Of course such a hero worshipper would, like Bird, become a junkie. Gioia completes the story. And, of course, it's guys like Benedetti that ruined Parker. The wire recordings, squirreled away in a trunk, were never found, and became the Holy Grail of jazz. Now, I'm never one to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Fiction is fiction.
Russell presents himself as a jazz historian. His book, Jazz Style in Kansas City and the Southwest was published by the University of California Press in 1971. With history, telling a good story should not be done at the cost of the truth and at the expense of the reputation of a person when unwarranted. Sadly for Benedetti, it appears that Russell did just that by taking his fictionalized Royo and turning him into the historical Benedetti. The fact is that there were no wire recordings.