"What Price Love"

[BlastMaster]

A couple of folks here are engaging in a bit of trivial research, and I
wondered if anyone here could help. Bird recorded "What Price Love"
(Yarbird Suite) in 1948. Is "What Price Love" a Bird tune (if so, did
he write the lyrics that Carmen McRae apparently sings on this
recording)? Or is it a show tune from a previous source that Parker
adapted to become "Yardbird Suite"?

If you post an answer, could you cite your source, so that I can refer
the other parties to it?

Thanks in advance.

-- jeff

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

[Jack Woker]

> A couple of folks here are engaging in a bit of trivial research, and I
> wondered if anyone here could help. Bird recorded "What Price Love"
> (Yarbird Suite) in 1948. Is "What Price Love" a Bird tune (if so, did
> he write the lyrics that Carmen McRae apparently sings on this
> recording)? Or is it a show tune from a previous source that Parker
> adapted to become "Yardbird Suite"?

My source is my own knowledge, bolstered by possession of the original
recording of "Yardbird Suite", which credits Parker as the composer. It
is an original composituion, not something adapted from another source.
Bird most definitely did not write lyrics for this tune. The lyrics
were added many years later. Presumably McRae's version credits the
lyricist.

jack

[Michael Fitzgerald]

On Fri, 19 Nov 1999 23:37:00 -0800, Jack Woker <ste...@ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

My information is in pretty much direct contradiction to Jack's. Carl
Woideck's bio "Charlie Parker" p. 20 talks about this tune - "He [CP]
tried his hand at arranging for the band, and eventually (in 1941),
one of his compositions, "What Price Love?" (which had a lyric by
Parker), entered the McShann repertoire. (It was later recorded as
"Yardbird Suite" without the words; see chapter 3).
------

Chapter 3 says -

"The next selection to be tackled was "Yardbird Suite," an
instrumental version of "What Price Love?" a melody, chord
progression, and lyric Parker had written while with Jay McShann.
Although Parker generally tended to only write new melodies over
preexisting forms, "Yardbird Suite" (its title evidently a pun on the
piece "Firebird Suite" by Igor Stravinsky; Parker had heard all or
part of the ballet score several years before) is a wholly original
composition in both melody (A *and* B sections) and chord progression.
This piece is best known in its instrumental incarnation, but in the
1940s, singers Carmen McRae and Earl Coleman learned the lyric from
Parker. The vocal version, "What Price Love?" first recorded by
Coleman in 1948, begins:

It's hard to learn how tears can burn one's heart
but that's a thing that I found out
too late, I guess, I'm in a mess

My faith is gone, why lead me on this way?
I thought there'd be no price on love,
yet I have to pay.

-----

There is a note in chapter 3 that says:

The chord progression of "Yardbird Suite" resembles in part those of
several earlier songs, but it is not clear that Parker based his
progression on that of any previous song.
-----

I always thought it was based on "Rosetta" - which I'm sure Woideck
knew about, so I'll trust his call on that one.

Mike

fitz...@eclipse.net
http://www.eclipse.net/~fitzgera

[Jack Woker]

Michael Fitzgerald wrote:

> My information is in pretty much direct contradiction to Jack's.

And no doubt you are right. This is what I get for assuming I know it
all. :-(

JACK

[BlastMaster]

Thanks for spending the time to find this for me. If I get a beer out
if it, I owe you one. :)

[Howard Peirce]

Michael Fitzgerald wrote:

> I always thought it was based on "Rosetta" - which I'm sure Woideck
> knew about, so I'll trust his call on that one.

I've heard that several times, too. But it doesn't work. There are some
superficial similararities between the tunes, and a lot of the same chords
are hit at the same time, but you can't get from one to the other by any
method of substitution I can think of. OTOH, if you take Bye Bye Blues, and
condense the 16 bar phrase to 8 bars and change the Vs to ii-Vs, you get a
bit closer to Yardbird Suite, minus the bridge.

Both Yardbird and Rosetta go to iii for the bridge, but they get back to one
differently. Try playing the bridge to Yardbird over Rosetta: there's a real
clinker in there that'll cure you of the temptation to try that again.

So I'd go with Woideck--Yardbird Suite is similar to many tunes, but
identical to none.

HP

[tst...@businessobjects.com]

In article <383765...@ix.netcom.com>,

Well, Jack, you still know most of it. All you got wrong here - "most
definitely" ;-) - was the part about the lyrics.

Incidentally, Kevin Mahogany sang "Yardbird Suite" on his CD "You Got
What It Takes," with credit to Parker alone. He must have read that
book...

- Tom Storer

"When you're swinging, swing some more." - Thelonious Monk

[SGribetz]

Bird wrote the lyrics What Price Love to his tune commonly known as "Yardbird
Suite". Earl Coleman recorded it on Dial. In recent years, Giacomo Gates
recorded it as such on his DMP album "Blue Skies".

Sid

[Blue Lake]

In the liner notes for "Bebop Revisited Vol. 1" (Xanadu)1978, Mark Gardner
writes, " 'Yardbird Suite' is unusual in that it is one of the few occasions
when Earl (Coleman) sang a jazz original to which he added his own lyrics.
Charlie Parker's tune is enhanced by the words. This was Earl's tribute to
the man who insisted to (Ross) Russell that Coleman should be recorded."

Maybe he's just trying to do well by Coleman, who was roundly criticized for
the Dark Shadows session. Coleman was from Port Huron, Michigan, I think.

Blue Lake
SGribetz <sgri...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19991122170712...@ng-fo1.aol.com...

[Chuck Nessa]

So he could make his escape from the country?
CN

Blue Lake wrote:
>(Earl)Coleman was from Port Huron, Michigan, I think.

[Blue Lake]

Something like that.

Chuck Nessa <cne...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:38433541...@earthlink.net...