinah, to Aretha, to Tina Turner, to Minnie Riperton, to Tracy Chapman, and become a modern-day force as a genre-defying vocalist, instrumentalist, producer, arranger, and a cultural thought leader. Her first album, Plantation Lullabies, was an intoxicating and unprecedented blend of funk, hip hop, New Jack Swing, and jazz. The album showcased what would become some of her hallmarks: her exquisite voice and now signature fluid vacillation between sung and spoken word; her magnificent bass playing; and a deep sensuality that created space for a wider spectrum of black women, blasting through the cis-heteronormative standard simultaneously reliant on a white male gaze. Released in 1993 during the thick of the crack-cocaine epidemic, Plantation Lullabies also confronted societal woes that pointedly affected the black community.
Thirty-one years and 13 brilliant albums later, Ndegeocello continues to ask us to reflect on the human condition and ask ourselves the right questions. Released earlier this month, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin is a masterful culmination of a journey that began as far back as 2016, when Ndegeocello was commissioned by Harlem Stage and Jason Moran to create a musical tribute to the literary genius. When I asked her in 2020 about her James Baldwin-inspired writing she said, “In these times we’re living in, I feel called to create something that can be healing — healing through the energetic frequency of the music, through the sound waves. I feel called to create songs that give a kind of upliftment, and, sometimes, mirror the sadness. In this I find great inspiration in James Baldwin.” Four years, a pandemic, and the globally witnessed brutal lynching of George Floyd and state-sanctioned murder of Breonna Taylor later, Ndegeocello’s words land heavier, her musical offering more desperately relevant and appreciated.
In reflecting upon Parker, Washington, and Jackson, I think it’s important to acknowledge the fact that they each paid a heavy price for all that it took to build and nurture their legacies. We sometimes romanticize the act of trailblazing, perhaps, in the process, failing to take the task at hand into account. Especially when navigating a society and industry that isn’t structured with equality and fairness in mind.
“Imagine being loved for something, your art your innovation, but you’re unable to transcend the hurt,” says Ndegeocello of her heroes who each suffered premature deaths. “And that’s where I hope to be nothing like my two heroes, and it’s in their names that I strive for ease of mind and the ability to manage the mental pain.”
On this day, I salute four giants. Four of my heroes. Four individuals who dare and dared to break new ground, and to expand our musical perceptions by creating beyond category, beyond definition, and, most importantly, beyond our wildest imaginations.
