Charlie Parker's favorite place to hang out, coming of age in Kansas City, was the balcony of Sol Stibel's Club Reno. Parker would sit there and listen to his idol Lester Young blowing chorus after chorus with the Count Basie band. One story tells of drummer Jo Jones throwing a cymbal at the saxophonist to shoo him away from a jam session. The rejection prompted Parker to head for what jazz musicians call ``the woodshed.'' That means working at the music steadily, emerging only when you feel you're good enough. After he left school to pursue a career in music, he headed to various cities to see what each would do for him musically.
In 1938, Parker joined the band of pianist Jay McShann, with whom he toured around Southwest Chicago and New York. A year later, Parker traveled to Chicago and was a regular performer a club on 55th street. He visited New York for the first time in 1939, working as a dishwasher at one point so he could hear Art Tatum play on a nightly basis. He stayed for nearly a year working as a professional musician and often participating in jam sessions. The atmosphere in New York influenced Parker's musical style and taught him about instrumental harmony.
Although he played basic chords and harmonies with the other musicians, Parker began to experiment with higher intervals of chords to produce the tunes that filled his imagination. This sound, known as "bebop," or simply "bop," took form in Harlem jazz clubs in the 1940s and became the trademark that separated African American musicians from other swing bands. With bebop, the musician became the artist and the music his canvas. Instead, it was music designed for serious listening. And the mostly African-American musicians who invented it saw it not only as a way to express themselves, but also to gain them the kind of respect afforded classical musicians. ``They had created a language that was different than that of their predecessors,'' said trumpeter Roy Hargrove, who recently recorded an album of Parker tunes. ``These were musicians who were getting frustrated with the constraints that the swing style was putting on them.'' Although Parker collaborated with other musicians in working out some of the tenets of bebop (so named because of the music's quirky character), he is generally considered most responsible for its creation, said Nathaniel Mackey, co-editor of the book Moment's Notice: Jazz in Poetry & Prose.Charlie Parker became present in the national scene at a time of tension. It was the 1940s, World War II was raging and life was full of uncertainties. In the 1940s many Americans were parlaying postwar prosperity into suburban complacency. Parker symbolized nonconformity and rebellion. ``His music appeared to many to be radical, abrasive, challenging and disturbing,'' said David Meltzer, editor of Reading Jazz. ``He completely transformed how the music was to be played, and how it w as to be heard.''
For four years Parker stayed with McShann, and he got the opportunity to perform solo in several of their recordings, such as Hootie Blues, Sepian Bounce, and the 1941 hit Confessing the Blues. In 1942, while on tour with McShann, Parker performed at jam sessions at Monroe's and Minton's Playhouse in Harlem where he caught the attention of artists like Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. Later that year, Parker broke with McShann and joined Earl Hines for eight months.
In 1945 Parker led his own group in New York and also worked with Gillespie in several ensembles. In December that same year, Parker and Gillespie took their music to Hollywood on a six-week nightclub tour. While on the West Coast, Parker was featured with Jazz at the Philharmonic in 1946 and with Howard McGhee from 1946-7; the latter period broken by six months of enforced recuperation from the previous ten years of heroin addiction. After his release in January 1947, Parker returned to New York and formed a quintet with Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter and Max Roach in which Parker performed some of his most famous tunes. Parker, who recorded simultaneously for the Savoy and Dial labels, was in peak form during the 1947-51 period. He was visiting Europe in 1949 and 1950 and realizing a lifelong dream to record with strings starting in 1949 when he switched to Norman Granz's Verve label. He worked in a number of nightclubs, radio studios, and other places performing solo or with the accompaniment of other musicians.
Due to Charlie Parker's chance-taking personality, his cabaret license was revoked in New York (making it difficult for him to play in clubs) in 1951, and he became increasingly unreliable. Although he could still play at his best when he was inspired (like at the 1953 Massey Hall Concert with Gillespie), Bird was heading downhill. March 5, 1955, was Parker's last public engagement at Birdland, a nightclub in New York. He died a week later in a friend's apartment.
Charles "Yardbird" Parker was an amazing saxophonist who gained wide recognition for his brilliant solos and innovative improvisations. He was, without a doubt, one of the most influential and talented musicians in jazz history.
Copyright © 2000 - Adrienne Brueggemeyer
