Bird

"When I was in my 20s, I lived in an old apartment/hotel in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. It was a relic from better times (the 1920s), cheap and mostly occupied by retired Jesuit priests and nuns from nearby Loyola University. The gym had old 10-speed Schwinn bicycles on concrete blocks for cheap pelotons, an old swimming pool where operas were performed, and the steam room was a clubhouse for the local Russian mafia.

Whether we live in cities, in the suburbs, or in the country, birds are ubiquitous features of daily life, so much so that we often take them for granted. But even the casual observer is aware that birds don’t fill our skies in the number they once did.

Through a series of critically acclaimed releases over the past decade, saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa has explored the music of his South Indian heritage and translated it through the vocabulary of his own distinctive approach to modern jazz. On his latest release, Bird Calls, Mahanthappa trains his anthropological imagination on an equally important cultural influence: the music of Charlie Parker.