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BIRDSONG: THE CHARLIE PARKER STORY
Tuesdays 23 Aug - 13 Sept, 21.30 - 22.00
Presented by Russell Davies
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| You can to listen to this documentary in the BBC Radio Player for up to seven days after broadcast.
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Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird") gained worldwide recognition for his brilliant solos and innovative improvisations and was a central figure in the development of "Bop" in the 1940's.
Charlie Parker was born August 29th 1920, the only child of Charles and Addie Parker. There are two stories concerning his famous nickname; the first is that he lived "as free as a bird", the second is that he ran over a chicken (a "yardbird") and took it home for his landlady to cook. Whichever is true, the nickname lasted until the day he died.
Parker played Baritone Horn at school, but his first real interest in music came in 1933, when he took up the Alto Saxophone and began playing in local bands. In 1935, he left school to pursue a full-time career in music.
Parker worked with several local bands in Kansas City, where the big bandleaders at that time were Benny Moten and Count Basie. In 1938 he joined Jay McShann's band and toured around south-west Chicago. In 1939, he visited New York for the first time and stayed for nearly a year, playing sporadically and often having to make his living washing dishes. He took part in many jam sessions and met Biddy Fleet, a guitarist who taught him about instrumental harmony. By his own account, Parker was bored with the stereotyped chord changes that were being used then. He said "I kept thinking there's bound to be something else…I could hear it sometimes but I couldn't play it".
In December 1942 he joined Earl Hines's big band which included another up and coming Bopper, Dizzy Gillespie and a number of young modernists. By 1944 they all left to form the nucleus of Billy Eckstine's band.
The year 1945 marked a turning point in Parker's career: in New York he led his own group for the first time and worked extensively with Gillespie in small ensembles. In December of that year, he and Gillespie moved to Hollywood, where they fulfilled a six-week nightclub engagement. Parker continued to work in Los Angeles, recording and performing in concerts and nightclubs, until June 29, 1946, when a nervous breakdown and addiction to heroin and alcohol caused his confinement at the Camarillo State Hospital. He was released seven months later and resumed work in Los Angeles.
Parker returned to New York in April 1947, forming a quintet with Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter and Max Roach that recorded many of his most famous pieces. They attracted a very large following in the jazz world and enjoyed a measure of financial success.
In July 1951, Parker's New York cabaret license was revoked at the request of the narcotics squad. This banned him from nightclub employment in the city and forced him to adopt a more peripatetic life until the license was reinstated. Sporadically employed, badly in debt, and in failing physical and mental health, he twice attempted suicide in 1954 and voluntarily committed himself to Bellevue Hospital in New York. His last public engagement was on March 5, 1955 at Birdland, a New York nightclub named in his honour. He died seven days later at the age of 34 in the Manhattan apartment of his friend the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter.
Including contributions from Jay McShann, Dr Billy Taylor, Peter King (tbc), John Dankworth (tbc), Loren Schoenberg, Professor Dan Morgenstern, Ed Shaugnessy and Danny Bank.
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