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Billy Berg’s
The Club as it might have appeared at the end of 1945…
….it was no party running a Jazz club back then.
All that remains of the Finale Club, where Parker organised a steady engagement after Dizzy and the rest of the band went back to New York. The club closed soon after as a result of LAPD corruption, then tried to open again as a kind of musician’s cooperative. Quite a few of the bootleg recordings of Parker in California were made at the Finale.
The Recordings.
A recording from Billy Berg’s does exist, a take of “Salt Peanuts” done for the radio station WEAF on the 24th of Jan, but I couldn’t find it. It’s out there if you really search.
Bird & Diz in light-hearted mood with Slim Gaillard, 29th Dec 1945.
”Got to cut out? Gotta make a Jubilee? Well, All Reet!”
Compare it with this version after Camarillo..
The solo from Moose the Mooche…
The Alto break from Night in Tunisia…
…then it all goes wrong.
After Camarillo…
Camarillo State Mental Hospital
The hospital then…
…and now, as California State University Channel Islands.
Did Bird get Electro-shock treatment? Russell says no.
Tom interjects to ask: So what if he did?
Some of the other characters in the story.
![William Claxton | Charlie "Bird" Parker and his fans, Pasadena, 1952 | Available for Sale | Artsy](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd4bc6724-1e0f-4f59-b462-42efa411292a_583x800.jpeg "William Claxton | Charlie "Bird" Parker and his fans, Pasadena, 1952 | Available for Sale | Artsy")
Surely William “Bill” Claxton needs no introduction, but here’s the original of the photo in the book.
Julie Macdonald’s haunting sculpture of Bird from 1956.
Jirayr Zorthian with one of his sculptures.
An article about the Zorthian Ranch.
The recording of the jams at the party at Zorthian Ranch in which Charlie Parker takes part.
![John Coltrane - In June, 1945, John Coltrane saw Charlie Parker perform for the first time. It was a life-changing experience. In an interview with DownBeat years later, Trane recalled: "the first](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2694ee31-5648-4793-a659-ccfffa9914c3_303x166.jpeg "John Coltrane - In June, 1945, John Coltrane saw Charlie Parker perform for the first time. It was a life-changing experience. In an interview with DownBeat years later, Trane recalled: "the first")
The by now famous image of Bird and Diz, with Trane waiting in the wings….
Here’s Trane’s second recorded solo, with Dizzy Gillespie from 1951….
Bird with the young Ross Russell.
Maybe we should leave the last word to Sonny Rollins…
Not quite final, sorry Sonny, ‘cus Tom did manage to identify that comic book serious graphic novel about nuclear war in the UK in the early 80s was Raymond Briggs When the Wind Blows.
Chasin' The Bird