W.E. A.L.L. B.E.: Tha Artivist Presents...Black History in Sounds, Words, Images and Motion: The Tragedy and Triumph of Charlie 'Bird' Parker

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"Humpty Dumpty Bird" By r2c2h2 (copyrighted)

Charlie Yard Bird Parker (1920-1955) is one of the world's greatest musical geniuses...Considered by many to be one of the most influential jazz improvisers and composers in the history of Jazz music, Charlie Parker like the great Louis Armstrong before him changed the vocabulary and the way jazz in particular and American music in general was played forever...Charlie Parker like Louis Armstrong came from a musically vibrant hometown...He was born on August 29, 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas and grew up in the jazz crazy town of Kansas City, Missouri...His father was a pullman porter, tap dancer and veteran Chitlin' Circuit (Black entertainment) performer from Memphis,Tn via Clarksdale,Ms....

Kansas City in those days was not only a jazz crazy town but also a wet town where alcohol flowed freely during a time when the rest of the country was under a dry spell (Prohibition)...It was also ran by gangsters and corrupt city officials...At the time Kansas City did not have a mayor but city managers...Tom "Boss" Pendergast one of the most powerful political bosses in U.S. history ran the town with an all seeing eye and iron fist...Pendergast was also the powerful sponsor behind the future U.S. President Harry S. Truman's budding political career...Starting at an early age Charlie Parker would sneak out of his house (his mom had a night job) to go to the legendary street intersection known as 18th and Vine to famous music venues like the Reno Club to hear jazz greats such as Bennie Moten, Count Basie, his idol the eccentrically great Lester Young, Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins, Joe Turner,Pete Johnson, Jimmy Rushing, Buster Smith and so on...It was also during this time that Charlie Parker started to use the drugs and alcohol which will eventual lead to his demise...

Although Charlie Parker would not be considered what's called a traditional music prodigy, his friends and peers recalled him as being unusually bright with a photographic memory...He was also spoiled by his mother (his father abandoned the family)...To her credit his mother, Ms. Addie Parker, supported her son's enthusiasm for music and brought him a used saxophone...Where Charlie Parker lacked in technique he made up for it in heart, drive and passion...He would sometimes practice for 8 hours at a time while learning how to play and memorized all of Lester Young's solos on record...

When Bird (his nickname because of his fondness for eating chicken) finally was done woodshedding (a term musicians use when they are obsessively practicing on their music skills) he left the midwest and went to New York where he finally hooked up with his musical soul mate the trumpeter and composer Dizzy Gillespie and other like minded and talented musicians such as drummer Kenny Clarke, the guitarist Charlie Christian and the pianist Thelonious Monk at the famous Harlem nightclub known as Minton's Playhouse to start the BeBop music revolution...Bebop was jazz played at breakneck speeds which was played in small groups or combos rather than in large jazz orchestra settings (although attempts were made to expand the Bebop music into large jazz orchestras by Dizzy Gillespie, Billy 'Mr. B' Eckstine, Earl 'Fatha' Hines,Stan Kenton among others with mixed results)...Bebop focused alot on restructuring the harmonic structure of popular songs...The musicians changed the sounds from the original songs so much so through their creativity that new songs were born from the old...For example, Charlie Parker took the song "Cherokee" made popular by Jimmy Dorsey (one of his favorite musicians) and turned it into his famous original composition known as "Ko Ko"...In alot of ways Bebop foreshadowed the Hip Hop music's sampling craze decades later...

However many of jazz's old guard such as Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway were turned off by the strange sounds and dismissed the movement by labeling it as 'chinese music'...However, there were many other older musicians who were open to the new music such as the Father of Jazz Saxophone Coleman Hawkins who was actually among the first to play with beboppers and was an early supporter of the eccentric and often misunderstood jazz genius Thelonious Monk...To his credit Charlie Parker was also a great talent scout...He gave a young and musically insecure Miles Davis his first big gig in New York City and would years later give a similar break to trumpeter Chet Baker in California...Charlie Parker's genius was so revered by fellow musicians and jazz fans that a jazz club in New York was named Birdland in his honor, being the first jazz man to ever had that honor...

Like Scott Joplin before him, Charlie Parker wanted to raise his music to the respected status of so-called classical European music...Some of his most successful records were the ones he performed with string orchestras...He also wanted to work with 20th Century European music giants such as Edgar Varese and Igor Stravinsky to further his understanding of compositional writing and western music theory...Unfortunately, this was not to be...

On March 12, 1955 Bird, after years of drug abuse and overall self-destructive lifestyle, finally succumbed to his seemingly inescapable fate...He died while watching the Dorsey Brothers' t.v. show in the living quarters of his friend the Jazz Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter at the famous Stanhope Hotel( fellow BeBop pioneer Thelonious Monk would also die in the home of the jazz enthusiast years later in New Jersey)...Bird so exhausted his body that the coroner thought he was 55 or 60 years old, but he was only 34!!! When Bird died, graffiti went up throughout the streets and subways of New York City stating 'Bird Lives'...This act of tribute was originally started by the late musician, painter and poet Ted Joans...

Bird's Influence Went Beyond Music

Unfortunately many musicians tried to practice Bird's lifestyle of using drugs such as heroin because they thought that was the reason why he was an exceptional musician...Even Bird knew that this wasn't the case and to his credit he would try to stop his fellow musicians from using heroin and other narcotics...Bird saw himself as a martyr (had a messiah complex) and told others like Bebop collaborator and drummer great Max Roach that his life was to be a sacrifice to warn others about the dangers of using drugs...Many musicians who chose not to follow his advice met his fate...Fortunately many others like Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis were able to get off of heroin and haveproductive and influential careers...

Many of the so-called beat poets such as the under appreciated Bob Kaufman (who performed with Bird while reciting poetry), the celebrated Amiri Baraka, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs to painters such as Jackson Pollock, Stuart Davis, William de Kooning, Bob Thompson and 1980s art phenom Jean Michel Basquiat used Bird's musical genius as a muse for their own creative endeavors...Clint Eastwood (a jazz crazy fan) made a movie in 1988 entitled "Bird" (Forrest Whitaker another under appreciated talent until recently did a great job portraying Bird) which showed an interesting perspective on Bird's professional triumphs and personal tragedies...So indeed Bird does Live!!!

Also check out what Charlie Parker's last wife, Chan Parker, had to say about him in an interview before her death in 1999:
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/about/pdfs/Parker.pdf

Check out this informative website about Bird, his life and times as well as the people who lived it with him...Very interesting:
http://www.birdlives.co.uk/content/view/1/2/

Please check out the following videos featuring Bird to see what the fuss was and is all about...

Bird and Dizzy receive jazz awards and play "Hot House":

The Bird and The Bean...Two great saxophonist legends from the Show Me State of Missouri, Charlie Parker and Coleman Hawkins a.k.a. Bean show what they got in this video clip:

Loverman...Although Charlie Parker hated this version (he was high and drunk at the time), many musicians, fans and so-called experts think that this is one of the best jazz recordings of all time...Like the saying goes one man's garbage is another man's treasure or one man's self destructive addiction is another man's profit and pleasure: