In the late 1960s, I heard vague rumors in jazz clubs about an obsessive fan, named Dean Benedetti (or a name similar to Benedetti, depending on whom you spoke to) who followed Bird around and recorded his solos, and only his solos, on a wire recorder. Because the name Dean Benedetti reminded me of a moniker out of a Jack Kerouac novel, I wrote the rumors off as urban legend. In 1973, Ross Russell's often fictitious biography of Charlie Parker, "Bird Lives," was published, and Russell embellished the myth of Benedetti a hipster, saxophonist lurking around recording everything Parker played. To be fair to Ross Russell's book, despite being apocryphal, his account dramatizes Parker's appeal and his immense cultural influence. "Bird Lives" is Bird as an icon. Within limits, the book is true fiction.
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| Dean Benedetti |
As it turned out, the rumors were true. Dean Benedetti did record all of Bird's solos from a two-week stand of performances in March 1947 in California on a vinyl acetate cutter, and the next year recorded some sporadic New York performances on paper tape.
The recordings vanished into lore, and Dean died in 1957.
Dean's tapes reappeared in 1988 at his brother's house in Burbank, California. Mosaic Records secured the rights to them and issued them. There are a few minutes of recordings that, for reasons I'm not sure of, weren't included in the set, making this, in reality, "The Almost Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings."
'The Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings of Charlie Parker' is a 7-CD collection of the legendary, lost recordings, which were recorded by Dean between March 1, 1947, and July 11, 1948. The set collects 15 days' worth of Bird's improvisations and rehearsals at a variety of clubs, including the Hi-De-Ho in Los Angeles and the Three Deuces and the Onyx in New York.
A brief note on the sound quality. My ears are well bootleg-seasoned, if yours aren't, and if you can't listen through lo-fi murk, you might want to avoid this set, as it conforms to the First Law of Bootlegs: The more interesting the material, the worse the fidelity. These recordings are unquestionably amateur affairs and were not exactly meticulously cared for. The set also includes a booklet, that is beyond outstanding, and has fascinating information and excellent technical notes on how Dean recorded, as well as the equipment he used.
Another rumor in the jazz world is that there is a lost wax cylinder made by the New Orleans trumpeter Buddy Bolden, and are the holy grail of jazz. If that's true, then the Benedetti recordings are the vice-holy grail. For the freeload, tell us about your favorite urban legends and rumors, musical or otherwise.
Mr. Green Jeans (Captain Kangeroo's sidekick) was Frank Zappa's father always struck me as funny.
ReplyDeleteIf that wax cylinder of Bolden ever existed, it certainly would have been cashed in by now.
Wasn't there something about Alice Cooper being Eddie Haskell, in 'Leave It To Beaver'?
DeleteThat's a new one to me. I think the one that was somewhat popular in my neighborhood was that Haskell in real life died in Vietnam (hankfully, was wrong).
DeleteI heard the "Alice Cooper played Eddie Haskell" rumor back in the 70's or 80's.
DeleteThe kerfuffle over allegedly pornographic lyrics in the Kingsmen's "Louis Louis" had the nation fixated in the 1950s. It triggered our society with the same intensity stirred by Janet Jackson's nipple or the present paroxysms over transgender folk going potty Indiana's governor swore it was a dirty song because his ears tingled when he listened to it. A months-long FBI investigation ensued (really!) in which agents spent hours playing the record, trying to make out dirty bits in the vocalist's slurred delivery. The feds closed the investigation saying they could barely make out any of the lyrics, and the song went on to become among rock 'n' roll's most covered tunes.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a play that had a couple of [made up by me] legends about Bird, mainly about his being pretty much unbeatable, unassailable, in the characters's various encounters with him. In production, we turned a Soho (UK) basement theatre into a Soho (NYC) basement night club (seedy but hip) circa 1950, such that when the audience descended, they were virtually entering a post-war bop boîte, with all the details you could imagine (our designer was - and still is - a genius).
ReplyDeleteThat sounds tres cool!
DeleteAt the risk of sounding pedantic, in the 1950s, SoHo (an acronym in Manhattan, for South of Houston Street) was on its last legs as a manufacturing neighborhood, and had no Jazz Clubs, pedestrian or hipster joints. That said, I would love to read the play.
The Soho (NYC) was just for fun, given the play was staged in London's Soho. The nightclub was actually, as I recall, on Barrow St. Thoughts as to how I might get a copy of it to you?
DeleteLady Gaga and Jamie Lee Curtis have a schwanzschtücker.
ReplyDeletewoof!
DeleteWell played!
Delete***Golf clap***
After WWII, Great Britain saw the need to preserve and strengthen ties with its Anglo allies. Being the most distant, Australia felt neglected compared with US and Canada. So the day after Christmas, "Boxing Day", Queen Elizabeth II would visit the old penal colony and participate in a charity boxing match with a kangaroo. Or so the lads in our London office told me.
ReplyDeleteAs an Aussie this is a new one to me - but my favourite is when our Prime Minister Harold Holt went missing after swimming in rough surf and the rumour was that he was picked up by a Chinese submarine!. (They later named a swimming centre after him!).
DeleteI would pay good money to see her royal highness box a kangaroo.
DeleteLiving in the Pacific Northwest, we have a couple of very popular urban legends. One of course is Bigfoot, although that might be more accurately defined as a rural legend. The other is that skyjacker DB Cooper actually survived after parachuting out of a Boeing 727 over Washington or Oregon in 1971 and is living high on the hog under an assumed name.
ReplyDeleteNah, DB wuz eaten by Bigfoot, who wuz later killed & strapped onto RFKs rooftop.
Delete-notBob
correction...RFK junior
DeleteRFK junior is poised to become a living nightmare.
DeleteHopefully he'll become an urban legend.
Delete-notBob
Then there's Rod Stewart, and the stomach pump....
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Elton John and the hamster.....
DeleteI heard that one as, Richard Gere
DeleteThe Babysitter who placed a baby in the oven while high on acid.
ReplyDeleteA popular legend dating back to the 1960s, claimed that several people took LSD and stared at the sun, going blind as a result.
ReplyDelete"But mama, that's where the fun is"
'Reefer Madness', some high school kids smoke a few joints, which ends in murder, kidnapping, rape, and automotive homicide.
ReplyDeleteYou just can't get that quality of weed, these days...
Putting aside all those that featured in the X-Files (Bigfoot, Jersey Devil, Chupacabra and of course that wonderful interpretation of the Roswell Incident), my favourite is probably Nessie. I went to Loch Ness as a child and standing on the shoreline the way the water would lap against the rocks on the shore sounded like something bubbling up from the deep. I would love that to be proven true. Wonderful stuff!
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the hilarity stakes a 'sunday newspaper', if you could call it that, of old called the Sunday Sport used to emblazon on its front page the most outrageous myths including Elvis being spotted alive and well and working in a supermarket in Coventry, the Halifax bomber sighted In the Sea of Tranquility on the moon (with photo evidence), and the boy who had been bitten by an Amazonian frog whose legs transformed into giant frogs legs forcing his father to return him to the South American tropical jungle before his transformation completed. I always imagined haggard aging gin soaked Fleet Street journalists carousing late into the evenings as they created these masterpieces of the absurd.
In the US, we have "supermarket tabloids" (named for their prominent placement along the supermarket checkout lines), that had the same "News".
DeleteI was just on the phone with my daughter, and she told me, of KISS standing for Knights In Service of Satan.
ReplyDeleteMore like knights in the service of the almighty dollar.
DeleteRobert Johnson’s Faustian bargain.
ReplyDeleteI've been to the crossroads. Thanks Babs
DeletePaul is dead. I can prove it. I have evidence: album covers, song lyrics, etc. G'ahead, try to convince me it ain't true.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Elvis was spotted here, there and everywhere. In January, The King turns 90!
DeleteCaptin Pugwash was a comic book and later cartoon series about a pirate on the BBC in the 1970's. In the 1990's it was alleged that it was full of sexual innuendo and populated by the characters, Master Bates, Roger the cabin boy and Seaman Staines. It was so widely believed that the creator, a deeply religious man had to take court action against a number of newspapers. Nowadays all you would have to do is Google it or watch it on YouTube to see that the names never existed.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the beginnings of such stories are based on some comedy mashup of the Pugwash cartoon that possibly could have originated in the clubs, holiday camps and pubs back in the 1960's / 1970's (Pugwash first appeared in the early 1950's). Its just the sort of thing any one of a vast number of near the knuckle British comedians might have made up as a sketch for their shows.
DeleteMingus and 56 whales
ReplyDeleteLink
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/uZ4XwggR2Fp
Moonwalk happened in a studio. Thanks Babs
ReplyDeleteOne of the hardest things to decide what is legend and what is truth are the antics of Keith Moon as many of them are in part if not totally true. I think it was Michael Caine who used to tell a story of how he bought a mansion off Moon and while Moon was showing him around they came across a Rolls Royce in the swimming pool and Moon's reaction was "well you can have that too".
ReplyDeleteNow as to its truth its unclear but what is true is Moon did at some point drive at least one petrol driven machine into a swimming pool and some of the stunts he and Viv Stanshall got up to were truly outrageous. He really did deserve the name 'Moon The Loon' in many ways.
I remember Moon's "petrol driven machine into a swimming pool" incident as part of his 21st birthday celebration in Flint, MI, involving a Lincoln Continental. What is undisputed is that The Who *were* banned from every Holiday Inn, but the rest of that August day & night in 1967 is ... hazy. Thanks to PotRO for bringing this to the conversation. Here's a nice article:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.mlive.com/news/flint/2017/08/50_years_ago_today_who_drummer.html
D in California