Bird Calls by Rudresh Mahanthappa

After 60 years of hearing jazz, its universality continues to astound me. Here is an alto saxophonist of south Indian roots and parentage who was born in Trieste, Italy, in 1971 and grew up in Colorado, US, studied music at Berklee College, Boston and is now based in New York, who venerates the sound and artistry of one Charlie “Bird” Parker, a Kansas City black man who tore jazz conventions apart in the 1940s and ’50s, creating new forms of jazz from a searing blues foundation and changed its mood and sonics completely.

Rudresh Mahanthappa writes in the sleeve notes of his new album Bird Calls that his “world was forever changed” when he first heard records of Parker at the age of 12, another in a long line of saxophonists who have attested to similar bird-inspired provenances. “His sheer virtuosity and innovative vocabulary were obviously astounding,” he sets down, “but what moved and continues to inspire me is the joy, humour and beauty that he portrays, evokes and instills.”