Crouch: ...there always is a bittersweet version of an epic hero in mythology. Charlie Parker is as close to a super hero as someone can be because the way he could play was on a super hero level. But that didn’t mean that he was a perfect person because Odysseus, Achilles, all of these people, they’re very gifted, but they’re also very screwed up [laugh]...The key here is Crouch’s analogy of Achilles and Odysseus to Charlie Parker. Today we see Charlie Parker as a nearly mythical figure - a “super hero.” The interviews that Crouch collected are as "factual" as reminiscences could be, fifty years later. Crouch, while presenting this "factual" material (OK, he does seem to invent some dialog, and often presumes to describe Charlie’s thoughts), sets himself up as an epic bard (like Homer, or maybe a Kansas City old-timer), and chooses his narrative voice appropriately. I’m sure Crouch knew that this would annoy some readers and reviewers, but if you look at this book as a long yarn spun by a colorful storyteller, it makes a very entertaining read.
“[Charlie] had long since mastered the physical challenges of playing - the pain of the lips, the tongue, and the teeth; the fatigue of the fingers, and the limitations of the lungs...”As someone who has been playing for over 50 years, and taught many hundreds of students, I can assure you that this passage is more than a little overstated. But of course, it’s really just Crouch’s chosen prose style. There were a few other questionable saxophone-related statements that perhaps should have been fact-checked - but these are minor quibbles.
