Talk:Charlie Parker

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Contents

[edit] Tone

"His intellectualism and broad, academic interest in world music were famous, and influential. His total refusal to pander to audiences, which some thought historically resonant with the minstrel tradition, is emulated by many serious musical artists still, black and white." -- I don't quite get this addition--though Parker recorded one Latin jazz session for Verve & was strongly interested in 20th-century composition (bits of Stravinsky pop up in his solos), this seems (1) definitely not academic & it's hardly as thoroughgoing as his peer Dizzy Gillespie. -- The passage about not "pandering to audiences" is simplistic, too, as if the only alternatives were abject commercialism or avantgarde aloofness. --Ndorward 17:32, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The beboppers in general had an aloof attitude -- not having one made Dizzy Gillespie even more important -- but I don't know that Charlie Parker was some kind of proto-Miles Davis, turning his back on the audience. Not even Miles did that until years later, after he was famous, and even then he dressed beautifully. What evidence is there that Parker "refused to pander". What about "Charlie Parker with Strings"? Ortolan88 17:54, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Indeed. Parker pandered plenty. People do when they've a monkey on their back, because pandering = paycheck. There were many tours on which Bird merely went through the motions, rehashing old solos and ideas, just to keep the money coming. GWO

[edit] Death

"(though the "official" cause of death was a bleeding ulcer and pneumonia)"

Why is official in quotes?—Trevor Caira 14:09, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Official cause of death was pneumonia - Jazz and Death: Medical Profiles of Jazz Greats. Frederick J. Spencer, MD. University of Mississippi Press. 2002

  • Jack Kerouac said "Charlie Parker died watching a juggler on TV." is there anything to substantiate that? Could the juggler have been Francis Brunn. Xsxex 04:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Kerouac was right. Bird's Diary: The Life of Charlie Parker 1945-1955 quotes Nica de Koenigswarter (without identifying the original source):
“ "Bird was so much better that the doctor agreed that he could get up and watch the Tommy Dorsey program on TV. ...

He was enjoying what he saw of the program. ... Then came part of the show consisting of jugglers who were throwing bricks around that were stuck together. My daughter was asking how they did it, and Bird and I were being very mysterious about it. Suddenly in the act, they dropped the bricks, and we all laughed. Bird was laughing uproariously, but then he began to choke. He rose from his chair and choked, perhaps twice, and sat back in the chair. I was on the phone immediately, calling the doctor. "Don't worry, Mummy," my daughter said. "He's all right now."
I went over and took his pulse. He had dropped back in the chair, with his head falling forward. He was unconscious. I could feel his pulse still there. Then his pulse stopped.

 ”
I don't know who the jugglers were, though. Maybe there's a record somewhere of who performed on the Dorsey show that night. — Malik Shabazz | Talk 05:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Since the clip from the actual Tommy Dorsey Show exists and was used in Bird one of the reference sources to that film may give this detail. The imdb does not though. Philip Cross 09:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Movie

Any particular reason to not mention the Clint Eastwood's movie about his life? JidGom 20:38, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)

Apart from being one a dimensional view of Parker's life??

[edit] Added and needed

I've added some more substantial discussion of Parker's style & also a little on his drug problems & their impact on his followers. But much more remains to be done here--the biographical information is terribly sketchy. Considering that Parker is one of the key figures in 20th-century music this ought to be a far richer entry.

I started fleshing out the biography with more detail. More to come later. --Craigz 21:20, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that, Craigz. Cheers, -Willmcw 23:10, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Touring

There seems to be a dispute among biographers about where McShann and Parker toured.

  • In 1937 he and his first wife, Rebecca, had a son. He joined the band of pianist Jay McShann and toured extensively around Southwest Chicago and New York. [1]
  • In 1938, Parker joined the band of pianist Jay McShann, with whom he toured around Southwest Chicago and New York. [2]
  • In 1939 he left McShann, worked again briefly - and unsuccessfully - in Chicago, then returned to Kansas. By the end of the year Charlie had rejoined McShann (early in 1940 he was appointed head of McShann's new big band) and with them toured the Southwest, Chicago and New York, until 1942. [3]
  • From 1940 to 1942 he played in Jay McShann's band, with which he toured the Southwest, Chicago, and New York, and took part in his first recording sessions in Dallas (1941). [www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_parker_charlie.htm]

Does anyone have a way of resolving this discrepancy? -Willmcw 23:06, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

--I'll look for a source. My belief is that Parker took a break from playing in Kansas City and touring around the Ozarks, Nebraska, etc., traveling on the cheap to Chicago and NYC in 1939. (This came on the heals of his woodshedding with Buster Smith and dramatically improving his technique and formulating his style.) I also remember reading that he took a job washing dishes at a club in NYC where he was able to hear Art Tatum on a nightly basis, who probably influenced his style as well, although I haven't seen this impact discussed in print. He then returned to Kansas City, and your PBS citation picks up the story from there. Adam Holland 14:41, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Try the following sites:

http://www.jazzine.com/jazzstuff/biographies/charlie_parker.phtml http://www-music.duke.edu/jazz_archive/artists/parker.charlie/02/parkerb.html http://www.leonardfeather.com/feather_parker.html http://web1.umkc.edu/orgs/local627/stomp/home.asp (RADIO DEBUT)

Hope they're helpful. Adam Holland 19:00, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Yardbird

I have posted the origin of the name "yardbird". I include a link with a citation, but my main source is a 1995 documentary run on NPR, in which Bird's bass player(?) tells the background story; unfortunately, not only can I not find a transcript of any of the show, the only reference at all that I can find mentioning it is a SUNY Buffalo listserv from the time.

"Celebrate the life and legacy of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker in a two-hour documentary called CHARLIE PARKER: A 75TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION. 'Bird,' is one of the most innovative, influential and interesting figures in music. 'Charlie Parker: A 75TH Birthday Celebration' will chronicle Parker's life and legacy through interviews with musicians such as Milt Jackson, Max Roach, and John Lewis and jazz historians. Excerpts of Bird's most important musical contributions will be included."

Various at http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind9508&L=wbfo-l

Marc Fannin, www.roadfan.com 198.30.228.3 00:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC) (signature added retroactively - Mapsax)

Sorry--I've removed the tale of the origin of the name. There are many contradictory stories floating around about its origin, & none of them seems any more verifiable or authentic than any of the others, IMO. (For instance, there's an oral history collection on Parker I once came across, where virtually everyone claims they have the "real" story.... a different one, of course.) ND 05:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Issue concerning Parker's actual christened name

I make reference to Ross Russell's well known and much loved biography Bird Lives! (Quartet Books, London, 1973). In the final chapter "Coda", Russell casts doubts that the name "Charles Christopher Parker, Jr." that appears on the tomb in Kansas City is his real name. Although I cannot find at hand other references I have come across over the years relating to this issue, my recollection is that the motivation behind the alleged incorrect name that appears on the tombstone was probably a desire to "enoble" the great musician (apparently, in someone's mind, so great a musical personage as Parker could not have been simply called "Charlie" or even just Charles). An aside, I think a similar factor was behind the correction of Elvis's middle name on his tomb. I am wondering, for the sake of accuracy, if this issue could be resolved for the entry in the Wikipedia.

best regards and thank you for the entry

Nicola Abiuso Melbourne, Australia


I raised this issue at one of the jazz bulletin boards I visit regularly, and it appears that I was in error to have added this detail. The prohibition on blogs and similar sites being quoted in articles, does not apply to talk pages IIRC, so citing this thread should be OK. Philip Cross 21:39, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mingus cite

How long should we let the unsourced qt from Mingus stand? It sounds to me (thinking of how Mingus usually sounds in interviews & on the page) totally phony--probably it's a loose paraphrase of the title of his "If Bird was a gunslinger there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats" line/title? In any case, no-one's popped up with an actual cite for it. ND 05:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

After several months no-one's provided a cite, so I've removed it. ND 04:02, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pree

I was going to put something about the death of his daughter Pree, as it seemed pretty important in his last year[4][5][6], but I don't know where it'd fit. Any thoughts, or is it already there and I missed it?--T. Anthony 08:51, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "######" - censorship?

What's the "######" business? If (as I had thought for ages) Bird was a heroin (aka diamorphine) addict, why not say so? Hair Commodore 20:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It was vandalism by an anonymous user. Feel free to fix it. Wikipedia is not censored. Gwernol 22:03, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
Job done. Hair Commodore 14:40, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


pardon me, i'm unfamiliar with the wiki format. i just wanted to point out that this paragraph appears twice:

"Parker's soaring, fast, rhythmically asymmetrical improvisations could amaze the listener; nevertheless close inspection shows each line to hold a complete, well-constructed phrase with each note in place. Parker's harmonic ideas were revolutionary, introducing a new tonal vocabulary employing 9ths, 11ths and 13ths of chords, rapidly implied passing chords, and new variants of altered chords and chord substitutions. His tone was clean and penetrating, but sweet and plaintive on ballads. Although many Parker recordings demonstrate dazzling virtuoso technique and complex melodic lines — the early "Ko-Ko" is a superb example — he was also one of the great blues players. His themeless blues improvisation "Parker's Mood" represents one of the most deeply affecting recordings in jazz, as fundamental as Armstrong's classic "West End Blues", from only twenty years before."

why...? clearly such a specifically themed paragraph has no reason to be included in two sections. the second time it appears it reads like it comes out of nowhere.

[edit] "Extravagant" Lifestyle?

The section "Bebop" includes the following statement: Parker though, stayed in California, where his extravagant lifestyle was to catch up with him. To me, personally, "extravagant" would usually mean "prodigal" or "based on the spending of alot of money for unnecessary luxury" or "showy" or "ostentatious in a way that is financially irresponsible" and having had to observe junkies at a fairly close distance, I can not imagine anything about the life that could be called "extravagant" except its stupidity and destructiveness. I will make the not-unreasonable assumption that "extravagant" is not really what the original writer meant. A better word to describe the "lifestyle" of a junky might be "self-destructive" or "suicidal" or "ruinous" or "pernicious". In fact, I think that I will go right now and replace "extravagant" with "self-destructive". If anyone has any objections to heroin addiction and the attentant life of a junkie being described as "self-destructive" please feel free to expound upon the subject. Hi There 10:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Busker?

Why is Charlie Parker included in the category of Buskers? Did he play on the street for tips? When and where? Malik Shabazz 00:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Discography Page

Added a discography page. Trying to avoid repetition (since there is so much in the maze that is Charlie Parker records) so not listing individual albums for main labels (ie, Savoy, Dial, Verve). Still need to add studio albums which have material not found on these labels, or in the Birth of Bebop or a Studio Chronicle. Many live albums not yet listed, although here again there is repetition. Well, it's a start. Editor437 01:16, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Memorials

There seems to be no rationale to the order in which items are listed, and items that I think should be highlighted -- a monumental statue, Charlie Parker Place, National Register of Historic Places, and an annual Festival -- are buried amid tribute songs, songs that name-drop Bird, and other trivia. It also isn't clear to me why a short story and a cartoon are included in "The mythic Charlie "Bird" Parker" while tributes of more substance are in "Memorials".

I'll try to re-arrange these items, perhaps by making sub-sections. Admittedly, any ranking is going to be subjective, but I think that some organization is better than disorganization. — Malik Shabazz | Talk 22:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Good move. Would an organization by medium (music, literature, visual art etc) be acceptable too? I'm not sure the factoids that one of the main characters in Poppy Z. Brite's Drawing Blood idolizes Bird or the fact that his name gets mentioned in a conversation in an anime series episode need to be included. ---Sluzzelin 00:37, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I gave it a shot. First I split everything into one of two broad categories of "Memorials and tributes" and "Charlie Parker in popular culture". Then I categorized the things in each category by medium, as you suggested. It's not perfect, but it's a start.
And Billy Joel and Jethro Tull are no longer listed before the monument in Kansas City. :-) — Malik Shabazz | Talk 06:35, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bebop (Question about article)

You'll have to excuse my non-musician's lack of familiarity with musical terms, but this doesn't sound right:

“ [H]e hit upon a method for developing his solos that enabled him to play what he had been hearing in his head for some time, by building chords on the higher intervals of the tune's harmonies. ”

My non-musician's understanding is that Bird would develop a melody (not chords*) based on higher intervals of the chords in another song (maybe that's what "the tune's harmonies" means). Can somebody with musical expertise clarify? (*With rare exceptions, most saxophonists don't/can't play chords, can they?) — Malik Shabazz | Talk 00:54, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. In Parker's own words: "I’d been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that were being used all the time at the time, and I kept thinking that there’s bound to be something else. I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn’t play it. Well, that night I was working over ‘Cherokee,’ and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of the chorus as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I’d been hearing. I came alive." Joachim E. Berendt, The Jazz Book, 92-93. Editor437 01:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Saxophonists can't really play chords simultaneously, no (well, to a very limited extent they can, but Bird didn't) - they can play them in sequence as an arpeggio though, and they can build melodic improvisation on chords. The higher intervals are the extended intervals, such as the 9th, 11th, and 13th, intervals that hadn't been used in jazz very often before. For now, how about: '
"He hit upon a method for developing his solos that enabled him to play what he had been hearing in his head for some time, by building on the chords' extended intervals, such as the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth." ---Sluzzelin 01:23, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Sounds great. Thanks! — Malik Shabazz | Talk 04:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I changed into the plural: "such as ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths". My mistake, it's more accurate this way. Different ninths, for instance, including augmented and diminshed ones, gave bebop part of its harmonic flavor. ---14:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tone

The section Place in History gushes over Parker and his achievements. It is written like, or possibly as, a tribute to him. Surely this can be re-written in a less praising tone without depreciating Parker's achievements. RedRabbit1983 15:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Middle/Second Christian Name

If one is to contradict "many reputable sources, including the Encyclopedia Britannica," about any issue, one should reference reputable, verifiable sources in an inline citation. -- 13:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

See this section above. Philip Cross 14:04, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed some vandalism... Charles "ball licker" Parker... Diizy 16:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Personal life

This article could use some additional info. about his personal life, including: Rebecca Ruffing (1st wife, married 1936); Geraldine Scott (2nd wife, married 1943); Doris Sayder (3rd wife, married 1948); Chan Richardson/Chan Parker (common-law wife, 1950-53); adopted daughter Kim Parker; 1st son: Baird Parker (b. 1952); 2nd son: Leon Parker; daughter: Pree Parker (b. 1951, d. 1953, aged two-and-a-half). --Design 09:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Moldy figs"

"…older, more established jazz musicians, whom the beboppers, in response, called 'moldy figs'": no doubt they did call them that, but I believe that the term was well established before it was used by the beboppers, and referred to people who had rejected even the innovations of Armstrong and Ellington. Thus, the implication in calling the jazz mainstream "moldy figs" was that not only didn't they get bebop, but they were really stuck in the Dixieland era. - Jmabel | Talk 18:51, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Charlie Parker Fakebook Software"

Hi Malik, I appreciate the time you've spent keeping the Charlie Parker article on the up and up. The links I have been posting are certainly of interest and relevance for anyone wishing to attain a deeper familiarity with the man and his music. The links are in line with other links along the same line on the page. I would appreciate your not blocking them since they are relevant and beneficial to people reading the article Thanks----www.RealBookSoftware.com/CharlieParkerFakebook.php —Preceding unsigned comment added by BlazeFelton (talk • contribs) 00:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

The commercial site you'd like to link may be of interest to readers of the article, but it is against Wikipedia policy. Please see Wikipedia:External links and Wikipedia:Spam. "Adding external links to an article or user page for the purpose of promoting a website or a product is not allowed, and is considered to be spam."
If there are other links to sites that are primarily commercial in nature, please remove them.
None of this should be news to you. You were told the same thing at Talk:Real Book#Blake Milton thing in July. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 00:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Malik-- For me to remove links just because they refer to commercial products would be quite nearsighted and counterproductive. If I were to remove those references in this page, it would be doing a disservice to readers of this article. And as was stated on your talk page, Wikipedia itself has thousands of articles on commercial products. So, I think there is a bit of talking out of both sides of the mouth here. While I understand and appreciate the need to keep junk out of the articles, I do believe there is plenty of room to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" as they say.

Maybe others will chime in on this subject and we'll have our answer. Then one or the other of us can abide by their consensus.

What say you, other readers?

Do away with all commercial links or let those remain that have a bearing on the article at hand? ThanksBlazeFelton (talk) 01:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Of course relevant, useful commercial links are allowed--for instance, an article on a record label should link to the homepage of that record label. But the site you linked to contains nothing of use to someone wanting to know more about Charlie Parker; it's just an ad and an order form. --ND (talk) 23:23, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Certainly the example you cite is one type of a valid commercial link. There are commercial links and references on this page that that don't contain any articles or any direct information either. But none of that means that they shouldn't be here. Those links and the RealBook Software certainly provide access to products that have direct bearing on the topic. It would be no different than a link to buying a book. The link itself wouldn't directly contain the information, but that doesn't mean that indirect links are invalid. BlazeFelton (talk) 15:34, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Ndorward and Malik Shabazz - the link to the Fakebook site adds nothing of value to the article and is clearly simply promotional. The link clearly fails to meet Wikipedia's guidelines on external links and is inappropriate. Please do not include it in this article. Not only is consensus on this clear here, but this link clearly falls outside Wikipedia's well-established rules. Thanks, Gwernol 15:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Good enough for me guys.I'll pull down some of the other clearly commercial promotional links as well.BlazeFelton (talk) 00:54, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Performer vs. Composer

As a not-very-knowledgeable fan of Parker, I came to his Wikipedia page to try to find out how extensive his composition was -- was he primarily known for playing other peoples' music, with occasional compositions of his own, or was he primarily a great composer and band leader, like Mingus? Nothing on the page helped me figure this out. Perhaps a sidebar listing his most notable compositions (not just the two or three mentioned in the current text) would help. Perhaps a sentence or two about how much of his material was original, and how much of material he authored has been covered by other musicians, would clarify this. Thanks.

The answer is really "neither". Parker mostly performed his own tunes, but his tunes don't have the scale or range of Mingus's music. In fact they're mostly written over just two sets of chord changes (the blues & "rhythm changes"), often with a fair bit of room for improvisation (some "tunes" are actually themeless improvisations) & the arrangements are mostly quite spare--unison heads over rhythm. That's not to say they aren't great tunes--there are probably about two dozen of them that every jazz student learns by heart--but they are "improviser's tunes" rather than "composer's tunes", if I can make that distinction. --ND (talk) 21:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)