I came across Charlie Parker the first time in high school jazz band my freshman year. We played ‘K.C. Blues’ and I went out and found a compilation that afternoon (“Bird: The Original Recordings of Charlie Parker on Verve”). It was also my introduction to Verve Records and Bop. As I got more and more into jazz, Charlie Parker was one of the artists I explored first. I was playing alto sax at the time and had access to a few transcriptions of solos (which I simply couldn’t play).

During my years at the Tower in Roseville I would pick up discs as they would come in (and eventually order the ones I wanted). And he became on of the artists that Tamiko and I liked to listen to together. One of the best finds came with a box of Japanese imports that were just sent to the store. We didn’t know what was in the boxes – they were just packed together by Tower’s import department and sent to us. In one of these boxes was ‘Charlie Parker with Strings, the Complete Master Takes’. $35 for the disc and I took it to Tamiko the day I got it. This isn’t Bird in Bop mode, but Bird in melodic and romantic mode… great date music. This was the only copy of the disc we got as well (and I didn’t see it again for close to 10 years until it was re-issued in the states)

Tamiko had an old Datsun B-210 that, like most cars from the 70s that survived into the 90s had quirks. The B-210’s quirk was that, when cold started, would stall on a hill. And it just happened that her house in Roseville sat on a road that rose in the middle (creating a kind of hill to the curb). Well – someone broke into the B-210 and tired to steal it. Luckily, the car died. Unluckily a box of CDs that was in the back was taken, and along with it the Charlie Parker with Strings disc. Tamiko felt horrible about it, but I was just glad everything else was ok. About a week later I get to work and sitting in the return bin at Tower is the Charlie Parker discs along with a few others that were taken! The crook had returned them for store credit!!! No one remembered anything about the guy, but I was able to buy the disc back again.

Just now I put the recording on (after ripping it) and in just a couple of notes Tamiko shot me a smile. In the first couple of notes, I was hit with the image of the two of us in her apartment on Arch Street in Berkeley, listening to the disc with the windows open and the cool sea breeze streaming in. Sure – I have a good amount of Charlie Parker to rip tonight (lots of Bop especially – and a great disc with a VERY young Miles Davis playing backup) but I wonder how many of the discs on my shelves will create such a vivid memory for me (or make Tamiko smile so quickly). Probably not many.