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Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker
ISBN: 9780252095177
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / University of Illinois Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Parker Charlie 1920–1955; Jazz musicians -- United States -- Biography;

Director of the Marr Sound Archives Haddix (co-author of Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop) methodically follows Charlie Parker from his start playing with "more enthusiasm than talent" in Kansas City clubs, to his peak as one of the preeminent forces in bebop, and then his early death at age 34. In his short career Parker played with-and rivaled-many of the mid-century jazz greats: He mentored by Count Basie, absorbed Art Tatum's technique while busing tables at Jimmy's Chicken Shack where Tatum would perform. Parker and played with and eventually competed against Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, among and others. Music was Parker's compulsion, but he also developed an addiction to heroin at an early age, and he needed the needle as badly as the tunes, between these loves, the ladies in his life rarely fared well. Haddix provides a valuable sense of the cross-pollination that occurred in jazz during the ‘40s and ‘50s, as players brought new musical ideas from coast to coast, or even just block to block. He also manages to keep straight who played what with who and when, a remarkable feat in itself. The book's meticulous approach is also it's weakness, as it sometimes fails to capture the spontaneity of Parker's music, something thrilling enough that people would sometimes forget the transgressions of the addict in the hope of hearing more of the musician. 12 b&w photos. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.