CHARLIE PARKER
G'day folks,
Time to introduce another famous musician. Charlie
Parker was a legendary Grammy Award–winning jazz saxophonist who, with Dizzy
Gillespie, invented the musical style called bop or bebop.
Charlie
Parker was born on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, Kansas. From 1935 to 1939,
he played the Missouri nightclub scene with local jazz and blues bands. In 1945
he led his own group while performing with Dizzy Gillespie on the side.
Together they invented bebop. In 1949, Parker made his European debut, giving
his last performance several years later. He died a week later on March 12,
1955, in New York City.
Legendary
jazz musician Charlie Parker was born Charles Christopher Parker Jr. on August
29, 1920, in Kansas City, Kansas. His father, Charles Parker, was an African-American
stage entertainer, and his mother, Addie Parker, was a maid-charwoman of
Native-American heritage. An only child, Charlie moved with his parents to
Kansas City, Missouri when he was 7 years old. At the time, the city was a
lively center for African-American music, including jazz, blues and gospel.
Charlie
discovered his own talent for music through taking lessons at public schools.
As a teen, he played the baritone horn in the school band. By the time Charlie
was 15, the alto saxophone was his instrument of choice. (Charlie's mother had
given him a saxophone a few years prior, to help cheer him up after his father
had abandoned the family.) While still in school, Charlie started playing with
bands on the local club scene. He was so enamored of playing the sax that, in
1935, he decided to drop out of school in pursuit of a full-time musical
career.
From 1935
to 1939, Parker played the Kansas City, Missouri nightclub scene with local
jazz and blues bands, including Buster Professor Smith's band in 1937, and
pianist Jay McShann's band in 1938, with which he toured Chicago and New York.
In 1939,
Parker decided to stick around New York City. There he remained for almost a
year, working as a professional musician and jamming for pleasure on the side.
After his yearlong stint in the Big Apple, Parker was featured as a regular
performer at a Chicago club before deciding to move back to New York
permanently. Parker was at first forced to wash dishes in order to get by.
While
working in New York, Parker met guitarist Biddy Fleet. It would prove a
fruitful encounter. While jamming with Fleet, Parker, who was bored by popular
musical conventions, discovered a signature technique that involved playing the
higher intervals of a chord for the melody and making changes to back them up
accordingly.
Later
that year Parker heard the news of his father's death and went back to Kansas
City, Missouri for the funeral. After the funeral, Parker joined Harlan
Leonard's Rockets and stayed in Missouri for the next five months. Parker then
decided it was time to head back to New York, where he would rejoin Jay
McShann's band. It was with McShann's band, in 1940, that Parker made his first
recording.
Parker
stayed on with the band for four years, during which time he was given several
opportunities to perform solo on their recordings. It was also during his time
with McShann that Parker earned his famous nickname "Bird," short for
"Yardbird." As the story goes, Parker was given the nickname for one
of two possible reasons: 1) He was free as a bird, or 2) he accidentally hit a
chicken, otherwise known as a yard bird, while driving on tour with the band.
In 1942,
burgeoning jazz musicians Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk saw Parker
perform with McShann's band in Harlem and were impressed by his unique playing
style. Later that year, Parker signed up for an eight-month gig with Earl
Hines. Then in 1944, Parker joined the Billy Eckstine band.
The year
1945 proved to be a landmark one for Parker. At this stage in his career, he is
believed to have come into his maturity as a musician. For the first time, he
became the leader of his own group while also performing with Dizzy Gillespie
on the side. At the end of that year, the two musicians launched a six-week
nightclub tour of Hollywood. Together they managed to invent an entirely new
style of jazz, commonly known as bop, or bebop. After the joint tour, Parker
stayed on in Los Angeles, performing until the summer of 1946.
After a
period of hospitalization, he returned to New York in January of 1947 and
formed a quintet there. With his group, Parker performed some of his best-known
and best-loved songs, including his own compositions like "Cool
Blues."
From 1947
to 1951, Parker performed in ensembles and solo at a variety of venues,
including clubs and radio stations. Parker also signed with a few different
record labels: From 1945 to 1948, he recorded for Dial. In 1948, he recorded
for Savoy Records before signing with Mercury.
Throughout
his adult life, Parker's battles with heroin addiction, alcoholism and mental
illness caused turbulence in his career and personal relationships. By the time
Parker married Rebecca Ruffin in 1936, he had already started abusing drugs and
alcohol. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1939. In 1942, Parker
remarried to Geraldine Scott. Financial stresses created a rift between the
couple, and Parker turned to heroin for an escape. He ended up leaving his
second wife not long after they were married.
In June
of 1946, while performing solo in Los Angeles, Parker had to cut his tour short
when he suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to a mental hospital,
where he stayed until January of 1947. Newly clean in 1948, Parker married
Doris Snyder, but the marriage fell apart within less than a year when Parker
started using again. His heroin abuse only increased after the divorce.
In the
early 1950s, Parker took on a live-in girlfriend, a jazz fan named Chan
Richardson. Chan took Parker's last name and gave him two children: daughter
Pree, who lived for only two years, and son Baird, who was born just a year and
a day before Parker's death. To make matters worse, in 1951 Parker was arrested
for heroin possession and had his cabaret card revoked, which meant he couldn't
perform in New York clubs.
By the
time he got the card back a year later, his reputation was so damaged that club
owners still refused to let him play. Drug-addled and depressed, Parker tried
to take his own life twice in 1954, by drinking iodine. Although he survived
both attempts, his physical and mental health had greatly deteriorated.
In 1955,
Parker was visiting with his friend Baroness Pannonica "Nica" de
Koenigswarter when he suffered an ulcer attack and refused to go to the
hospital. On March 12, 1955, Charlie Parker died in the baroness' New York City
apartment of lobar pneumonia and the devastating effects of long-term substance
abuse.
Clancy's comment: Go, Charlie! Damn drugs, eh?
I'm ...
*** SOON TO BE RELEASED! ***
A young adult fiction novel about bullying,
refugees and human rights.
A must read for any kid who has been bullied.
A young adult fiction novel about bullying,
refugees and human rights.
A must read for any kid who has been bullied.
BLURB:
Rida Khalid is a Muslim refugee from Iran.
She is bullied by two girls at school for wearing a hijab (Muslim headscarf), reading
books and wearing glasses, and seeks refuge in an old man’s garden after
school. Rida meets an Asian girl at school, Ky, who also loves books, but Rida
soon dumps her for a gawky girl, Carmen, who teaches her about fitting in. To be accepted, Rida removes
her hijab at school, but she must wear her headscarf whilst competing in the
inter-school sports. Her family will attend.
Rida deliberately loses the first race
because Carmen says, “Only nerds do well
in sports”. The sports master berates Rida for losing the race and points
to Ky who’s made an extraordinary effort to get out of hospital to watch her
run. Ky is battling leukaemia. Rida wins the next two races and gives her winning ribbons to Ky
for good luck.
Rida enters the State Athletics
Championships, but two athletics clubs lodge an objection to her hijab. Rida is
shocked when a retired Queens Counsel (QC) represents her at the Equal
Opportunity Commission. Who is he? Will Rida win the case? Will she run in the
State Championships? Will Ky beat
leukaemia, and who owns the garden that Rida has used as a sanctuary?
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