Charlie Parker

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

Charlie Parker
Background information
Birth name	Charles Parker, Jr.
Also known as	Bird, Yardbird, Zoizeau (in France)[1]
Born	August 29, 1920(1920-08-29) Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.
Died	March 12, 1955(1955-03-12) (aged 34) New York City, New York, U.S.
Genres	Jazz, bebop
Occupations	Saxophonist, composer
Instruments	Alto saxophone, tenor saxophone
Years active	1937–1955
Labels	Savoy, Dial, Verve
Website	Official Site
Notable instruments
Buescher, Conn, King and Grafton alto saxophones.

Charles Parker, Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), famously called Bird or Yardbird,^[2] was an American jazz saxophonist and composer.

Parker, with Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, is widely considered one of the most influential of jazz musicians. Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird" early in his career,^[3] and the shortened form "Bird" remained Parker's sobriquet for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite", "Ornithology" and "Bird of Paradise."

Parker played a leading role in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuoso technique, and improvisation based on harmonic structure. Parker's innovative approaches to melody, rhythm, and harmony exercised enormous influence on his contemporaries. Several of Parker's songs have become standards, including "Billie's Bounce", "Anthropology", "Ornithology", and "Confirmation". He introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas including a tonal vocabulary employing 9ths, 11ths and 13ths of chords, rapidly implied passing chords, and new variants of altered chords and chord substitutions. His tone was clean and penetrating, but sweet and plaintive on ballads. Although many Parker recordings demonstrate dazzling virtuosic technique and complex melodic lines – such as "Ko-Ko", "Kim", and "Leap Frog" – he was also one of the great blues players. His themeless blues improvisation "Parker's Mood" represents one of the most deeply affecting recordings in jazz. At various times, Parker fused jazz with other musical styles, from classical to Latin music, blazing paths followed later by others.

Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat generation, personifying the conception of the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual, rather than just a popular entertainer. His style – from a rhythmic, harmonic and soloing perspective – influenced countless peers on every instrument.

Contents [hide] 1 Biography 1.1 Childhood 1.2 Early career 1.3 New York City 1.4 Bebop 1.5 Addiction 1.6 Charlie Parker with strings 1.7 Prominence 1.8 Death 2 Musical approach 3 Discography 4 Awards and recognitions 5 Musical tributes 6 Other tributes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Childhood

Charlie Parker was born in Kansas City, Kansas and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, the only child of Charles and Addie Parker. Charles, an alcoholic, was often absent. Parker attended Lincoln High School.^[4] He enrolled in September 1934 and withdrew in December 1935 about the time he joined the local Musicians Union.

Parker displayed no sign of musical talent as a child. His father presumably provided some musical influence; he was a pianist, dancer and singer on the T.O.B.A. circuit, although he later became a Pullman waiter or chef on the railways. His mother worked nights at the local Western Union. His biggest influence however was a young trombone player who taught him the basics of improvisation.

Parker began playing the saxophone at age 11 and at age 14 joined his school's band using a rented school instrument. One story holds that, without formal training, he was terrible, and thrown out of the band.^{[citation needed]} Experiencing periodic setbacks of this sort, at one point he broke off from his constant practicing.

[edit] Early career

It has been said that, in early 1936, Parker participated in a 'cutting contest' that included Jo Jones on drums, who tossed a cymbal at Parker's feet in impatience with his playing.^[5] However, in the numerous interviews throughout his life, Jones made no mention of this incident. Exasperated and determined, in any case, at this time Parker improved the quality of practicing, learning the blues, "Cherokee" and "rhythm changes" in all twelve keys. In this wood-shedding period, Parker mastered improvisation and developed some of the ideas of be-bop. In an interview with Paul Desmond, he said he spent 3–4 years practicing up to 15 hours a day.^[6] Rumor has it that he used to play many other tunes in all twelve keys. The story, though undocumented, would help to explain the fact that he often played in unconventional concert pitch key signatures, like E (which transposes to C# for the alto sax).

Groups led by Count Basie and Bennie Moten were the leading Kansas City ensembles, and undoubtedly influenced Parker. He continued to play with local bands in jazz clubs around Kansas City, Missouri, where he perfected his technique with the assistance of Buster Smith, whose dynamic transitions to double and triple time certainly influenced Parker's developing style.

In 1938, Parker joined pianist Jay McShann's territory band.^[7] The band toured nightclubs and other venues of the southwest, as well as Chicago and New York City.^[8][9] Parker made his professional recording debut with McShann's band. It was said at one point in McShann's band that he "sounded like a machine", owing to his highly virtuosic yet nonetheless musical playing.^{[citation needed]}

As a teenager, Parker developed a morphine addiction while in hospital after an automobile accident, and subsequently became addicted to heroin. Heroin would haunt him throughout his life and ultimately contribute to his death.

[edit] New York City

In 1939, Parker moved to New York City. There he pursued a career in music, but held several other jobs as well. He worked for $9 a week as a dishwasher at Jimmie's Chicken Shack where pianist Art Tatum performed. Parker's later style in some ways recalled Tatum's, with dazzling, high-speed arpeggios and sophisticated use of harmony.

In 1942, Parker left McShann's band and played with Earl Hines for one year. Also in the band was trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie, which is where the soon to be famous duo met for the first time. Unfortunately, this period is virtually undocumented because of the strike of 1942–1943 by the American Federation of Musicians, during which no official recordings were made. Nevertheless, we know that Parker joined a group of young musicians in after-hours clubs in Harlem such as Clark Monroe's Uptown House and (to a much lesser extent) Minton's Playhouse. These young iconoclasts included Gillespie, pianist Thelonious Monk, guitarist Charlie Christian, and drummer Kenny Clarke. The beboppers' attitude was summed up in a famous quotation attributed to Monk by Mary Lou Williams: "We wanted a music that they couldn't play"^[10] – "they" being the (white) bandleaders who had taken over and profited from swing music. The group played in venues on 52nd Street including the Three Deuces and The Onyx. In his time in New York City, Parker also learned much from notable music teacher Maury Deutsch.

[edit] Bebop

According to an interview Parker gave in the 1950s, one night in 1939, he was playing "Cherokee" in a jam session with guitarist William 'Biddy' Fleet when he hit upon a method for developing his solos that enabled him to play what he had been hearing in his head for some time, by building on the chords' extended intervals, such as ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths.^{[citation needed]} Still with McShann's orchestra, Parker at this time realized that the twelve tones of the chromatic scale can lead melodically to any key, breaking some of the confines of simpler jazz soloing.

Early in its development, this new type of jazz was rejected by many of the established, traditional jazz musicians who disdained their younger counterparts with comments like Eddie Condon's putdown: "They flat their fifths, we drink ours."^[11] The beboppers, in response, called these traditionalists "moldy figs". However, some musicians, such as Coleman Hawkins and Benny Goodman, were more positive about its development, and participated in jam sessions and recording dates in the new approach with its adherents.

Because of the 2-year Musicians' Union recording ban on all commercial recordings from 1942 to 1944 (part of a struggle to get royalties from record sales for a union fund for out-of-work musicians), much of bebop's early development was not captured for posterity. As a result, the new musical concepts only gained limited radio exposure. Bebop musicians had a difficult time gaining widespread recognition. It was not until 1945, when the recording ban was lifted, that Parker's collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell and others had a substantial effect on the jazz world. One of their first (and greatest) small-group performances together was rediscovered and issued in 2005: a concert in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945. Bebop began to grab hold and gain wider appeal among musicians and fans alike.

On November 26, 1945, Parker led a record date for the Savoy label, marketed as the "greatest Jazz session ever." The tracks recorded during this session include "Ko-Ko" (based on the chords of "Cherokee"), "Now's the Time" (a twelve bar blues incorporating a riff later used in the late 1949 R&B dance hit "The Hucklebuck"), "Billie's Bounce", and "Thriving on a Riff".

Shortly afterwards, the Parker/Gillespie band traveled to an unsuccessful engagement at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles. Most of the group returned to New York, but Parker remained in California, cashing in his return ticket to buy heroin. He experienced great hardship in California, eventually being committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital for a six month period.

[edit] Addiction

Parker's addiction to heroin, which began in his late teens, caused him to miss gigs and to be fired for being high. To satisfy his habit, he frequently resorted to busking on the streets for drug money, receiving loans from fellow musicians/admirers, pawning his own horn and borrowing other sax players' instruments as a result. Parker's situation was typical of the strong connection between drug abuse and jazz at the time.

Although he produced many brilliant recordings during this period, Parker's behavior became increasingly erratic due to his habit. Heroin was difficult to obtain after he moved to California for a short time where the drug was less abundant, and Parker began to drink heavily to compensate for this. A recording for the Dial label from July 29, 1946, provides evidence of his condition. Prior to this session, Parker drank about 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, going badly off mic. On the next tune, "Lover Man", producer Ross Russell physically supported Parker in front of the microphone. 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, Parker begins to struggle, and a desperate Howard McGhee, the trumpeter on this session, shouts, "Blow!" at Parker. McGhee's bellow is audible on the recording. Charles Mingus considered this version of "Lover Man" to be among Parker's greatest recordings despite its flaws.^[12] Nevertheless, Parker hated the recording and never forgave Ross Russell for releasing the sub-par performance (and re-recorded the tune in 1951 for Verve, this time in stellar form, but perhaps lacking some of the passionate emotion in the earlier, problematic attempt).

During the night following the "Lover Man" session, Parker was drinking in his hotel room. He entered the hotel lobby stark naked on several occasions and asked to use the phone, but was refused on each attempt. The hotel manager eventually locked him in his room. At some point during the night, he set fire to his mattress with a cigarette, then ran through the hotel lobby wearing only his socks. He was arrested and committed to Camarillo State Mental Hospital, where he remained for six months.

Coming out of the hospital, Parker was initially clean and healthy, and proceeded to do some of the best playing and recording of his career. Before leaving California, he recorded "Relaxin' at Camarillo", in reference to his hospital stay. He returned to New York – and his addiction – and recorded dozens of sides for the Savoy and Dial labels that remain some of the high points of his recorded output. Many of these were with his so-called "classic quintet" including trumpeter Miles Davis and drummer Max Roach. The highlights of these sessions include a series of slower-tempo performances of American popular songs including "Embraceable You" and "Bird of Paradise" (based on "All the Things You Are").

[edit] Charlie Parker with strings

A longstanding desire of Parker's was to perform with a string section. He was a keen student of classical music, and contemporaries reported he was most interested in the music and formal innovations of Igor Stravinsky, and longed to engage in a project akin to what later became known as 'Third Stream Music', a new kind of music, incorporating both jazz and classical elements as opposed to merely incorporating a string section into performance of jazz standards. On November 30, 1949, Norman Granz arranged for Parker to record an album of ballads with a mixed group of jazz and chamber orchestra musicians.^[13] Six master takes from this session comprised the album Bird With Strings: "Just Friends", "Everything Happens to Me", "April in Paris", "Summertime", "I Didn't Know What Time It Was", and "If I Should Lose You". The sound of these recordings is rare in Parker's catalog. Parker's improvisations are, relative to his usual work, more distilled and economical. His tone is darker and softer than on his small-group recordings, and the majority of his lines are beautiful embellishments on the original melodies rather than harmonically based improvisations. These are among the few recordings Parker made during a brief period when he was able to control his heroin habit, and his sobriety and clarity of mind are evident in his playing. Parker stated that, of his own records, Bird With Strings was his favorite. Although using classical music instrumentation with jazz musicians was not entirely original, this was the first major work where a composer of bebop was matched with a string orchestra.

Some fans thought it was a sell out and a pandering to popular tastes. Time demonstrated Parker's move a wise one: Charlie Parker with Strings sold better than his other releases, and his version of "Just Friends" is seen^{[by whom?]} as one of his best performances. In an interview, he considered it to be his best recording to that date.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Prominence

By 1950, much of the jazz world had fallen under Parker's spell. Many musicians transcribed and copied his solos. Legions of saxophonists imitated his playing note-for-note. In response to these pretenders, Parker's admirer, the bass player Charles Mingus, titled a tune "Gunslinging Bird" (meaning "If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger, there would be a whole lot of dead copycats") featured on the album Mingus Dynasty. In this regard, he is perhaps only comparable to Louis Armstrong: both men set the standard for their instruments for decades, and few escaped their influence.

In 1953, Parker performed at Massey Hall in Toronto, Canada, joined by Gillespie, Mingus, Bud Powell and Max Roach. Unfortunately, the concert clashed with a televised heavyweight boxing match between Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott and as a result was poorly attended. Thankfully, Mingus recorded the concert, and the album Jazz at Massey Hall is often cited^{[by whom?]} as one of the finest recordings of a live jazz performance, with the saxophonist credited as "Charlie Chan" for contractual reasons.

At this concert, he played a plastic Grafton saxophone (serial number 10265);^{[14][unreliable source?]} later, saxophonist Ornette Coleman used this brand of plastic sax in his early career. There is a story that says Parker had sold his alto saxophone to buy drugs, and at the last minute, he, Dizzy Gillespie and other members of Charlie's entourage went running around Toronto trying to find Parker a saxophone. After scouring all the downtown pawnshops open at the time, they were only able to find a Grafton, which Parker proceeded to use at the concert that night. This account however is totally untrue. Parker in fact owned two of the Grafton plastic horns. At this point in his career he was experimenting with new sounds and new materials. Parker himself explains the purpose of the plastic saxophone in a May 9th of 1953 broadcast from Birdland and does so again in subsequent May 1953 broadcast.

Parker was known for often showing up to performances without an instrument, necessitating a loan at the last moment. There are various photos that show him playing a Conn 6M saxophone, a high quality instrument that was noted for having a very fast action^{[15][unreliable source?]}and a unique "underslung" octave key.^{[16][17][18][unreliable source?]}

Some of the photographs showing Parker with a Conn 6M were taken on separate occasions. ^{[19][20][unreliable source?] [21][unreliable source?]} because Parker can be seen wearing different clothing and there are different backgrounds. However, other photos exist that show Parker holding alto saxophones with a more conventional octave key arrangement, i.e. mounted above the crook of the saxophone ^{[22][unreliable source?]} e.g. the Martin Handicraft^{[23][unreliable source?]} and Selmer Model 22^{[24][unreliable source?]} saxophones, among others. Parker is also known to have performed with a King 'Super 20' saxophone, with a semi-underslung octave key that bears some resemblance to those fitted on modern Yanagisawa instruments. Parker's King Super 20 saxophone was made specially for him in 1947.

[edit] Death

Parker died in the suite of his friend and patron Nica de Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel in New York City while watching The Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show on television. The official causes of death were lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer but Parker also had an advanced case of cirrhosis of the liver and had had a heart attack. Any one of the four ailments could have killed him.^[25] The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age.^[26]

It was well known that Parker never wanted to return to Kansas City, even in death.^{[citation needed]} Parker had told his common-law wife, Chan, that he didn’t want to be buried in the city of his birth; that New York was his home and he didn’t want any fuss or memorials when he died. At the time of his death, though, he hadn’t divorced his previous wife Doris, nor had he officially married Chan, which left Parker in the rather awkward post-mortem situation of having two widows, a scenario that muddied the issue of next of kin and would ultimately serve to frustrate his wish to be quietly interred in his adopted hometown. Dizzy Gillespie was able to co-opt the funeral arrangements^[27] that Chan had been putting together and coordinated a ‘lying-in-state’, a Harlem procession officiated by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and a memorial concert before flying Parker's body back to Missouri to be buried there per his mother's wishes. Parker was buried at Lincoln Cemetery, 8604 E. Truman Road, Kansas City, Missouri.

Charlie Parker was survived by both his legal wife, Doris Parker (née Doris June Snyder, August 16, 1922 – January 17, 2000), and his partner, Chan; a stepdaughter, Kim Parker, who is also a musician; and a son, Baird Parker; their later lives are chronicled in Chan Parker's autobiography, My Life in E Flat.^[28]

[edit] Musical approach

Parker's style of composition involved interpolation of original melodies over pre-existing jazz forms and standards, a practice still common in jazz today. Examples include "Ornithology" ("How High The Moon") and "Yardbird Suite" ("What Price Love"). The practice was not uncommon prior to bebop; however, it became a signature of the movement as artists began to move away from arranging popular standards and began to compose their own material.

While tunes such as "Now's The Time", "Billie's Bounce", and "Cool Blues" were based on conventional 12-bar blues changes, Parker also created a unique version of the 12-bar blues for his tune "Blues for Alice". These unique chords are known popularly as "Bird Changes".^{[citation needed]} 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 repetitive (yet relatively rhythmically complex) motifs in many other tunes as well, most notably "Now's The Time".

Parker also contributed a vast rhythmic vocabulary to the modern jazz solo, one in which triplets and pick-up notes were used in (then) unorthodox ways to lead into chord tones, affording the soloist with more freedom to use passing tones, which soloists would have previously avoided. Within this context, Parker was admired for his unique style of phrasing and innovative use of rhythm. Via his recordings and the popularity of the posthumously published Charlie Parker Omnibook, Parker's uniquely identifiable vocabulary of "licks" and "riffs" dominated jazz for many years to come. Today his concepts and ideas are transcribed, studied, and analyzed by a great deal of jazz students and are part of any player's basic jazz vocabulary.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Awards and recognitions

Grammy Award

Charlie Parker Grammy Award History[29]
Year	Category	Title	Genre	Label	Result
1974	Best Performance By A Soloist	First Recordings!	Jazz	Onyx	Winner

Grammy Hall of Fame

Recordings of Charlie Parker were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which is a special Grammy award established in 1973 to honor recordings that are at least twenty-five years old, and that have "qualitative or historical significance."

Charlie Parker: Grammy Hall of Fame Awards[30]
Year Recorded	Title	Genre	Label	Year Inducted
1945	"Billie's Bounce"	Jazz (Single)	Savoy	2002
1953	Jazz at Massey Hall	Jazz (Album)	Debut	1995
1946	"Ornithology"	Jazz (Single)	Dial	1989
1950	Charlie Parker with Strings	Jazz (Album)	Mercury	1988

Inductions

Year Inducted	Title
2004	Jazz at Lincoln Center: Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame
1984	Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
1979	Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame

National Recording Registry

In 2002, the Library of Congress honored his recording "Ko-Ko" (1945) by adding it to the National Recording Registry.

U.S. Postage Stamp

Year Issued	Stamp	USA	Note
1995	32 cents Commemorative stamp	U.S. Postal Stamps	Photo (Scott #2987)[31]

[edit] Musical tributes

• Lennie Tristano's overdubbed solo piano piece "Requiem" was recorded in tribute to Parker shortly after his death. It begins with a classically-tinged introduction, and then turns into a slow blues that gradually accumulates layers of overdubbing – one of the earliest experiments in jazz with multiple overdubbing.

• Deeply touched by Charlie Parker's death, street musician Moondog wrote his famous "Bird's Lament" in his memory. Moondog affirmed that he had met Charlie Parker in the streets of New York and that they had planned to jam together.

• The Californian ensemble Supersax harmonized many of Parker's improvisations for a five-piece saxophone section, which to many listeners bring new life to them, whereas others consider the arrangements as somewhat constructed.

• Saxophonist Phil Woods recorded a tribute concert for Parker, and in an interview stated that he thought Parker had said everything he needed to say.

• Weather Report's jazz fusion track and highly acclaimed big band standard "Birdland", from the Heavy Weather album (1977), was a dedication by bandleader Joe Zawinul to both Charlie Parker and the New York 52nd Street club itself. The piece featured Jaco Pastorius playing electric fretless bass. (Pastorius had made a name for himself when he included on his debut solo album an astounding rendition of the Charlie Parker and Miles Davis standard "Donna Lee".) The Manhattan Transfer made a vocalese cover version of the composition with lyrics by Jon Hendricks.

• In 2003 various artists including Serj Tankian and Dan the Automator put out Bird Up: The Charlie Parker Remix Project. This album created new songs by remixing Charlie Parker's originals.

• The biographical song "Parker's Band" was recorded by Steely Dan on its 1974 album Pretzel Logic.
• British jazz-rock band If paid tribute to Parker in the title track of their last album, Tea Break Over, Back on Your 'Eads (1975), including a Parker-styled saxophone solo and the lyrics "The Bird was the man to be heard" and "The music was the word".
• The avant-garde trombonist George Lewis recorded Homage to Charles Parker (1979), an album that offers a unique combination of electronic music and the blues.
• TISM's The White Albun (2004) contains the song "Tonight Harry's Practice Visits the Home of Charlie 'Bird' Parker". The song focuses on celebrity resentment and the possibility that taking drugs will make the otherwise dull celebrities more interesting. The title of the song refers to Australian television show Harry's Practice and, more specifically, the segment where Dr. Harry Cooper would visit a celebrity, in this case, the visit is to Charlie "Bird" Parker's house.
• Sparks released the song "(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing" on their 1994 album Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins, which prominently features Charlie Parker's name in the lyrics and makes references to his saxophone playing.
• Duane Allman devised a unique slide guitar technique that enabled him to mimic the sounds of chirping birds, stating in at least one interview that this was his tribute to Parker. This can be heard in numerous live recordings, most notably "Mountain Jam" on The Allman Brothers Band's CDs Eat a Peach and The Fillmore Concerts (shortly before the drum interlude). Another, more delicate, version is in the song "Finding Her" on Boz Scaggs' self-titled debut album, first released in 1969. This technique can also be heard at the end of Derek & the Dominos 1970 hit "Layla" on which Allman played.
• The Only World by poet Lynda Hull includes the poem "Ornithology" about Charlie Parker.
• The poem "Song for Bird and Myself" by Jack Spicer was written in memory of Charlie Parker.
• The song Jack & Neal/California, Here I Come, on the album Foreign Affairs by Tom Waits has a line that goes: with charlie parker on the bandstand not a worry in the world.
• In the song "Can't Stop" by Red Hot Chili Peppers, the lyrics refer to Parker with the line "birds that blow the meaning into bebop."
• Richard Thompson references Charlie Parker in his song "Outside of the Inside" on the album The Old Kit Bag (2005).
• Charlie Parker is referenced in the song "Rothko Chapel" by David Dondero on the album Simple Love (2007).
• Harry Chapin references Charlie Parker in the song 'There Only Was One Choice' from the 'Dance Band On The Titanic' album.

• Refused included live recordings of Parker at the end of the song "Liberation Frequency" and transitioned it into "The Deadly Rhythm" on the album The Shape of Punk to Come.

[edit] Other tributes

The lists in this article may contain items that are not notable, not encyclopedic, or not helpful. Please help out by removing such elements and incorporating appropriate items into the main body of the article. (January 2010)

• In 1949, the New York night club Birdland was named in his honor. Three years later, George Shearing wrote "Lullaby of Birdland", named for both Parker and the nightclub.

• A memorial to Parker was dedicated in 1999 in Kansas City at 17th Terrace and The Paseo, near the American Jazz Museum located at 18th and Vine, featuring a 10-foot (3 m) tall bronze head sculpted by Robert Graham.

• In New York City, Avenue B between 7th and 10th Streets was renamed Charlie Parker Place in 1992. The townhouse in which Parker had lived with Chan and their children, on Avenue B between 9th and 10th streets, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.^[32]

• Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, New York City. Every summer, on the last weekend of August, the non-profit organization City Parks Foundation celebrates the life and musical genius of Parker with a free, two-day jazz festival at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem and Tompkins Square Park in the Lower East Side. The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival marked its 17th anniversary in 2009 with performances by Frank Wess, Cedar Walton, Gary Bartz, Papo Vazquez Pirates Troubadours, Jose James, Benny Reid, Pyeng Threadgill, and the Dred Scott Trio.

• Every August, the Tribes Gallery in New York's Lower East Side sponsors a Charlie Parker Festival that includes musical performances, art exhibits, poetry readings.

• Every weekday morning, disc jockey Phil Schaap plays Parker's music on WKCR in New York. His show, called Birdflight, is devoted to Parker's music and has been running since 1981.

• In one of his most famous short-story collections, Las armas secretas (The Secret Weapons), Julio Cortázar dedicated El perseguidor (The Pursuer) to the memory of Charlie Parker. This piece examines the last days of Johnny, a drug-addict saxophonist, through the eyes of Bruno, his biographer. Some qualify this story as one of Cortazar's masterpieces in the genre.

• A biographical film called Bird, starring Forest Whitaker as Parker and directed by Clint Eastwood, was released in 1988.^[33]

• In 1984, legendary modern dance choreographer Alvin Ailey created the piece "For Bird – With Love" in honor of Parker. The piece chronicles his life, from his early career to his failing health.

• In 2005, the Selmer Paris saxophone manufacturer commissioned a special "Tribute to Bird" alto saxophone, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Charlie Parker (1955–2005). This saxophone will be built until 2010, each one featuring a unique engraving and an original design.

• Parker's performances of "I Remember You" and "Parker's Mood" were selected by Harold Bloom for inclusion on his short list of the "twentieth-century American Sublime", the greatest works of American art produced in the 20th century.

• The Oris Watch Company created a limited edition timepiece in Charlie Parker's name. The watch features the word "bird" at the 4 o'clock hour, in honor of Parker's nickname and signifying "Jazz, until 4 in the morning".

• Jean-Michel Basquiat created many pieces to honour Charlie Parker, including Charles the First, CPRKR and Discography I.
• The main character in Jim Jarmusch's Permanent Vacation is an avid Parker fan.
• In 1995, "Live Bird", a one-man play about Charlie Parker, written and performed by actor/saxophonist Jeff Robinson, made its premier at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, Massachusetts.
• A Far Side cartoon published on Parker's birthday in 1990 titled "Charlie Parker's private hell" shows him locked in a recording booth, screaming, while a whistling devil pipes in nothing but new age music.
• Charley Parker, the real name of comic book character Golden Eagle, is a reference to Parker.^{[citation needed]}
• In an episode of Cowboy Bebop, Jet Black dreams that Parker tells him, "Only hands can wash hands. If you want to receive, you have to give."
• In an episode of Metalocolypse William Murderface of the band Dethklok is heard to be singing his own tribute to Charlie Parker while drunk in a bar in the opening minutes of an episode. The lyrics included "Stand up U.S.A, stand up like Charlie Parker stood up, stand up Charlie Parker style..."
• Owen Dodson wrote a poem whose title itself indicates the tribute. It is called "Yardbird's Skull".
• On the Del Close recording How to Speak Hip, John Brent's character, Geets Romo, says it is "uncool to claim you used to run with Bird, or that you have Bird's ax, and you know, it's even less cool to ask, 'Who is Bird?'" This is also sampled in the 1994 Hans Dulfer song "Jazz Disaster (Cool)".
• Parker plays at a night club in The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac. He appears in other works by Kerouac as well.
• In episode 16 of The Mighty Boosh, Charlie Parker's rare "Yardbird" LP can be seen on one of the racks in the Nabootique.
• The protagonist in the novel Every Dead Thing is named Charlie Parker and even shares the nickname "Bird."

[edit] References

This article uses bare URLs in its references. Please use proper citations containing each referenced work's title, author, date, and source, so that the article remains verifiable in the future. Help may be available. Several templates are available for formatting. (August 2010)

• Reisner, George (1962). Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker. New York, Bonanza Books.
• Russell, Ross (1973). Bird Lives! The High Life & Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker. New York:

[edit] Further reading

• Aebersold, Jamey, editor (1978). Charlie Parker Omnibook. New York: Michael H. Goldsen.
• Giddins, Gary (1987). Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker. New York: Beech Tree Books, William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-05950-3.
• Koch, Lawrence (1999). Yardbird Suite: A Compendium of the Music and Life of Charlie Parker. Boston, Northeastern University Press. ISBN 1-55555-384-1.

Charterhouse. ISBN 0-306-80679-7.

• Woideck, Carl (1998). Charlie Parker: His Music and Life. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08555-7.
• Woideck, Carl, editor (1998). The Charlie Parker Companion: Six Decades of Commentary. New York: Schirmer Books. ISBN 0-02-864714-9.
• Yamaguchi, Masaya, editor (1955). Yardbird Originals. New York: Charles Colin, 2005. Originally published in 1955.

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Charlie Parker

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Charlie Parker

• Charlie Parker discography at Discogs
• Charlie Parker discography
• Charlie Parker Sessionography
• The Official Site of Charlie "Yardbird" Parker
• Clips and notes about Parker
• Charlie Parker at Find A Grave
• Camarillo State Mental Hospital History (Parker was a patient there)

Persondata
Name	Parker, Charlie
Alternative names	Parker, Charles "Bird", Jr.
Short description	Saxophonist, Composer
Date of birth	August 29, 1920
Place of birth	Kansas City, Kansas
Date of death	March 12, 1955
Place of death	New York City, New York