(Soundbite of music)
SCOTT SIMON, host:
Charlie Parker was an original. His improvisations and harmonies still beguile and inspire almost 60 years after he died at the age of 34. His influence over jazz has lasted for generations and still affects musicians today.
(Soundbite of song, Yardbird Suite)
Mr. CHARLIE PARKER (Jazz saxophonist and composer): (Instrumental)
SIMON: Musicians still pay tribute to Bird on street corners, in clubs and on recordings, but it's tricky to pay your respects without sounding like some kind of imitation.
Saxophonist Joe Lovano took a different path to break down and build up something new from the art of an icon.
(Soundbite of song, Yardbird Suite)
Mr. JOE LOVANO (Saxophonist, composer): (Instrumental)
SIMON: Joe Lovano's new album is called Bird Songs, and in it he re-imagines Charlie Parker's music as supported by his working quintet, Us Five, which includes two drummers, a bass player, and a pianist. Joe Lovano joins us from Boston.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Mr. LOVANO: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure.
SIMON: Tell us about your family, very musical.
Mr. LOVANO: Well, I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. And my dad, Tony Big T Lovano, played tenor saxophone and he grew up in a real musical family and learned from his brothers who also played saxophones. And my Uncle Carl played trumpet. My dad grew up in the swinging bebop eras, you know, and heard Charlie Parker play live. Spoke about him all the time and had a lot of his recordings. So I grew up as a kid studying the music and hearing the music and falling in love with the whole idea of creating music. And Charlie Parker's influence for me was from the beginning.
SIMON: Lets a little object lesson now. Why don't we listen to first Charlie Parkers famous rendition of Moose The Mooch.
Mr. LOVANO: Okay.
(Soundbite of song, Moose The Mooch)
Mr. PARKER: (Instrumental)
SIMON: And yours.
(Soundbite of song, Moose The Mooch)
Mr. LOVANO: (Instrumental)
SIMON: So obviously you slow it down a bit. But what else did you do?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. LOVANO: Well, I took little motifs that happened in the melody itself and put them in the rhythm section parts so I could phrase the theme, how I felt it, and had the rhythm section playing counterparts within what I was playing.
(Soundbite of song, Moose The Mooch)
Mr. LOVANO: I grew up listening not only to Charlie Parker and inspired by him, but his disciples. And I'm speaking of Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Max Roach; the music that they played and developed with Bird but also after Bird passed, how they became themselves within the inspiration of Charlie Parker. So a tune like this is really inspired by, of course, the blues - you feel the blues in it, but you also feel the influence of John Coltrane Quartet, for example, on this particular piece.
SIMON: And what can you tell us about Bird Yard?
Mr. LOVANO: Bird Yard is a original tune of mine that is inspired by Yardbird Suite. And I took the first four bars of Yardbird Suite. Be, bo-bo-bo, bop, bo-do-de, de, da. Bo, do-do-lo-be-de-da-da. Da, da, da, da, da, do-le-de, da. Bo, do-do-lo-be-de-da. And play this just that much.
The way it's structured its like three bars of 4/4 and a bar of 5/4. And I put it through five different keys and we play over that form. The rhythm section really just plays that melody and rhythm.
(Soundbite of song, Bird Yard)
Mr. LOVANO: And I improvise within that on an instrument, it's called an Aulochrome. Its a double soprano saxophone that you can actually harmonize on.
(Soundbite of song, Bird Yard)
Mr. LOVANO: Its the first woodwind instrument made to be played in this fashion. And it has a whole energy and a whole spark and sound of its own. So I took parts of Yardbird Suite and turned it into this kind of whirling dervish of a piece.
(Soundbite of song, Bird Yard)
SIMON: Whats that instrument called again?
Mr. LOVANO: Its called an Aulochrome and it was created by Francois Louis in Brussels. Now the Alos(ph) is an instrument from the Middle East and it's a double flute that you can play a drone on one side and finger some melodies on the other. So Francois took this concept and designed and put together two soprano saxophones.
(Soundbite of song, Bird Yard)
SIMON: Mr. Lovano, thanks so much.
Mr. LOVANO: Thank you. Its amazing to live in the world of music and it's a blessing.
SIMON: Joe Lovano, the great saxophonist and composer. His latest album with his Us Five Quintet is Bird Songs.
You can hear a recent concert at nprmusic.org.
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.