Charlie parker biography. Charlie Parker: biography, best compositions, interesting facts. Parker worked at the same restaurant as Redd Fox

29/08/2010

American jazz saxophonist and composer Charles Christopher Parker(Charles Christopher Jr. Charlie Parker) was born on August 29, 1920 in the Negro quarter of Kansas City. His father was a vaudeville artist, his mother was a nurse. Charlie studied at a school with a large orchestra, and his first musical impressions are connected with playing the brass baritone and clarinet. Constantly listening to jazz, the boy dreamed of an alto saxophone. His mother bought him an instrument and since then the passion for music has not left him.

He studied music on his own. In the evenings I listened to the play of city musicians, and during the days I studied on my own. At the age of 14, Charlie left school and devoted all his time to mastering the saxophone. He played with local bands, tried to get into the Count Basie Orchestra, but his intricate improvisations were not understood by the orchestra musicians. He went through a number of compositions, visited Chicago and New York.

In late 1938, back in Kansas City, Charlie Parker joined pianist Jay McShann's orchestra. He played with this line-up for more than three years, and his first known recordings were also made with this orchestra.

At the beginning of his career, Parker had the nickname "Yardberd" (Yardbird), which then shortened to Bird (English "bird"). This nickname was often used in the title of his works (Yardbird Suite and Bird Feathers).

Later, the New York club Birdland was named after Parker.

In early 1942, he left the Jay McShann Orchestra and, leading a half-starved, beggarly existence, continued to play his music in various New York clubs. Parker mostly worked at Clark Monroe's Uptown House club.

At that time, the so-called after hours were popular among jazzmen - games after work, which later became known as jam sessions. Each jam had its own group of musicians. Parker regularly appeared at jam sessions at the Mintons Playhouse, gaining a reputation as one of the strongest instrumentalists. At jams in Harlem clubs, primarily at the Henry Minton Club, according to legend, Parker created his own style of new music, which began to be called bebop, then rebop, then bop (the term "bebop" is most likely onomatopoeic).

In 1943, when a position became available for tenor saxophonist, Parker moved to the Earl Hines Orchestra. In 1944, he played alto saxophone in the quintet of former Hines vocalist Billy Eckstein, which brought together all the future bebop stars - Gillespie, Navarro, Stitt, Emmons, Gordon, Damron, Art Blakey.

In February-March 1945, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillepsy recorded a series of records that presented the new style in all its brilliance. The next, no less significant recordings appeared in November in California with Ross Russell at Dial.

In 1945, Parker assembled his own quintet. By the end of the year, he began to play in one of the clubs on 52nd Street, which becomes the street of boper, Bop Street. The young people who returned from the war enthusiastically accepted bebop and Parker.

In 1946 he left for the West Coast with Norman Grantz's Jazz At The Philharmonic and played in the Howard McGee Ensemble. Recordings with a quintet with Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter and Max Roach (1947), recordings with a string group (1950) and original compositions (Billies Bounce, Nows The Time, KCBlues, Confirmation, Ornithology, Scrapple From The Apple) brought huge success. , Donna Lee, Ko Ko).

Parker's career was uneven, he had a quarrelsome character, often let his partners down and spent a lot of time in clinics. Drug addiction grew stronger, and attempts to get rid of it threw Parker into the arms of alcohol. In 1946, in Los Angeles, Parker "broke down" and ended up in the Camarillo hospital, after leaving which the musicians collected money for him for clothes and an instrument.

He returned to active work only at the beginning of 1947. In September 1947, Parker performed triumphantly at Carnegie Hall. In 1948 Byrd was named Musician of the Year in a Metronome magazine poll.

In 1949, Parker performed at the first international jazz festival in Paris and returned to New York to open the Birdland Club.

The following year, he toured Scandinavia, Paris, London, and held a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto. Then there was a series of club performances, drinking bouts, records, scandals and suicide attempts.

In 1954, Bird received a severe blow - his two-year-old daughter Pree died. All attempts by Parker to restore psychological balance were in vain. A series of his performances at the New York club, named after him Birdland, ended in scandal: in another fit of rage, Parker dispersed all the musicians and interrupted the performance. The owners of the club refused to deal with him. Many other concert venues found themselves in similar relations with him.

On March 12, 1955, Charlie Parker died. Death overtook him in New York at the home of his wealthy fan, Baroness de Koenigswarter, while he was sitting at the TV and watching the show of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. Doctors called the cause of death cirrhosis of the liver and a stomach ulcer.

Alto saxophonist Charlie Parker is recognized by the musical world as one of the most important figures in jazz of the 20th century. He was a virtuoso, the greatest jazz innovator, one of the founders of bebop.

Clint Eastwood made the movie The Bird (1988) about him, and Julio Cortazar made him the hero of the story The Pursuer. In 2006, the publishing house Scythia published a book by Robert George Reisner "Bird. The Legend of Charlie Parker".

Parker was nicknamed "Yardbird" early in his career, and the shortened form "Bird" continued to be used throughout his life. This nickname Parker himself played on in the title of a number of compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite" (Bird yard suite), "Ornithology" (Ornithology), "Bird Gets the Worm" (Bird gets the worm) and "Bird of Paradise" (Bird in Paradise ).

Parker was a highly influential jazz soloist and a leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique and improvisation. Charlie developed revolutionary harmonic ideas, including quick chord changes, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. His tone ranged from pure and penetrating to sweet and dark. Many of Parker's recordings show virtuoso technique and complex melodic lines, sometimes fusing jazz with other musical genres, including blues, latin and classical music.

Charlie Parker was an icon of the beatnik subculture, and then transcended these generations, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising and intellectual artist, not an entertainer.

Biography

Charles Parker Jr.(Charles Parker, Jr.) was born August 29, 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas, and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. He was the only child of Charles and Eddie Parker. Parker attended Lincoln High School. He entered there in September 1934 and graduated in December 1935, shortly before joining the union of local musicians.

Charlie Parker began playing the saxophone at the age of 11, and at the age of 14 he joined the school band using an instrument borrowed from the school. His father, Charles, was often absent, but still had some musical influences on his son, as he was a pianist, dancer and singer. He later became a waiter or cook on trains. Parker's mother Eddie worked nights in the office of the local branch of Western Union. His biggest influence at the time was a young trombonist who taught him the basics of improvisation.

Carier start

In the late 1930s, Parker began to practice quite diligently. During this period, he mastered improvisation and developed some of the ideas that led to bebop. In an interview with Paul Desmond, he said that he spent 3-4 years practicing up to 15 hours a day.

In 1942, Parker left McShann's band and played with Earl Hines for one year. This group included Dizzy Gillespie, who later played a duet with Parker. Unfortunately, this period is largely undocumented, due to the 1942-1943 strike of the American Federation of Musicians, during which recordings were suspended. Parker joined a group of young musicians who played after the closure of Harlem clubs such as Clark Monroe's Uptown House and Minton's Playhouse. These young rebels included Gillespie, pianist Thelonious Monk, guitarist Charlie Christian and drummer Kenny Clarke. Monk said of this band: "We wanted them to not be able to play our music. They are white bandleaders who have usurped the profits from swing." Band on 52nd Street, including the Three Deuces and The Onyx. While in New York, Charlie studied with his music teacher, Maury Deutsch.

Bop

According to an interview Parker gave in 1950, one night in 1939 he was playing a Cherokee jam session with guitarist William "Biddy" Fleet, Charlie came up with a new method of solo development that is considered one of his major musical innovations. He realized that the twelve tones of the chromatic scale could be translated melodically into any key, overcoming some of the limits of a simple jazz solo.

Early in its development, this new type of jazz was rejected by many traditional jazz musicians who despised their younger counterparts. Beboppers have responded to the challenge of these traditionalist "moldy figs". However, some musicians such as Coleman Hawkins and Benny Goodman spoke positively about its development, and participated in jam sessions and recordings of the new movement with its adherents.

Due to the Musicians' Union's two-year ban on all commercial recordings from 1942 to 1944, much of bebop's early development remained unknown to posterity. As a result, she received limited radio exposure. The bebop musicians had a difficult time, but they were widely recognized. Until 1945, when the recording ban was lifted, Parker's collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell and others had a significant impact on the jazz world. One of their first small group performances together was discovered and published in 2005: a concert at Town Hall in New York on June 22, 1945. Bebop soon gained wide recognition among musicians and fans.

On November 26, 1945, Parker completed a session for the Savoy label, which has been marketed ever since as "the greatest jazz session of all time". Tracks recorded during this session include "Ko-Ko" and "Now's the Time".

Shortly thereafter, the Parker/Gillespie band went to play at the Billy Berg Club in Los Angeles, which was unsuccessful. Most of the group returned to New York, but Parker remained in California, selling a return ticket and buying heroin. He experienced great hardship in California and was eventually admitted to the Camarillo State Psychiatric Hospital for six months.

Addiction

Parker's chronic heroin addiction caused him to miss concerts and he soon lost his job. He often resorted to making money on the streets, receiving loans from fellow musicians and fans, leaving his saxophone as collateral, and spending the money on drugs. Heroin was common in the jazz scene and the drugs were easy to buy.

Although he produced many brilliant records during this period, Charlie Parker's behavior became increasingly erratic. Heroin was hard to come by in California, where he moved, and Parker started drinking heavily to make up for it. Recordings for the Dial label dated July 29, 1946 testify to his condition. Before this session, Parker drank a liter of whiskey. When recording Charlie Parker on Dial Volume 1, Parker omitted most of the first two bars of his first chorus on the track "Max Making Wax". When he finally came to, he staggered and turned away from the microphone. On the next tune, "Lover Man", producer Ross Russell actually backed Parker. On the recording of "Bebop" (Parker recorded the last track in the evening), he begins his solo improvisation with a solid first eight bars. In the second eight bars, however, Parker begins to struggle, and trumpeter Howard McGhee shouts in desperation, "Bang!" on Parker. Charles Mingus considers this version of "Lover Man" to be one of Parker's greatest recordings, despite its shortcomings. However, Parker hated these records and never forgave Ross Russell who released them. Charlie recorded the tune again in 1951 for Verve.

When Parker was released from the hospital, he was clean and healthy, and continued to make some of the performances and recordings of his career. He converted to Islam. Before leaving California, Charlie recorded "Relaxin" at Camarillo", in reference to his hospital stay. He returned to New York, started using heroin again and made dozens of recordings for the Savoy and Dial labels that remain among his most highlights, many of which were with his so-called "classic quintet", including trumpeter Miles Davis and drummer Max Roach.

Charlie Parker and strings

Parker's longtime desire was to perform with strings. He was an avid student of classical music, and contemporaries said that Charlie was most interested in the music and innovations of Igor Stravinsky and wanted to participate in a project akin to what later became known as the Third Stream (third stream), a new kind of music that combines jazz and classical elements as opposed to just the inclusion of strings in the performance of jazz standards.

On November 30, 1949, Norman arranged for Parker to record an album of ballads with a mixed group of jazz and chamber musicians. Six masters in this session compiled Charlie Parker's album 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 Charlie Parker's catalogue. Parker's improvisations, compared to his usual work, are more refined and economical. His tone is darker and softer than on his small band recordings, and most of his solos are beautiful embellishments of original melodies rather than harmonic foundations for improvisations. This is one of the few recordings of Parker made during the brief period in which he was able to control his heroin addiction, and his sobriety and mental clarity come through in this game. Parker stated that the Bird With Strings was his favorite. Although the use of classical instruments in jazz music was not entirely original, it was the first major work where the composer coordinated bebop with a string orchestra.

Jazz at Massey Hall

In 1953, Charlie Parker performed at Massey Hall in Toronto, Canada where he was joined by Gillespie, Mingus, Bud Powell and Max Roach. Unfortunately, the concert coincided with a television broadcast of a heavyweight boxing match between Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott, so there were almost no spectators. Mingus recorded the concert resulting in an album Jazz at Massey Hall. At this concert, Parker played a Grafton plastic saxophone. At this point in his career, he experimented with new sounds and materials.

Parker is known to have played several saxophones, including the Conn 6M, The Martin Handicraft, and the Selmer Model 22. Parker also performed with the King "Super 20" saxophone, which was made especially for him in 1947.

Death Bird

Parker died on March 12, 1955, visiting his friend and patron Baroness de Pannonica Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel in New York while watching the Dorsey Brothers show on television. The official cause of death was lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer, but Parker also had cirrhosis of the liver and suffered a heart attack. The investigator who performed his autopsy erroneously determined the age of Parker's 34-year-old body to be approximately 50 to 60 years old.

Parker lived from 1950 with Chan Richardson, the mother of his son Byrd and daughter Pree (who died in infancy of cystic fibrosis). He considers Chang his wife, but he did not formally marry her, nor did he divorce his previous wife, Doris (whom he married in 1948). This led to a complicated settlement of Parker's inheritance issues and ultimately resulted in the inability to fulfill his wish to be quietly buried in New York.

It was well known that Parker never wanted to return to Kansas City, even in death. Parker told Chan that he didn't want to be buried in his hometown, that New York was his home. Dizzy Gillespie paid for the funeral and organized a state farewell ceremony. The Harlem procession was led by Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and there was also a memorial concert before Parker's body was brought back to Missouri, in accordance with his mother's wishes. Parker's widow criticized the Parker family for having a Christian funeral, even though they knew Charlie was a committed atheist. Parker was buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Missouri, in a hamlet known as Blue Summit.

Charlie Parker's real estate is managed by CMG Worldwide.

Music

The style of Charlie Parker's compositions includes interpolations of the original tune from pre-existing jazz forms and standards. This practice is still widespread in jazz today. For example, "Ornithology" ("How High The Moon") and "Yardbird Suite", the vocal version of which is called "What Price Love", with lyrics by Parker. This practice was not uncommon before bebop, but became a trademark of the movement as artists began to move away from popular standard arrangements and write their own compositions.

While tunes such as "Now"s The Time", "Billie"s Bounce" and "Cool Blues" were based on the usual twelve bar variation blues, Parker also created a unique 12-bar blues version of "Blues for Alice" ". These unique chords are popularly known as "Bird Changes". Like his solos, some of his pieces are characterized by long, complex melodic lines and minimal repetition, although he did use repetition in some of the melodies, notably "Now's The Time".

Parker was a major contributor to contemporary solo jazz, in which triplets and pickups were used in an unorthodox way of bringing tones into the chord, allowing the soloist more freedom to use passing tones that soloists had previously avoided. Parker is admired for his unique phrasing style and innovative use of rhythm. His recordings, published posthumously as the Charlie Parker Omnibook, added to his popularity, unambiguously identifying Parker's style that would dominate jazz for many years to come.

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker

Discography

Savoy Records

1944
The Immortal Charlie Parker
Bird: Master Takes
Encores

1945
Dizzy Gillespie
The Genius Of Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker Story
Charlie Parker Memorial Vol. 2

1947
Charlie Parker Memorial Vol. one

1948
Bird At The Roost, Vol. one
Newly Discovered Sides By Charlie Parker
The "Bird" Returns

1949
Bird At The Roost, Vol. 2
Bird At The Roost

1950
An Evening At Home With Charlie Parker Sextet

Dial Records

1945
Red Norvo's Fabulous Jam Session

1946
Alternate Masters Vol. 2

1947
The Bird Blows The Blues
Cool Blues c/w Bird's Nest
Alternate Masters Vol. one
Crazeology c/w Crazeology, II: 3 Ways Of Playing A Chorus
Charlie Parker Vol. 4

Verve Records

1946
Jazz At The Philharmonic, Vol. 2
Jazz At The Philharmonic, Vol. 4

1948
Various Artists - Potpourri Of Jazz
The Charlie Parker Story #1

1949
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #7 - Jazz Perennial
Jazz At The Philharmonic, Vol. 7
Jazz At The Philharmonic - The Ella Fitzgerald Set
The Complete Charlie Parker On Verve - Bird

1950
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #4 - Bird And Diz
The Charlie Parker Story #3

1951
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #8 - Swedish Schnapps
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #6 - Fiesta

1952
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #3 - Now's The Time

1953
The Quartet Of Charlie Parker

1954
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #5 - Charlie Parker Plays Cole Porter

compilations

1940
Bird's Eyes, Vol. 1 (Philology)
Charlie Parker With Jay McShann And His Orchestra - Early Bird (Stash)
Jay McShann Orchestra Featuring Charlie Parker - Early Bird (Spotlight)

1941
Jay McShann - The Early Bird Charlie Parker, 1941-1943: Jazz Heritage Series (MCA)
The Complete Birth Of The Bebop (Stash)

1943
Birth Of The Bebop: Bird On Tenor 1943 (Stash)

1945
Every Bit Of It 1945 (Spotlight)
Charlie Parker Vol. 3 Young Bird 1945 (Masters of Jazz)
Dizzy Gillespie
Bird's Eyes, Vol. 17 (Philology)
Charlie Parker On Dial Vol. 5 (Spotlight)
Red Norvo's Fabulous Jam Session (Spotlight)
Dizzy Gillespie/Charlie Parker - Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945 (Uptown)
Bird's Eyes, Vol. 4 (Philology)
Yardbird In Lotus Land (Spotlight)

1946
Rappin' With Bird (Meexa)
Jazz At The Philharmonic - How High The Moon (Mercury)
Charlie Parker On Dial Vol. 1 (Spotlight)

1947
The Legendary Dial Masters, Vol. 2 (Stash)
Various Artists - Lullaby In Rhythm (Spotlight)
Charlie Parker On Dial Vol. 2 (Spotlight)
Charlie Parker On Dial Vol. 3 (Spotlight)
Charlie Parker On Dial Vol. 4 (Spotlight)
Various Artists - Anthropology (Spotlight)
Allen Eager - In The Land Of Oo-Bla-Dee 1947-1953 (Uptown)
Charlie Parker On Dial Vol. 6 (Spotlight)
Various Artists - The Jazz Scene (Clef)

1948
Gene Roland Band Featuring Charlie Parker - The Band That Never Was (Spotlight)
Bird's Eyes, Vol. 6 (Philology)
Bird on 52nd St. (jazz workshop)
Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker On The Air, Vol. 1 (Everest)

1949
Charlie Parker - Broadcast Performances, Vol. 2 (ESP)
The Metronome All Stars - From Swing To Be-Bop (RCA Camden)
Jazz At The Philharmonic - J.A.T.P. At Carnegie Hall 1949 (Pablo)
Rara Avis Avis, Rare Bird (Stash)
Various Artists - Alto Saxes (Norgran)
Bird On The Road (Jazz Showcase)
Charlie Parker/Dizzy Gillespie - Bird And Diz (Universal (Japan))
Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker In France 1949 (Jazz O.P. (France))
Charlie Parker - Bird Box Vol. 2 (Jazz Up (Italy))
Bird's Eyes, Vol. 5 (Philology)
Charlie Parker with Strings (Clef)
Bird's Eyes, Vol. 2 (Philology)
Bird's Eyes, Vol. 3 (Philology)
Dance Of The Infidels (S.C.A.M.)

1950
Charlie Parker Live Birdland 1950 (EPM Musique (F) FDC 5710)
Charlie Parker Nick's (Jazz Workshop JWS 500)
Charlie Parker At The Apollo Theater And St. Nick's Arena (Zim ZM 1007)
Charlie Parker - Bird's Eyes, Vol. 15 (Philology (It) W 845-2)
Charlie Parker - Fats Navarro - Bud Powell (Ozone 4)
Charlie Parker - One Night In Birdland (Columbia JG 34808)
Charlie Parker - Bud Powell - Fats Navarro (Ozone 9)
Charlie Parker - Just Friends (S.C.A.M. JPG 4)
Charlie Parker - Apartment Jam Sessions (Zim ZM 1006)
V.A. - Our Best (Clef MGC 639)
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #4 - Bird And Diz (Verve MGV 8006)
The Persuasively Coherent Miles Davis (Alto AL 701)
Charlie Parker - Ultimate Bird 1949-50 (Grotto 495)
Charlie Parker - Ballads And Birdland (Klacto (E) MG 101)
Charlie Parker Big Band (Mercury MGC 609)
Charlie Parker - Parker Plus Strings (Charlie Parker PLP 513)
Charlie Parker - Bird With Strings Live At The Apollo, Carnegie Hall And Birdland (Columbia JC 34832)
Charlie Parker - The Bird You Never Heard (Stash STCD 10)
Norman Granz Jazz Concert (Norgran MGN 3501-2)
Charlie Parker At The Pershing Ballroom Chicago 1950 (Zim ZM 1003)
The Charlie Parker Story, #3 (Verve MGV 8002)
Charlie Parker - Bird In Sweden (Spotlite (E) SPJ 124/25)
Charlie Parker - More Unissued, Vol. 2 (Royal Jazz (D) RJD 506)
Machito - Afro-Cuban Jazz (Clef MGC 689)
An Evening At Home With Charlie Parker Sextet (Savoy MG 12152)

1951
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #8 - Swedish Schnapps (Verve MGV 8010)
The Magnificent Charlie Parker (Clef MGC 646)
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #6 - Fiesta (Verve MGV 8008)
Charlie Parker - Summit Meeting At Birdland (Columbia JC 34831)
Charlie Parker - Bird Meets Birks (Klacto (E) MG 102)
Charlie Parker - The Happy "Bird" (Charlie Parker PLP 404)
Charlie Parker Live Boston, Philadelphia, Brooklyn 1951 (EPM Musique (F) FDC 5711)
Charlie Parker - Bird With The Herd 1951 (Alamac QSR 2442)
Charlie Parker - More Unissued, Vol. 1 (Royal Jazz (D) RJD 505)

1952
Charlie Parker - New Bird Vol. 2 (Phoenix LP 12)
Charlie Parker/Sonny Criss/Chet Baker - Inglewood Jam 6-16-"52 (Jazz Chronicles JCS 102)
Norman Granz" Jam Session, #1 (Mercury MGC 601)
Norman Granz" Jam Session, #2 (Mercury MGC 602)
Charlie Parker Live At Rockland Palace (Charlie Parker PLP 502)
Charlie Parker - Cheers (S.C.A.M. JPG 2)
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #3 - Now's The Time (Verve MGV 8005)

1953
Miles Davis - Collector's Items (Prestige PRLP 7044)
Charlie Parker - Montreal 1953 (Uptown UP 27.36)
Charlie Parker/Miles Davis/Dizzy Gillespie - Bird With Miles And Dizzy (Queen Disc (It) Q-002)
Charlie Parker - One Night In Washington (Elektra/Musician E1 60019)
Charlie Parker - Yardbird-DC-53 (VGM 0009)
Charlie Parker At Storyville (Blue Note BT 85108)
Charlie Parker - Star Eyes (Klacto (E) MG 100)
Charles Mingus - The Complete Debut Recordings (Debut 12DCD 4402-2)
The Quintet - Jazz At Massey Hall, Vol. 1 (Debut DLP 2)
The Quintet - Jazz At Massey Hall (Debut DEB 124)
Charlie Parker - Bird Meets Birks (Mark Gardner (E) MG 102)
Bud Powell - Summer Broadcasts 1953 (ESP-Disk" ESP 3023)
Charlie Parker - New Bird: Hi Hat Broadcasts 1953 (Phoenix LP 10)
The Quartet Of Charlie Parker (Verve 825 671-2)

1954
Hi-Hat All Stars, Guest Artists, Charlie Parker (Fresh Sound (Sp) FSR 303)
Charlie Parker - Kenton And Bird (Jazz Supreme JS 703)
The Genius Of Charlie Parker, #5 - Charlie Parker Plays Cole Porter (Verve MGV 8007)
Charlie Parker - Miles Davis - Lee Konitz (Ozone 2)
V.A. - Echoes Of An Era: The Birdland All Stars Live At Carnegie Hall (Roulette RE 127)

Live recordings
Live at Townhall w. Dizzy (1945)
Yardbird in Lotus Land (1945)
Bird and Pres (1946) (Verve)
Jazz at the Philharmonic (1946) (Polygram)
Rapping with Bird (1946-1951)
Bird and Diz at Carnegie Hall (1947) (Blue Note)
The Complete Savoy Live Performances (1947–1950)
Bird on 52nd Street (1948)
The Complete Dean Benedetti Recordings (1948–1951) (7 cds)
Jazz at the Philharmonic (1949) (Verve)
Charlie Parker and the Stars of Modern Jazz at Carnegie Hall (1949) (Jass)
Bird in Paris (1949)
Bird in France (1949)
Charlie Parker All Stars Live at the Royal Roost (1949)
One Night in Birdland (1950) (Columbia)
Bird at St. Nick's (1950)
Bird at the Apollo Theater and St. Nicklas Arena (1950)
Apartment Jam Sessions (1950)
Charlie Parker at the Pershing Ballroom Chicago 1950 (1950)
Bird in Sweden (1950) (Storyville)
Happy Bird (1951)
Summit Meeting at Birdland (1951) (Columbia)
Live at Rockland Palace (1952)
Jam Session (1952) (Polygram)
At Jirayr Zorthian's Ranch, July 14, 1952 (1952) (Rare Live Recordings)
The Complete Legendary Rockland Palace Concert (1952)
Charlie Parker: Montreal 1953 (1953)
One Night in Washington (1953) (VGM)
Bird at the High Hat (1953) (Blue Note)
Charlie Parker at Storyville (1953)
Jazz at Massey Hall a.k.a. The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever (1953).

During his 34 years on Earth, Charlie Parker, nicknamed "The Bird", did so much for the music of the 20th century - from composition to brilliant performance - that we still feel his presence with us to this day. In honor of this outstanding jazz saxophonist's 96th birthday, here are 6 facts about the musician who, according to the Los Angeles Times, "played as if he had been touched by the very god of music ... and who, without a doubt, was a source of inexhaustible inspiration for hundreds of musicians ".

1 As a child, he played the saxophone for 15 hours a day

A big part of Parker's success is hard work.

2 Parker worked at the same restaurant as Redd Fox

The history of Parker's rise is unusually complex.

3 He became one of the founders of the bebop genre.

Charlie Parker, along with Dizzy Gillespie, came up with a new style of jazz - bebop

4 Parker was a true jazz icon

Charlie "Bird" Parker (Charlie "Bird" Parker) (born August 29, 1920 Kansas, USA - died March 12, 1955 New York, USA) - a brilliant alto saxophonist who stood at the origins of the bebop genre, later which formed the basis of all modern jazz.

Parker is one of the few artists who was called a genius during his lifetime, whose name was and remains legendary. He left an unusually vivid mark on the imagination of his contemporaries, which was reflected not only in jazz, but also in other arts, in particular in literature. Today it is difficult to imagine a truly jazz musician who, in one form or another, would not experience not only the endearing influence of Parker, but also his concrete impact on his performing language.

Charles Parker was born in 1920 in the Negro quarter of Kansas City. His father was a vaudeville artist, his mother was a nurse. Charlie went to school, where, of course, there was a large orchestra, and the first musical impressions are connected with playing the brass baritone and clarinet. Constantly listening to jazz, the boy dreamed of an alto saxophone. His mother bought him an instrument, and at the age of fifteen he left school to become a professional musician.

It was possible to earn extra money only in dance establishments. A newcomer was paid a dollar and a quarter and taught everything in the world. Many laughed ruthlessly when Charlie failed, but he only bit his lip. Apparently, then they gave him the nickname "Yardbird" - a yard bird, a little salad. But, as if according to the storyteller's prediction, the ugly "yardbird" turned into a beautiful bird. "Bird" - "Bird" - this is how jazzmen began to call Parker, which acquired a completely different meaning and gave rise to a small but bright jazz idiom: here are the topics "Ornithology", "Bird's Nest" and "Fallen Leaves", here is the famous new York club "Birdland" (Land of Birds) with its Shiringa lullaby and Zawinul's march.

“Music is your own experience, your wisdom, your thoughts. If you do not live it, then nothing will ever come out of your instrument. We are taught that music has its own definite boundaries. But art has no boundaries ... "-
Charles Parker

After leaving home, Charlie became a jazzman wandering from band to band and city to city until he arrived in New York in 1940, having already known life "to the very black bottom." At that time, the so-called "after hours" were popular among jazzmen - games after work, which later became known as jam sessions. Each jam had its own group of musicians. At such "sessions" Parker was looking for music that was already spinning in his head, but did not come into his hands. He himself later told how one day in the first months of New York life, improvising on the theme of "Cherokee" to the accompaniment of one guitarist, he found that, in a special way, he emphasizes the upper tones (nons and undecims) of the accompanying chords, he gets what he heard within. Such is the legend of the style, which began to be called bebop, then rebop, then bop. In fact, a new style of jazz, like any art of ensemble improvisation, could be born in the practice of joint music-making by many musicians. The birth of the style was initiated at jams in Harlem clubs, primarily at the Henry Minton Club, where, in addition to Parker, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Fats Navarro, guitarist Charlie Christian, pianists Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell, drummers Max Roach and Kenny Clarke regularly met. The term "bebop" itself is most likely onomatopoeic. Parker, who from the very beginning adopted the style of many Kansas City musicians, had a habit of "slamming" the sound at the end of the phrase, which gave it more rhythmic saturation. In general, the creators of jazz never counted on theoreticians. Bebop didn't bring any radically new thematic material with it. On the contrary, the musicians were especially eager to improvise on the usual twelve-bar blues or thirty-two-bar periods of the AABA type that everyone hears. But on the harmonic grids of these themes, they composed their own melodies, which became new themes. Out of habit, it was not easy for even subtle ears to recognize the source. At the same time, the new harmonic grids were saturated with sequence turns, chromaticisms, functional substitutions, and new melodies were split up by intricately scattered punctuations, struck by asymmetry, ceased to be songlike and became purely instrumental.

In bebop, the classic form of strict variations reached its highest level. The innovation of the harmonic language was the very wide use of tonal deviations, but within each tonal shift, the harmonic chains contained only the main functions and, as a rule, were not long. At this stage, the speech musical logic of thinking and the language of jazz improvisers was fully formed - the result of a wide, literally mass process of practical ensemble music-making. The greatest contribution to this process was made by Charlie Parker. His fingers fluttered over the valves. His face became like a flying bird. In sound, rhythm, harmony, technique, in any key, he was free as a bird. His intuition, musical fantasy and fantastic memory were striking. I was also struck by the disorderliness of his life, the combination of high and low in him, his slow self-burning. And yet, whatever his condition, whatever instrument he played (and he often did not have his own), he easily managed to play what baffled others. Listen to him live at Massey Hall, it's a good example of him playing a cheap rental plastic instrument.

The main milestones in Parker's life after his experiments with Minton in 1941 are few. It is worth mentioning his work in Noble Sisle's symphojazz on clarinet (1942), in the orchestra of Billy Eckstein (1944), which brought together all the future bebop stars - Gillespie, Navarro, Stitt, Emmons, Gordon, Damron, Blakey. The young people who returned from the war enthusiastically received bebop and Birdie. 52nd Street, a trendsetter in jazz, becomes Bop Street, Bop Street. Parker reigns there, opening 19-year-old trumpeter Miles Davis. In 1946, in Los Angeles, Parker "broke down", ended up in the Camarillo hospital, after leaving which the musicians collected money for him for clothes and an instrument. In 1949 Parker performed at the first International Jazz Festival in Paris and returned to New York to open the Birdland Club. The next year - Scandinavia, Paris, London and again the hospital. Then - a series of club performances, binges, recordings, scandals and suicide attempts. Against this background, a bright pearl shines a concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, which accidentally turned out to be recorded. Death overtook Charles Parker on March 12, 1955. He was the founder of modern jazz, one of the most important figures in jazz of the twentieth century.

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Leonid Auskern. Charlie Parker. Slavery and freedom of a jazz saxophonist

Charlie Parker, also known as "Bird", can rightfully be called the father of modern jazz. His bold improvisations, completely free from the melodic material of the themes, were a kind of bridge between the sweet sound of popular jazz and new forms of improvisational art. His influence on subsequent generations of jazz musicians can only be compared to that of Louis Armstrong.

Charles Christopher Parker was born on August 29, 1920 in Kansas City. Parker's childhood was spent in the black ghetto of Kansas City, where there were many pubs, places of entertainment and music was always played. His father, a third-rate singer and dancer, soon abandoned his family, and his mother, Eddie Parker, who gave all the heat of her love to the boy, spoiled him great. Another, and as it turned out later, a fateful gift was a battered alto saxophone, bought for $ 45. Charlie began to play and forgot about everything else. He studied on his own, wading through all the problems alone, discovering the laws of music alone. The passion for music has never left him. In the evenings he listened to the play of city musicians, during the days he studied on his own.

There was no time for textbooks. At 15, Charlie leaves school and becomes a professional musician. However, professionalism in this selfish, withdrawn young man was still not enough. He tries to copy Lester Young's solo, jams, changes various local line-ups. He later recalled: "We had to play without a break from nine in the evening until five in the morning. We received one dollar twenty-five cents a night."

Despite rapid progress in playing technique, young Charlie did not really fit into the coherent, smooth sounds of big bands. He always tried to play in his own way, constantly groping for his own, unique music. Not everyone liked it. There is a textbook story about how, at one of the night jam sessions, drummer Joe Jones, pissed off by Parker's "things", launched a plate into the hall. Charlie got up and left.

At the age of 15, Charlie married 19-year-old Rebecca Ruffing - this was his first marriage, but as fleeting and unsuccessful as the next. At 17, "Bird" (short for his original nickname Yardbird) becomes a father for the first time. At the same time or a little earlier, he first gets acquainted with drugs.

After going through a number of compositions, visiting Chicago and New York, and returning to Kansas City at the end of 1938, Byrd enters the orchestra of pianist Jay McShann. He played with this line-up for more than three years, and Parker's first known recordings were also made with this orchestra. Here he became a mature master. Colleagues highly appreciated him as an alto saxophonist, but the fact that he had to play still did not satisfy Charlie. He continued to find his way: "I was fed up with the stereotypical harmonies that everyone used. I constantly thought that there must be something else. I heard it, but I could not play it." And then he nevertheless played: "I improvised for a long time on the Cherokee theme and suddenly noticed that building a melody from the upper intervals of chords and inventing new harmonies on this basis, I suddenly managed to play what was constantly in me. I seemed to be born again" .

After Byrd opened his way to freedom, he could no longer play with McShann. In early 1942, he left the orchestra and, leading a half-starved, beggarly existence, continued to play his music in various New York clubs. Basically, Parker worked at Clark Monroe's Uptown House club. It was there that he was first heard by like-minded people.

Since 1940, fans of alternative music have gathered in another club, "Minton's Playhouse", as they would say today. Pianist Thelonious Monk, drummer Kenny Clark, bassist Nick Fenton and trumpeter Joe Guy were constantly working in the club staff. Evenings and nights were regularly held jam sessions, where guitarist Charlie Christian, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianist Bud Powell, and others were frequent guests.One autumn evening, Clarke and Monk went to Uptown to hear the local alto saxophonist, rumors about whom had reached Minton's club.

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Kenny Clark (drums): "Bird played something unheard of. He played phrases that I thought I came up with on drums myself. He played twice as fast as Lester Young and in harmonies that Young could not even dream of. Bird walked on our own way, but far ahead of us. It is unlikely that he knew the value of his findings. It was just his way of playing jazz, it was part of him."

Naturally, Parker soon ended up at Minton's club. Now he was among his own. The exchange of fresh musical ideas went even more intense. And the first among equals here was Byrd. His freedom triumphantly broke out in cascades of amazing, unheard-of sounds. Dizzy Gillespie stood next to him in those years, practically not inferior to Byrd in creative imagination, but having a much more cheerful and sociable character.

The music that was born was called bebop.

The MIDI recording is a transcription of Parker's solo on his own theme "Ornithology".

"It would be better if bebop was given a different name, more in line with the seriousness of the goals of its creation." (Bud Powell)

Almost everyone considered Parker to be its king. The king behaved like an absolute and very capricious monarch. It seemed that the recognition that his music received only complicated the relationship of this person with the outside world. Byrd became even more intolerant, irritable, peremptory in his relations with colleagues and loved ones. Loneliness wrapped him in an increasingly dense cocoon. Drug addiction grew stronger, and attempts to get rid of it threw Parker into the arms of alcohol.

However, Parker's career continued its upward movement at that time. In 1943, Parker played in the orchestra with pianist Earl Hines, and in 1944 with former Hines vocalist Billy Eckstein. By the end of the year, Bird began to perform in one of the clubs on 52nd Street.

In February-March 1945, Byrd and Dizzy recorded a series of records that presented the new style in all its brilliance. The next, no less significant recordings appeared in November in California with Ross Russell at the company "Dial". Here Parker overtook the first serious nervous crisis.

The jazz world again saw Byrd returning to active work only at the beginning of 1947. This time Charlie Parker's quintet included young Miles Davis (trumpet) and Max Roach (drums). Communication with Byrd turned out to be an invaluable school for these major musicians later. But they could not endure such communication for very long. Already in 1948, both refused further cooperation. But even before that, in September 1947, Parker made a triumphant performance at Carnegie Hall. In 1948 Byrd was named Musician of the Year in a Metronome magazine poll.

Europeans saw Parker for the first, but not the last time, in 1949, when he and his quintet arrived at a jazz festival in Paris. But now, after breaking up with Gillespie, and then with Davis and Roach, there were already other people next to him - strong professionals, but not so bright, meekly demolishing the escapades of their leader.

Recordings with a string orchestra that followed soon gave Byrd an additional reason for stress. Bringing in good money, these records alienated some, until recently, ardent ideological fans. There were accusations of commercialization. Tours were increasingly interspersed with visits to psychiatric clinics. In 1954, Bird received a severe blow - his two-year-old daughter Pree died.

All Byrd's attempts to restore psychological balance were in vain. It was not possible to hide from himself in the idyllic rural wilderness - he was drawn to New York, the world center of jazz. A series of his performances at the New York club, named after him "Birdland", ended in scandal: in another fit of rage, Parker dispersed all the musicians and interrupted the performance. The owners of the club refused to deal with him. Many other concert venues found themselves in similar relations with him. The bird was expelled from its country.

Parker's last refuge was the house of his wealthy admirer Baroness de Koenigswarter. On March 12, 1955, he sat in front of the TV and watched the show of the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra. Death overtook him at that moment. Doctors called the cause of death cirrhosis of the liver and a stomach ulcer. Byrd did not live to be 35 years old.