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http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2007/02/tha-ar... 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...
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Posted By: C H
Saturday, September 1st 2007 at 2:45AM
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