FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH

The Notes of a Bird: Charlie Parker

It is the consensus of jazz critics that no modern jazz musician played with the brilliance of alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. His professional career lasted half his life--some seventeen years--and he left as his legacy about one hundred records made during his last decade. They preserve examples of the melodic bursts and rhythmic innovations that earned him his nickname, "Bird" or "Yardbird," because his inspiration and the purity of his music was considered birdlike. According to Dizzy Gillespie, Parker invented bebop, the jazz sound of the postwar period. He was so highly regarded that in 1949, when he was twenty-nine years old, a jazz club on Broadway in Manhattan was renamed Birdland in his honor. -"Charlie Parker." American Decades. Gale Research, 1998.
Biography Resource Center. Gale. SJRCC Library. 1 Feb 2008 <http://www.linccweb.org>

To find out more about Charlie Parker’s life and music, check out his website. If you are interested in hearing some of Bird’s music, check out these resources available at the SJRCC libraries:

Bird - Summary: "Jazz saxophonist Charlie Bird Parker lives fast and self-destructs, dead at 34 in 1955. Directed by Clint Eastwood."

Call number: SAC - PN1997 Bird DVD

Chasin' the Bird

Call number: OPC - M1366.P37 C4 2005 CD

Town Hall, New York City, June 22, 1945

Call number: OPC - M1366.G53 D2 2005 CD

Enjoy!

- Eric Biggs