Sunday, Jan. 28, 2001

         

                  Charlie Parker, 1949. 

                  b. Aug. 29, 1920, Kansas City, Kan., U.S.
                  d. March 12, 1955, New York, N.Y.
            byname of CHARLES CHRISTOPHER PARKER, JR., also called BIRD, OR 
            YARDBIRD American alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader who is 
            considered by many to have been the greatest improviser in jazz 
            history and the father of the modern jazz style known as bebop. His 
            first recordings with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie during the mid-1940s 
            set the pace for the jazz of the next two decades. (See Gillespie 
            and Parker, "Hot House." and Charlie Parker, "Parker's Mood.") 
            Parker's style began with the advanced swing-era approaches of 
            Buster Smith and Lester Young, heard by him during the 1930s in 
            Kansas City, Mo. In 1939 Parker moved to New York City, playing at 
            Monroe's Uptown House on 52nd Street. After playing in the Earl 
            Hines and Billy Eckstine bands with Dizzy Gillespie, Parker and 
            Gillespie left to front their own quintet in 1945. The Dial and 
            Savoy recordings of the late 1940s contain the definitive examples 
            of Parker's playing, including such tunes as "Now's the Time," 
            "Billie's Bounce," and "KoKo."
            Parker absorbed a wide range of musical influences, including 
            Afro-American folk forms as well as 20th-century concert music. His 
            favourite musical phrases became the vocabulary of, and eventually 
            provided the melodic clichés for, modern jazz improvisers. More than 
            20 years after his death, new recordings of such tunes of his as 
            "Confirmation," "Donna Lee," "Scrapple from the Apple," and 
            "Ornithology" were still being made. His music became the subject of 
            scholarly treatises and was taught within the college jazz 
            curriculum. Most influential innovators who followed him had at 
            least some of their roots in his style; saxophonists Sonny Rollins, 
            John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman all showed some Parker influence 
            in their earliest recordings.
            Parker made common the use of quick tempos and the practice of 
            adding and implying extra chords within existing chord progressions. 
            His phrasings employed unique hesitations and abrupt endings.