Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader, and composer.[1] Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop,[2] a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique, and advanced harmonies. He was a virtuoso and introduced revolutionary rhythmic and harmonic ideas into jazz, including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. Primarily a player of the alto saxophone, Parker's tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber.
For other uses, see Yardbird (disambiguation).
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr.
Bird, Yardbird
August 29, 1920
Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.
March 12, 1955 (aged 34)
New York City, U.S.
- Musician
- composer
Alto and tenor saxophone
1937–1955
Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career while on the road with Jay McShann.[3] This, and the shortened form "Bird", continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite", "Ornithology", "Bird Gets the Worm", and "Bird of Paradise".
Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer.[4]
Biography[edit]
Childhood[edit]
Charles Parker Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas, at 852 Freeman Avenue, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, near Westport and later, in high school, near 15th and Olive Street, to Charles Parker Sr. and Adelaide "Addie" Bailey, who was of mixed Choctaw and African-American background.[5] He attended Lincoln High School[6] in September 1934, but withdrew in December 1935, just before joining the local musicians' union and choosing to pursue his musical career full-time.[7] His childhood sweetheart and future wife, Rebecca Ruffin, graduated from Lincoln High School in June 1935.
Parker began playing the saxophone at age 11, and at age 14 he joined his high school band where he studied under bandmaster Alonzo Lewis. His mother purchased a new alto saxophone around the same time. His father was often required to travel for work, but provided some musical influence because he was a pianist, dancer and singer on the Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) circuit, later becoming a Pullman waiter or chef on the railways. Parker's mother, Addie, worked nights at the local Western Union office.[8] His biggest influence at that time was a young trombone player named Robert Simpson, who taught him the basics of improvisation.[9]
Personal life[edit]
Parker's life was riddled with mental health problems and an addiction to heroin.[41] Although it is unclear which came first, his addiction to opiates began at the age of 16, when he was injured in a car crash and a doctor prescribed morphine for the pain. The addiction that stemmed from this incident led him to miss performances, and to be considered unreliable.[41] In the jazz scene, heroin use was prevalent and the substance could be acquired with little difficulty.[42]
Although he produced many brilliant recordings during this period, Parker's behavior became increasingly erratic. Heroin was difficult to obtain once he moved to California, where the drug was less abundant, so he used alcohol as a substitute. A recording for the Dial label from July 29, 1946, provides evidence of his condition. Before this session, Parker drank a quart of whiskey. According to the liner notes of Charlie Parker on Dial Volume 1, Parker missed most of the first two bars of his first chorus on the track "Max Making Wax". When he finally did come in, he swayed wildly and once spun all the way around, away from his microphone. On the next tune, "Lover Man", producer Ross Russell physically supported Parker. On "Bebop" (the final track Parker recorded that evening), he begins a solo with a solid first eight bars; on his second eight bars, however, he begins to struggle, and a desperate Howard McGhee, the trumpeter on this session, shouts, "Blow!" at him. Charles Mingus considered this version of "Lover Man" to be among Parker's greatest recordings, despite its flaws.[43] Nevertheless, Parker hated the recording and never forgave Ross Russell for releasing it. He re-recorded the tune in 1951 for Verve. Parker's life took a turn for the worse in March 1954 when his three-year-old daughter Pree died of cystic fibrosis and pneumonia.[36] He attempted suicide twice in 1954, which once again landed him in a mental hospital.[44]
Artistry[edit]
Parker's style of composition involved interpolation of original melodies over existing jazz forms and standards, a practice known as contrafact and still common in jazz today. Examples include "Ornithology" (which borrows the chord progression of jazz standard "How High the Moon" and is said to be co-written with trumpet player Little Benny Harris), and "Moose The Mooche" (one of many Parker compositions based on the chord progression of "I Got Rhythm"). The practice was not uncommon prior to bebop, but it became a signature of the movement as artists began to move away from arranging popular standards and toward composing their own material. Perhaps Parker's most well-known contrafact is "Koko", which is based on the chord changes of the popular bebop tune "Cherokee", written by Ray Noble.[45]
While tunes such as "Now's The Time", "Billie's Bounce", "Au Privave", "Barbados", "Relaxin' at Camarillo", "Bloomdido", and "Cool Blues" were based on conventional 12-bar blues changes, Parker also created a unique version of the 12-bar blues for tunes such as "Blues for Alice", "Laird Baird", and "Si Si." These unique chords are known popularly as "Bird Changes". Like his solos, some of his compositions are characterized by long, complex melodic lines and a minimum of repetition, although he did employ the use of repetition in some tunes, most notably "Now's The Time".
Parker contributed greatly to the modern jazz solo, one in which triplets and pick-up notes were used in unorthodox ways to lead into chord tones, affording the soloist more freedom to use passing tones, which soloists previously avoided. Parker was admired for his unique style of phrasing and innovative use of rhythm. Through his recordings and the popularity of the posthumously published Charlie Parker Omnibook, Parker's identifiable style dominated jazz for many years to come.
Other well-known Parker compositions include "Ah-Leu-Cha", "Anthropology" (co-written with Gillespie), "Confirmation", "Constellation", "Moose the Mooche", "Scrapple from the Apple" and "Yardbird Suite", the vocal version of which is called "What Price Love", with lyrics by Parker.
Miles Davis once said, "You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker".[46]