Pristine Classical Recorded Music

Charlie Parker

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Charles "Bird" Parker, Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer, widely considered one of the greatest and most influential jazz musicians. Early in his career Parker acquired the nickname "Yardbird". The shortened form "Bird" remained Parker's nickname for the rest of his life, and inspired titles of many Parker compositions, such as "Yardbird Suite" and "Ornithology".

 

Place in jazz history

Jazz historians consider Parker one of the greatest jazz musicians, along with other pioneers such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Jazz critic Scott Yanow stated that "Parker was arguably the greatest saxophonist of all time."

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, and his music remains an inspiration for musicians in jazz and other genres. Several of Parker's songs have become standards, including "Billie's Bounce," "Anthropology," "Ornithology," and "Confirmation".

Parker's performances featured soaring, fast, rhythmically asymmetrical improvisations. 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 virtuoso technique and complex melodic lines — such as "Koko," "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 also became an icon for the Beat generation, personifying the conception of the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual, rather than just a popular entertainer.

 

 

Biography

 

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. Charlie Parker displayed no sign of musical talent as a child. Parker's 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 Parker, without formal training, was terrible, and thrown out of the band. Experiencing periodic setbacks of this sort, at one point Parker broke off from his constant practicing.

 

Early career

In 1937 Parker played at a concert that included Jo Jones on drums, who tossed a cymbal at Parker's feet in impatience with his playing. Exasperated and determined, from that point Parker improved the quality of practicing, learning the blues, "Cherokee" and "rhythm changes" in all twelve keys. In an interview with Paul Desmond, Parker said he spent 3-4 years practicing up to 15 hours a day. Rumor has it that he used to play the same melodies in all twelve keys. The story, whilst uncited, would help to explain the fact that Parker often played in unconventional concert pitch key signatures, like E (which transposes down to C# for the alto sax).

Groups led by Count Basie and Bennie Moten were the leading Kansas City ensembles, and doubtless 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 1937 Parker joined pianist Jay McShann's territory band. The band toured nightclubs and other venues of the southwest, as well as Chicago and New York City. Parker made his recording debut with McShann's band.

 

In NYC

In 1939, Parker moved to New York City. There he pursued a career in music, but held several other jobs as well. He worked as a dishwasher, for $9 a week, at Jimmie's Chicken Shack while famous pianist Art Tatum performed there. Parker's later style was 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 seven months. The early history of bebop is difficult to document because of the strike of 1942-1943 by the American Federation of Musicians, during which there were no official recordings. Nevertheless we know that Parker joined a group of young musicians in after-hours clubs in Harlem such as Minton's Playhouse and Clark Monroe's Uptown House. These young iconoclasts included trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianist Thelonious Monk, guitarist Charlie Christian, and drummers Max Roach and Kenny 'Klook' 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" — "they" being either the (white) bandleaders who had taken over and profited from swing music. The group played in venues on the now famous 52nd Street including Three Deuces and The Onyx. In his time in NYC, Parker also learned much from notable music teacher Maury Deutsch.

 

Bebop

By the early 1940's, Parker emerged as a leading figure in the emerging bebop scene. 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.

Early in its development, this new type of jazz was rejected and disdained by many older, more established jazz musicians, whom the beboppers, in response, called 'moldy figs'. However, some musicians, such as Coleman Hawkins and Benny Goodman, were more positive about its emergence. It was not until 1945 that Parker's collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie had a substantial effect on the jazz world. One of their first (and greatest) small-group performances together was only discovered and issued in 2005: a concert in New York's Town Hall on June 22, 1945 (now available on Uptown Records).

On November 26, 1945 Parker led a record date for the Savoy label, marketed as the "greatest Jazz session ever". The Savoy sessions produced an astounding collection of recordings. The tracks recorded during this session include "Koko" (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/Gillespe band traveled to an unsuccessful engagement at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles. Most of the band returned to New York, but Parker remained in California.

 

Addiction

As a teenager, Parker developed a morphine addiction while in a hospital after an automobile accident, and subsequently became addicted to heroin. Heroin would haunt him throughout his life and ultimately contribute to his death. Parker's habit caused him to miss gigs and to be fired for being high. To continue his "buzz" he frequently resorted to busking on the streets for drug money. Parker's example was typical of the strong connection between narcotics and jazz at the time.

Although he produced many brilliant recordings during this period, Parker's behavior became increasingly erratic. Heroin was difficult to obtain after his dealer was arrested, 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, Bird on Dial Volume 1 Parker missed most of the first two bars of his first chorus on the track, "Max is 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", Ross Russell was enlisted to hold Parker in place in front of the microphone. On the final track recorded that evening, Parker begins a solo with a solid first eight bars. On his second eight bars, however, Parker begins to struggle, and a desperate Howard McGhee, playing trumpet on the session, shouts, "Blow!" at Parker. McGhee's bellow is audible on the recording. Some, including Charles Mingus, consider this version of "Lover Man" to be among his greater recordings despite its flaws. Nevertheless, Bird hated the recording and never forgave his producer Ross Russell for releasing the sub-par record (and re-recorded the tune in 1953 for Verve, this time in stellar form, but perhaps lacking some of the passionate emotion in the earlier, problematic attempt).

The night of the "Lover Man" session, Parker was drinking in his hotel room. He went down to the hotel lobby stark naked and asked to use the phone, several times. He was refused on each attempt and the hotel manager eventually locked him in his room. At some point in 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 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" that included 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").

 

Charlie Parker with strings

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. The players were Parker on alto saxophone; Mitch Miller on oboe and English horn; Bronislav Gimpel, Max Hollander, and Milton Lamask on violin; Frank Brieff on viola; Frank Miller on cello; Meyer Rosen on harp; Stan Freeman on piano; Ray Brown on bass; Buddy Rich on drums; and Jimmy Carroll as arranger and conductor. 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 unique in Bird's catalog. The lush string arrangements recall Tchaikovsky in their dramatic sweep, and the rhythm section provides a delicate swing under Bird's improvisation, blending perfectly with the orchestra. 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. He is always tasteful and brimming with eloquent expression. 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. While 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.

 

Stardom

By 1950, much of the jazz world fell under Parker's sway. Many musicians transcribed and copied his solos. Legions of saxophonists imitated his playing note-for-note (in response to these pretenders, Parker's erstwhile bandmate Charles Mingus titled a song "Gunslinging Bird" (meaning "If Charlie Parker were a gunslinger, there'd 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, Charles 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 as one of the finest recordings of a live jazz performance.

One of Parker's longstanding desires was to perform with a string section as he was a keen student of classical music. Contemporaries reported that he was most interested in the music and formal innovations of Igor Stravinsky, and longed to engage in a project akin to what became known as "Third Stream Music"; a new kind of music, incorporating both jazz and Euro-classical elements as opposed to merely incorporating a string section into performance of jazz standards. When he did record and perform with strings, 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 as one of his best performances. In an interview, he considered it to be his best recording to date.

Parker was known for often showing up to performances without an instrument and borrowing someone else's at the last moment. At more than one venue he played on a plastic Grafton saxophone; later, saxophonist Ornette Coleman used this brand of plastic sax in his early career. On one particular occasion before a concert in Toronto, Canada, he had sold his 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 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 concert is documented on the album Jazz at Massey Hall. The album is considered one of the greatest live recordings in Jazz history.

 

Death

Parker died while watching Tommy Dorsey on television in the suite at the Stanhope Hotel belonging to his friend and patroness Nica de Koenigswarter. Though the official cause of death was (lobar) pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer, his death was hastened by his drug and alcohol abuse. The coroner mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years old.

Parker left a widow, Chan Parker, 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."

 

 

notes from Wikipedia