Charlie Parker

Among the rare artists credited with reshaping jazz for good, Charlie Parker ranks as possibly the finest saxophonist in history. His ability to execute lightning-quick phrases meant that slowing those lines to half speed still showed every note fitting together with perfect logic. “Bird,” regarded with Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell as a creator of bebop, actually operated as an instinctive improviser simply following his own expressive impulses. Instead of anchoring solos tightly to the original melody in the manner of swing players, he excelled at harmonic invention, spinning fresh lines drawn from the underlying chord framework of each tune. In doing so, Bird composed several enduring standards—“Anthropology,” “Ornithology,” “Scrapple from the Apple,” and “Ko Ko,” plus blues pieces such as “Now’s the Time” and “Parker’s Mood”—that updated the harmonic skeletons of earlier compositions. His extraordinary facility, distinctive tonal character, and knack for devising harmonically sophisticated yet coherent and playful phrases exerted enormous influence; by 1950, any credible performance of modern jazz required close study of his work.

Charlie Parker was born in Kansas City, Kansas, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. He began on baritone horn before turning to the alto saxophone. Captivated by the thriving Kansas City jazz environment, he left school at age fourteen despite still shaky technique that often saw his ideas outpace his fingers. After several discouraging experiences at jam sessions, he spent one summer intensely practicing to strengthen his command of the instrument and its fundamentals. By 1937, when he joined Jay McShann’s Orchestra, he had already advanced far toward becoming a significant force.

Early on, Charlie Parker drew inspiration from Lester Young and the sound of Buster Smith. His first visit to New York came in 1939, during which he worked briefly as a dishwasher to hear Art Tatum nightly. He made his recording debut with Jay McShann in 1940, delivering standout small-group solos on “Oh, Lady Be Good” and “Honeysuckle Rose.” When the McShann big band reached New York in 1941, Parker contributed brief solos to several studio blues sides, while his broadcasts with the ensemble astonished and occasionally unsettled fellow musicians encountering his ideas for the first time. Having first met and jammed with Dizzy Gillespie in 1940, he played briefly with Noble Sissle’s band in 1942, performed on tenor in Earl Hines’s unrecorded 1943 bop orchestra, and spent several months in 1944 with Billy Eckstine’s group before it began recording. Gillespie participated in both the Hines and Eckstine bands, and the pair began working together as a unit late in 1944.

Although Charlie Parker recorded with Tiny Grimes’s combo in 1944, it was his 1945 sessions with Dizzy Gillespie that jolted the jazz world. Hearing the two virtuosos execute rapid unison statements on pieces such as “Groovin’ High,” “Dizzy Atmosphere,” “Shaw ’Nuff,” “Salt Peanuts,” and “Hot House,” then launch into unpredictable, high-energy solos proved disorienting to listeners accustomed to Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. While the new style represented evolution rather than outright revolution, the 1943–1944 recording ban meant bebop surfaced on disc fully formed, appearing to arrive from nowhere.

Charlie Parker had been addicted to heroin since his teenage years, and some admirers mistakenly adopted the drug in hopes of reaching his level of playing. When Gillespie and Parker, known as “Diz and Bird,” arrived in Los Angeles to mixed hostility and indifference—save from younger musicians who paid close attention—they chose to return east. On impulse, Parker surrendered his return ticket, remained in Los Angeles, and, after several recordings and appearances including a memorable “Oh, Lady Be Good” with Jazz at the Philharmonic, the absence of drugs, countered by heavy drinking, triggered a breakdown followed by six months at Camarillo State Hospital. Released in January 1947, he soon returned to New York and delivered some of his most satisfying work, leading a quintet featuring Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter, and Max Roach. Recording at the time for both Savoy and Dial, Parker remained at his peak throughout the 1947–1951 period, touring Europe in 1949 and 1950 while fulfilling a long-held ambition to record with strings after moving to Norman Granz’s Verve label in 1949.

Charlie Parker’s drug dependence and risk-taking nature kept him drawn to dangerous situations. In 1951 his New York cabaret license was revoked, limiting club work, and his dependability suffered. Though capable of inspired performances when motivated, as at the 1953 Massey Hall concert with Gillespie, he was clearly declining. After two suicide attempts in 1954 and a stay at Bellevue, his health, worn down by a brief lifetime of excess, continued to deteriorate until his death in March 1955 at age thirty-four, when he appeared far older.

A towering presence already in his lifetime, Charlie Parker has grown still larger in reputation since his passing. Virtually every studio recording plus countless broadcasts and club dates are now available on CD. Clint Eastwood assembled a sincere though simplified film, Bird, touching on episodes from his life. After John Coltrane’s emergence, Parker’s influence shifted from direct to more indirect, yet jazz would sound markedly different without him. The phrase “Bird Lives,” written as graffiti after his death, remains apt.