Learn About Charlie Parker’s Life and Influence on Jazz Music

Charles Parker Jr. was an American composer and saxophonist—known for playing the alto sax—who is credited with the development of bebop jazz, along with musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Bud Powell, and Thelonious Monk. Parker was a virtuoso musician who was known for his speed of playing, and his introduction of new melodic techniques into his music.

Charlie Parker was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1920. He briefly attended high school before dropping out to pursue music full-time. Parker’s early influences were sax players Lester Young, a member of the Count Basie orchestra, and Buster Smith, who also played with Count Basie and later became Parker’s mentor. Parker joined Jay McShann’s band in 1938, which is where he acquired his nickname “Yardbird” or “Bird” for short—Parker allegedly earned the nickname when he salvaged a chicken run over by the Jay McShann band tour bus, after which plucked and cooked it for the group.

Parker moved to New York City to further pursue his music career in 1939, where he would become a bandleader and record a number of albums for the record labels Savoy, Dial, and Verve. By 1942, Parker was in Billy Eckstine’s big band, an experience he would share with other legendary jazz musicians like Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie. Parker would also go on to form his own quintet with drummer Max Roach, and trumpeter Miles Davis.

The Birdland jazz club on Broadway in New York City is named after Parker, and became one of the most famous jazz clubs of the 1950s. In 1984, Charlie Parker won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammy Organization, and three of his recordings are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Charlie Parker was instrumental in helping to develop the bebop music style, which was driven by improvisation and virtuosity. He pushed the boundaries of music, playing often with his intuition rather than following what was written. Below are some characteristics of Parker’s innovative style:

1. 1. Fast-tempoed: Charlie Parker played at a rapid speed without sacrificing execution. His ability to play as his mind created was an innate talent that he spent years perfecting and developing.
2. 2. Innovative: Parker had an innovative and asymmetrical approach to rhythm that differentiates his music from that of his contemporaries. His chord substitutions and use of passing chords were very unusual, giving him his own unique style. This ingenuity lent itself to Charlie becoming a pioneer of jazz, whose sound would be widely imitated by many artists following in his footsteps.
3. 3. Interpolated: Parker’s recordings often feature borrowed chord progressions from jazz standards—known as a contrafact—which helped him build his original compositions and come up with new harmonic and rhythmic combinations.

Some of Charlie Parker’s recordings weren’t released until decades after they were made. Then, they were released as compilations. Here are a few of those recordings:

1. 1. Charlie Parker: The Complete Savoy Sessions (1944–1948): This compilation features a number of songs from 1944 to 1948 that Parker recorded with his group—which included a young Miles Davis—for the record label Savoy. Tracks like “Ko-Ko,” “Billie’s Bounce,” “Now’s the Time,” and “Parker’s Mood” are included in this collection.
2. 2. Charlie Parker on Dial: The Complete Sessions (1946–1947): This compilation includes all of Parker’s recording sessions for the record label Dial. It includes various takes for well-known tunes like “Ornithology,” “A Night in Tunisia,” and “Relaxin’ at Camarillo.”
   
3. 3. Charlie Parker With Strings (1950): The album contains only six songs, all of which were jazz standards that Charlie plays with string accompaniment. Although it received mixed reviews, it fulfilled Parker’s long-time wish to record with string instruments.
4. 4. Bird and Diz (1950): This collaboration album between Parker and Dizzy Gillespie also contains noted performances by Thelonious Monk and Buddy Rich. The album contains songs like “Bloomdido,” and a take on the old jazz standard “My Melancholy Baby” (1912).
5. 5. Jazz at Massey Hall (1953): The most famous of Parker’s live concert recordings, This album features Parker with a legendary quintet—including Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Charles Mingus, and Bud Powell—during their performance in Toronto, Canada. The live concert was poorly attended due to a competing boxing match, but it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1995.

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