“Every time I hear a recording I've made, I hear all kinds of things I could improve or
things I should have done. There's always so much more to be done in music. It's sovast.”

— Charlie Parker, Downbeat, 1949

Paying tribute to a figure as towering as Charlie Parker is one of jazz’s most delicate
high-wire acts. Parker’s music is not merely part of the repertoire; it has defined the
language of the art form. Every phrase is etched into the music’s collective memory,
and anyone who approaches it confronts a familiar dilemma. Move too far from the
source and risk modernity for its own sake. Stay too close and the result can feel
reverential but inert. The challenge is not whether to honor the tradition, but how.

For drummer and film producer Richard Baratta, that challenge is central to his creative
identity. “I don’t want to continue to make those records,” he has said of straight-ahead
projects. “I want to keep challenging myself. Keep moving. I’m looking for the very
elusive ‘next thing.’” On Another Kind of Bird, Baratta and arranger and pianist Bill
O’Connell revisit the Charlie Parker songbook with that philosophy firmly in place,
drawing from classics such as “Anthropology,” “Now’s the Time,” “Donna Lee,” “Ah-Leu-
Cha,” and “Moose the Mooche,” along with the Gershwin brothers’ “Embraceable You.”

O’Connell’s arrangements reflect Baratta’s long-standing fascination with
reinterpretation. He has described reshaping familiar material as both “a challenge and
a thrill,” a search for the right approach rather than a desire to overturn expectations.
“Bill’s such a great arranger and player; the ideas just flow from his brain,” Baratta says.
This marks their fourth recording collaboration, and from the outset they agreed that,
amid the many tributes and retrospectives devoted to Parker’s music, they would
pursue a different perspective. After working through O’Connell’s initial drafts, the two
refined and expanded the material until, as Baratta recalls with a laugh, “eureka — the
concept of a reimagination of Charlie Parker emerged!” The resulting music spans post-
bop drive, Latin-inflected grooves, and flashes of rock-tinged energy, yet never feels
stylistically diffuse. These compositions emerge refreshed rather than rebranded,
precisely as Baratta and O’Connell intended.

Equally important to Baratta is maintaining a balance between accessibility and artistic
integrity. He speaks openly about the need to attract listeners without “compromising
the music to the extent that it’s not that music anymore.” That perspective has
deepened with time. Instead, he emphasizes the accumulated strengths of experience,
a deeper musical awareness that now guides every choice he makes behind the drums.

One of Baratta’s most striking decisions was to expand the front line beyond his
customary sextet, adding three additional saxophones to the ensemble on some tracks.
“In the history of jazz, nobody has made more of an impact than Parker,” he explains,
“so I thought I’d pay homage to his legacy by adding more horns.” Parker’s revolution
was born in small groups, yet he was never indifferent to scale. From the with-strings
sessions to his brief big band experiments, he understood the dramatic force larger
textures could produce. Baratta’s expanded saxophone section nods to that ambition,
channeling the concentrated intensity of bebop while embracing the broader palette of a
larger ensemble. The unified surge of the section brings a physical weight to the music,
something that makes a listener sit up and take notice.

The choice of players was equally deliberate. “I chose Vincent, Eric, Craig, and
Abraham for a number of reasons,” Baratta says. Over the past six years he has
performed often with each of them, developing not only musical rapport but genuine
friendship. They are, in his words, “some of the greatest jazz musicians on the planet,”
respected leaders in their own right, and, as he adds with characteristic enthusiasm,
“freakin’ monsters on their horns.” The result is not simply a larger band, but a gathering
of distinct voices, each capable of stepping forward while shaping a collective sound
worthy of the music’s creator.

And so, Baratta’s latest offering continues a body of work forged by creative
independence. He has often described the music business as “brutal,” and credits the
security of his film career with allowing him to clear his head and play the music he truly
believes in. The result here is not a museum piece, but a living conversation with
Charlie Parker’s legacy, one that honors Bird not through imitation, but through
imagination, risk, and respect.

— Raymond Osnato

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CODA

More than seventy years after six of these compositions first took flight on Savoy
Records, the Bird comes home to roost once more. It was Savoy that first documented
Parker’s bebop revolution in real time, capturing “Donna Lee,” “Anthropology,” “Now’s
the Time,” “Moose the Mooche,” “Yardbird Suite,” and “Ah-Leu-Cha” as living, volatile
modernism. That they reappear here on Savant Records is more than coincidence.
Savant was founded by Joe Fields, who once owned Savoy and stewarded Parker’s
original catalog. The bebop DNA Savoy pressed into shellac in the 1940s is honored
here by a label built by the very man who once safeguarded that legacy. History does
not repeat itself; it swings forward.

— RO