Charlie Parker
The Kansas City alto saxophonist known as Bird, who with Dizzy Gillespie gave bebop its shape in the mid-1940s and died at 34.
- Origin
- Kansas City, Kansas
- Years active
- 1920-1955
- Genres
- jazz, bebop
- Labels
- Savoy, Dial, Verve, Mercury, Clef
- Also known as
- Bird, Yardbird, Charles Parker Jr.
Kansas City
Charles Parker Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas on August 29, 1920, raised in Kansas City, Missouri, and died in New York on March 12, 1955, aged 34. His father, Charles Sr., was a Pullman waiter and chef who also performed on the TOBA circuit; his mother was Adelaide Bailey. Parker began on saxophone at about 11 and at 14 joined the Lincoln High School band under Alonzo Lewis; the trombonist Robert Simpson taught him the basics of improvisation. He left school in December 1935 and joined the musicians' union.
In early 1936 he lost the chord changes at a jam session with the Count Basie Orchestra and Jo Jones threw a cymbal at his feet. Later that year a car accident in the Ozarks broke three ribs and fractured his spine, and his opiate addiction reportedly began with the morphine prescribed afterward. He then practiced in the Ozarks, reportedly up to 15 hours a day for three or four years. In 1938 he joined Jay McShann's band, and in 1939 he moved to New York, washing dishes at Jimmie's Chicken Shack where Art Tatum played. Wikipedia's account of his breakthrough has him practicing Cherokee with the guitarist William Biddy Fleet; the article on Cherokee says he learned the tune in all 12 keys.
Bebop
He made his professional recording debut with McShann in 1940, met Dizzy Gillespie through Bernard Anderson, and spent about a year in Earl Hines's band with Gillespie in 1942. The 1942 to 1944 recording ban left early bebop largely undocumented. In late 1944 a small group with Gillespie, Al Haig, Curley Russell and Stan Levey played at the Three Deuces on 52nd Street, where the style was first called bebop.
He recorded as a leader for Savoy from November 26, 1945, and for Ross Russell's Dial label from March 28, 1946. At the July 1946 Dial session, in heroin withdrawal, he barely played; that night a hotel-room fire led to his arrest and commitment to Camarillo State Hospital, which gave Relaxin' at Camarillo its name. He was released in January 1947, formed a quintet in New York with Miles Davis and Max Roach, and signed with Mercury with Norman Granz producing. Charlie Parker with Strings began on November 30, 1949, Bird and Diz was recorded around June 6, 1950, and the Massey Hall concert in Toronto was on May 15, 1953.
The last years
His daughter Pree died in March 1954 of cystic fibrosis and pneumonia. He attempted suicide twice, was hospitalized, and was fired from Birdland in September 1954. His last Birdland gig was on March 4, 1955, and he died on March 12 in the suite of Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel, of lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer, with advanced cirrhosis. He is buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Blue Summit, Missouri. Bird Lives graffiti began appearing around New York within days.
He won a Grammy in 1974 for First Recordings! and a Lifetime Achievement award in 1984; Charlie Parker with Strings, Ornithology, Jazz at Massey Hall and Billie's Bounce are in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Ko-Ko is in the National Recording Registry, Clint Eastwood's film Bird came out in 1988 and the opera Charlie Parker's Yardbird in 2015. Books include Ross Russell's Bird Lives!, Gary Giddins's Celebrating Bird, Carl Woideck's Charlie Parker: His Music and Life and Chuck Haddix's Bird. Phil Schaap hosted Bird Flight on WKCR from 1981 to 2020.
Records
- The Savoy session of November 26, 1945 1945 · archival · Savoy
Charlie Parker's Reboppers: the first session Parker led, and the one that produced Ko-Ko.
- The Dial session of October 28, 1947 1947 · archival · Dial
The Charlie Parker Quintet with Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter and Max Roach, including two takes of Embraceable You.
Songs
- Ko-Ko The Savoy session of November 26, 1945 · 1945
A new head on the chord changes of Cherokee, recorded on November 26, 1945, and widely called Parker's first recording as a leader.
- Embraceable You The Dial session of October 28, 1947 · 1947
Parker's slow, one-chorus reading of the Gershwin ballad from the Dial session of October 28, 1947.
Related artists
Where to go next
Reference
- Charlie Parker A long, well-cited biography with honors and books.
- Ko-Ko The session and the disputed personnel.
- Charlie Parker with Strings The 1949 and 1950 sessions.
- Jazz at Massey Hall The 1953 Toronto concert.
- Smithsonian: Parker's alto saxophone His King Super 20 at the museum.
Discography and data
- Charlie Parker's Savoy and Dial sessions Session-by-session personnel and tracklists.
- Charlie Parker on Dial The Dial box set.
- Charlie Parker discography Albums and box sets.
Writing and criticism
- Adam Shatz: Bird A 2013 essay on Parker.
More
- AllSolos: Ko-Ko A transcription listing.
Sources
- Charlie Parker, Wikipedia
- Ko-Ko, Wikipedia
- Charlie Parker's Savoy and Dial sessions, Wikipedia
- Charlie Parker on Dial, Wikipedia
- Embraceable You, Wikipedia
- Cherokee (Ray Noble song), Wikipedia
- Charlie Parker, jazz.com encyclopedia
- Bird, The New York Review of Books (2013-11-07)