the cats at Sunshine

“‘When Fate deals you one from the bottom of the deck, fall by the Sunshine Funeral Parlors. Your loved ones will be handled with dignity and care, and the cats at Sunshine will not lay too heavy a tab on you.’”

—Symphony Sid, “radio’s Mister Hip,” broadcasting from Birdland in the late 1940s; quoted by Ross Russell in Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

The word bebop

“The word bebop was thought to be onomatopoetic in origin, like klook-a-mop, and in fact may have been drived from the latter. Others said it had been invented by the jivey, irrepressible Fats Waller. Nobody liked it much, least of all the new jazzmen. But it stuck.”

—Ross Russell, a footnote from Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

klook-a-mop

“To lead the house band at Minton’s [Playhouse] Teddy Hill hired the very man he had fired less than a year before. Kenny “Klook” Clarke. . . . “Klook,” Clarke’s nickname, had arisen from the onomato-poetic klook-a-mop, a kind of double bomb, one of Clarke’s favorite percussion figures. . . . Now . . . Teddy Hill though about the bombs, the jagged zigzaggy rhythms that somehow worked, and . . . offered him the contract. . . .”

—Ross Russell, from Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

‘woodshedding’

“Charlie’s practice sessions, or “woodshedding,” as it was called by jazzmen, took place at home. He rose early in the afternoon, around one o’clock. . . . After breakfast Charlie went upstairs to his room and drew the green shade of the window that looked out over the gardens and clotheslines of the Olive Street neighborhood. Then he removed his horn from its case and began to practice.”

—Ross Russell, from Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

a blazing ring of light

“When he got to the corner he could . . . see the cluster of electric signs at Twelfth and Paseo. The electric signs formed a blazing ring of light; everything down there looked almost like it did in the daytime.

The signs were made of coiled neon tubing, which had just come into that part of Kansas City. Some of the newer night clubs had them. The rest had old-fashioned displays with small electric light bulbs spelling out the letters. On some of the signs an arrow of light chased itself around the border. Others flashed off and on. On some of the neon signs the colors flickered and changed from pale blue to the color of orange soda water. There was a big sign over the Sunset Club and another over the Boulevard Lounge, and farther along you saw signs advertising the Lone Star and the Cherry Blossom.”

—Ross Russell, from Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, 1973.

wie die Sternen Nacht

“‘‘Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.’. . .’”

—Charlotte Bronte, quoting Friedrich von Schiller’s The Robbers, in Jane Eyre, 1847. According to Susan Ostrav Weisser’s 2003 notes, this translates as “Then there stepped forth one, in appearance like the starry sky.”

the blank wall

“I looked at the blank wall; it seemed a sky, thick with ascending stars—every one lighted me to a purpose or delight.”

—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847.

9 Beet Stretch

a pretty enough scarf

“‘How would a white or a pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could cut a pretty enough scarf out of a rainbow.’”

—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847.

impression follows impression

“‘The flame flickers in the eye—the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling—it smiles at my jargon—it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; when it ceases to smile, it is sad. . . .’”

—Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, 1847.