Groovin' High

First published on the 1945 album Shaw 'Nuff,[5] the song is one of seven on that album that, according to jazz critic Scott Yanow, "shocked" Gillespie's contemporaries, contributing to that album's "permanently [changing]...jazz and (indirectly) the entire music world".[6] In Jazz: A Regional Exploration, Yanow explained that at the time such songs "were unprecedented...displaying a radically different language" from contemporary swing.[7] But though fans and fellow musicians found the material "very strange and difficult", The Sax & Brass Book notes, they were quickly adopted as classics.[8] According to Yanow, "Parker and Gillespie's solos seemed to have little relation to the melody, but they were connected. It was a giant step forward for jazz".[7]

Thomas Owens highlights the innovative use of source material, pointing out that while it was not uncommon for jazz musicians to utilize existing chord structures in their compositions in 1945, Gillespie's "melodic contrafact was the most complex jazz melody superimposed on a pre-existing chordal scheme", "atypically elaborate".[3]

First performed on February 9, 1945, Gillespie reworked the arrangement for a February 28 performance to allow an improvisation by guitarist Remo Palmier,[9] and it is this reworking that became so well known.[3]

In the book Yardbird Suite, music historian Lawrence O. Koch sets forth in detail the structure of the song as performed on December 29, 1945 and preserved by Armed Forces Radio Service, from the two-bar unison figure by Gillespie and Charlie Parker that open the song to the Gillespie coda at the end.[10] Not having to conform to 78 rpm technology, Gillespie and his band were able to add several minutes to the song during that performance.[11] The author praises the "lovely, logical, melodic construction" of Parker's 16-bar solo as well as singling out performances by Gillespie ("excellent"), Slam Stewart ("inimitable") and Palmieri ("adequate").[10] Noting that the coda "has become a jazz cliché, both in its melody and the chord pattern from which the melody was derived", they also draw attention to Gillespie's "prima donna breath control" on the final E-flat, with only a "slight loss in intonation" in spite of the difficulty of the phrase.[12] The book Charlie Parker: His Music and Life describes this performance, along with the three other songs played in that session, as capturing "much of the vitality of the early Gillespie-Parker partnership.[13]

Other notable performances of the song took place on September 29, 1947, when Parker and Gillespie reunited in concert at Carnegie Hall,[14] and during a 1956 tour sponsored by the US State Department. Owens describes the 1947 recording as among the finest of Parker's career.[15] During the 1956 tour, Gillespie simultaneously performed "Groovin' High" and "Whispering" to demonstrate the way jazz musicians build on the bones of earlier compositions.[16]

According to the book Visions of Jazz: The First Century by Gary Giddins, Gillespie once recounted that he believed the song had been inspired by a film serial he saw at a matinée when he was a child that used the song "Whispering" as its theme.[17] Gillespie offered no details about the serial, except that he believed it might have starred stuntman and rodeo rider Yakima Canutt.[17]

There are at least 11 different albums in the Gillespie discography alone named Groovin' High, compilations that include the song along with other notable tracks that Gillespie performed. In addition, several compilations have been released under this title in Parker's name.

• List of jazz contrafacts