Charlie Parker

Charlie Parker (1920-1955), American alto saxophone player, a founder of the bebop jazz style and one of the most influential musicians in the history of jazz. Parker did more to create early bebop than any other single player. He spiced his improvised melodies with unexpected accents and perfectly played flurries of notes. His mastery of bebop made him a role model for jazz players around the world. For decades musicians have copied his favorite melody patterns, his methods of playing those patterns, and even entire solos of his.

Born Charles Parker, Jr., in Kansas City, Kansas, he acquired the nickname Yardbird (usually shortened to Bird) as a young man. In 1927 his family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, an important center of jazz music. A few years later his parents separated. An unmotivated student, Parker did not graduate from high school. However, saxophonist Lester Young and other jazz musicians in the city encouraged and inspired him to play music. Largely self-taught, Parker had an ability to listen and a willingness to practice that enabled him to make rapid progress on the saxophone. By 1935 he was playing professionally in local swing bands. Two years later he played for a time in a swing band led by American pianist Jay McShann.

In 1939 Parker visited New York City, where he worked as a dishwasher and a dance-band musician. After he returned home in 1940, he rejoined McShann’s band, making his first studio recordings with them in 1941. Parker soon moved back to New York City and began playing in late-night jam sessions (informal playing sessions) with other young American musicians, including trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pianist Thelonious Monk, and drummer Kenny Clarke. During the early 1940s, Parker, Gillespie, and a few other players gradually developed a complex style of jazz that became known as bebop. The early bebop recordings that he and Gillespie made in 1945—including “Groovin’ High,” “Salt Peanuts,” “Hot House,” and “Koko”—initially seemed complicated and unintelligible to critics and listeners. Soon, however, these recordings came to be regarded as jazz classics.

Until 1945, Parker played in big bands and combos (small groups) led by others, such as McShann, pianist Earl Hines, singer Billy Eckstine, and Gillespie. After 1945, Parker usually led his own small jazz groups, which typically comprised a trumpeter, pianist, bassist, and drummer, in addition to himself on saxophone. Various American musicians performed in Parker’s combos over the years, including trumpeter Miles Davis, pianist Bud Powell, and drummer Max Roach. Some of Parker’s best improvisations can be heard on such recordings as “Ornithology” (1946), “Embraceable You” (1947), “Parker’s Mood” (1948), “The Closer” (1949), “Anthropology” (1951), “Laird Baird” (1952), “Confirmation” (1953), and “Perdido” (1953).

Parker experienced many personal difficulties throughout his life. Often in debt and addicted to alcohol and drugs, he endured broken marriages, suicide attempts, and even imprisonment. His death at the age of 34 was the result of a number of ailments, including stomach ulcers, pneumonia, cirrhosis of the liver, and a heart attack.

Parker received several honors during his lifetime. In 1949, Birdland, a jazz nightclub named after him, opened in New York City. He won several jazz polls in Down Beat magazine and was placed in its Hall of Fame in 1955. He and Gillespie received their Down Beat awards on television in 1952, an event preserved in the video documentary, Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker (1987). Years later, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) honored his memory with a Grammy Award (1974), a Lifetime Achievement Award (1984), and three Hall of Fame Awards (1988, 1989, and 1995). A motion-picture biography of Parker, Bird, was released in 1988. The film’s music features solos by Parker layered on top of new rhythm tracks.