1920, the year Babe Ruth transferred from the Red Sox to the Yankees, was the same year Charles Parker Jr. was born to Charles and Addie Parker in Kansas City, Kan.
The love of playing his alto saxophone led him to drop out of school to pursue a career as a musician.
Never reluctant to perform, he exposed himself to numerous gigs.To his humiliation, once at a gig, his drummer threw a cymbal at him during a set for what he felt was bad playing.
This particular scene was recreated in Clint Eastwood’s 1988’s motion picture “Bird.”
The nickname “Yardbird” was given to Parker early on, because oh his love of chicken.
The name was shortened to simply “Bird” when he moved to New York City in 1939 after his tour with the Jay McShan band.
Like the majority of his fellow jazz musicians, he frequently appeared at Monroe’s and Minton’s Playhouse, both famous jazz clubs in Harlem.
Playing in these two clubs allowed him to meet Dizzy Gillespie, with whom he would often play.
The two contributed to the beginnings of bebop, a quickly played style of jazz that was popularized by Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young and would be carried on by John Coltrane and Miles Davis.
In 1940, Parker’s first studio record “The Complete Birth of Bebop” was released and was followed by 60 more records released under his name.
One of those numerous recordings is “Parker’s Mood,” which is widely considered his magnum opus.
Like Davis and Coltrane, Parker drank a lot and developed a heavy heroine addiction, which influenced his reliability.
Nevertheless, he was able to recover and return to the scene for a further career peak in the early fifties, when his influence on the entire jazz scene became the greatest.
Unfortunately, Parker was never able to fully recover from the trauma he inflicted on his body.
He only lived to be 34 years old and passed away on March 12, 1955. He remains one of the greatest figures in jazz.
