PARKER

Saxophone player Charlie “Bird” Parker looms over jazz larger than any other musician, except for perhaps Louis ARMSTRONG. Parker’s compelling, distinctive tone—his searing, “hot” sound—his bristling sense of rhythm and his sophisticated harmonic sense are still considered the standard for jazz improvisers today.

Born on August 29, 1920, Parker was raised in Kansas City, Missouri, and left school at 15 to become a professional musician. After observing jazz innovators Lester YOUNG and Count BASIE, Parker began jamming with Kansas City bands, before relocating to New York City in 1939. He was already showing signs of heroin addiction. In 1941, Parker, playing the alto saxophone, took part in his first recording sessions, with Jay McShann, through whom he met Dizzy GILLESPIE. While these early recordings showed Young’s influence, his work with Gillespie developed harmonic and rhythmic ideas that broke new ground in jazz, helping to shape the bebop revolution of the mid-1940s.

A turning point in Parker’s career came in 1945. He led his first ensembles in the jazz clubs on Manhattan’s then legendary 52nd Street, and continued to work extensively with Gillespie. With titles such as “Groovin’ High,” “Dizzy Atmosphere,” “Shaw Nuff,” and “Hot House,” their quintet irrevocably changed the course of jazz, in every sense—tonal, rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic. As a soloist, Parker freed improvisers by refusing to accept the progressions considered “proper” for jazz. His sense of rhythm and phrasing revolutionised the traditional method that improvisers had used, and by centring his melodies on the higher intervals of a chord, his improvisations created a new sound. But his novel approach evoked hostility from critics, with the result that Parker sank deeper into drug and alcohol abuse. In Los Angeles, in June 1946, he suffered a complete breakdown and was committed to a mental hospital. He was released in January 1947, and his work during the next three years was among his best. During this period, he recorded most of his classics, with ensembles that included key figures such as Miles DAVIS, John Lewis, Bud POWELL, Gillespie, and Max ROACH.

The legendary Charlie Parker who led the way for modern jazz, with innovations in harmony, rhythm, and tone.

From 1950 to 1955, however, Parker was limited to working for only short stretches at a time due to a succession of illnesses and cures related to his drug addiction. In 1953, he performed at what was billed “The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever,” as part of a quintet that included Gillespie, Roach, Powell, and Charlie MINGUS, at Massey Town Hall in Toronto.

Parker’s last appearance was at Birdland, on March 5, 1955; he died seven days later, physically exhausted. Legend holds that, judging from Parker’s ravaged corpse, the coroner listed his age at death as 55—he was only 35. His influence on jazz was so great that Lennie Tristano observed in the late 1950s: “If Charlie wanted to invoke plagiarism laws, he could sue almost everybody who’s made a record in the last ten years.”

Chris Slawecki

CHARLIE

PARKER