Ode to a Highflying Bird by Charlie Watts first edition 1964

London: Beat Publication Ltd., [1964] 
 
Small 8vo., plain white publisher’s boards lettered in black, with author’s photograph and facsimile photograph to lower; unpaginated [pp. xxxii]; written and illustrated throughout with line and watercolour illustrations by Watts; boards a little scratched and browned, particularly along the backstrip; with ‘Seven Shillings’ sticker pasted to ffep and previous bookseller markings in pencil. Provenance: Bookplate of Robin de Beaumont affixed to the front paste-down. 
 
First edition of this scarce work, “My tribute to the music of Charlie ‘Yardbird’ Parker”. This copy formerly in the collection of Robin de Beaumont, collector, former President of The Private Libraries Association, benefactor to the British Museum, and one of the leading experts in Victorian decorative bindings.  
 
An ode to Charlie Parker, the alto and tenor saxophone player who was a jazz icon and personal hero of the late Rolling Stones drummer. Published in a very limited print run in 1964, the short story tells the tale of the great musician under the guise of a little bird who hatches from an egg and, realising that he is different from all of the other birds, begins to play music. “Poor Charlie, Blue Bird” the drummer writes, “Charlie flew too high for most of them.” Eventually, Charlie is going, going, gone: “Flown but not forgotten”. The reference is to Parker’s untimely death at the age of just 34, as well as his ongoing battle with addiction. 
 
In 1961 twenty year-old Charlie Watts was working as a full-time graphic designer and part-time drummer, playing drums in a coffee bar twice a week, and as part of a jazz band in Middlesex called the Jo Jones All Stars. Watts was initially puzzled by the transition to rhythm and blues, later remarking: “When they asked me to play, I didn’t know what it was. I thought it meant Charlie Parker, played slow”.
 
Watts later moved to Denmark to work, and it was while he was at art school that he wrote this little book. When Watts joined the Rolling Stones in 1963 his jazz drumming took a back seat, but he retained a passion for the music for the rest of his life. His rise to fame also saw a rise in interest in the book, and “this guy who published Rolling Stones Monthly saw my book and said ‘Ah, there’s a few bob in this!’” It was subsequently published on January 17th, costing 7 shillings. 
 
Increasingly scarce.