One could describe Parker's sound as fast… for certain. One could explain that bebop introduced
rhythmically asymmetrical improvisations and a new tonal vocabulary. One could also talk, as
online encyclopedias do, about the use of “9ths, 11ths and 13ths of chords” or “rapidly implied
passing chords” or perhaps “new variants of altered chords and chord substitutions.”
For the intuitive Bird, however, it was “just music.” He said all he was doing was “playing clean and
looking for the pretty notes.”
“First and foremost, he was a brilliant musician who revolutionized jazz,” wrote Marilyn Marshall
in Ebony Magazine. “A master of improvisation, Parker played the alto sax as it had never been
played before. Jay McShann, the Kansas City bandleader and pianist who hired Parker for his
group in 1938, says Parker was so good that, He not only influenced saxophone players, but
influenced trumpet players, bass players, piano players — everybody.'”
“Bird's mind and fingers work with incredible speed,” jazz critic Leonard Feather said when Parker
burst onto the scene. “He can imply four chord changes in a melodic pattern where another musician
would have trouble inserting two. His conception and execution bring to mind Tadd Dameron s
comparison of the new jazz with the old: ‘It's as if you had two roads, both going in the same
direction, but one of them was straight with no scenery around it, and the other twisted and turned
and had a lot of beautiful trees on all sides.’ Charlie Parker takes you along that second road.”
Again, leave it to a jazzman to explain things more simply. Legendary bassist Charles Mingus put
it like this: “Bird sometimes could make the whole room feel as he did.”
rhythmically asymmetrical improvisations and a new tonal vocabulary. One could also talk, as
online encyclopedias do, about the use of “9ths, 11ths and 13ths of chords” or “rapidly implied
passing chords” or perhaps “new variants of altered chords and chord substitutions.”
For the intuitive Bird, however, it was “just music.” He said all he was doing was “playing clean and
looking for the pretty notes.”
“First and foremost, he was a brilliant musician who revolutionized jazz,” wrote Marilyn Marshall
in Ebony Magazine. “A master of improvisation, Parker played the alto sax as it had never been
played before. Jay McShann, the Kansas City bandleader and pianist who hired Parker for his
group in 1938, says Parker was so good that, He not only influenced saxophone players, but
influenced trumpet players, bass players, piano players — everybody.'”
“Bird's mind and fingers work with incredible speed,” jazz critic Leonard Feather said when Parker
burst onto the scene. “He can imply four chord changes in a melodic pattern where another musician
would have trouble inserting two. His conception and execution bring to mind Tadd Dameron s
comparison of the new jazz with the old: ‘It's as if you had two roads, both going in the same
direction, but one of them was straight with no scenery around it, and the other twisted and turned
and had a lot of beautiful trees on all sides.’ Charlie Parker takes you along that second road.”
Again, leave it to a jazzman to explain things more simply. Legendary bassist Charles Mingus put
it like this: “Bird sometimes could make the whole room feel as he did.”
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