On Thursday, April 20th, 1950, Addie Parker, graduated from the National Schools Institute of Practical Nursing in Kansas City. Charlie Parker (Bird) speaks of his mother’s achievement with pride in an interview recorded not long afterward, an excerpt of which is presented along with today’s musical offering. The circumstances are informal and Bird uses his natural speaking voice, setting aside the accent he affected for bandstand announcements and radio patter. Regrettably, the interviewers are squares of epic proportions who largely waste this invaluable opportunity. The following transcription of the excerpt in question gives some indication of the stilted atmosphere they … Continue reading Weekly Posting, April 17th, 2020

Charlie Parker (Bird) must have been relieved to fly out of Los Angeles on April 4th, 1947, doubly so to be rid of Ross Russell. Russell provides many details about driving Bird and his future wife, Doris Sydnor, to the airport, and even about checking their luggage and watching them board the plane, but he gets their destination wrong. The flight was taking them to Chicago, not New York City. Bird had an Easter Sunday gig with trumpeter Howard McGhee on the 6th, at the Pershing Ballroom. McGhee reports that Bird made $750 for the night (1947 dollars) and the … Continue reading Weekly Posting, April 10th, 2020

On April 3rd, 1946, Charlie Parker (Bird) drew up a handwritten agreement assigning to Emry Byrd, a Los Angeles drug dealer, fifty percent of all future royalties from contracts with Dial Records. Biographers generally take this at face value, presenting it as a measure of Bird’s desperation for heroin and also his poor business acumen. There is no doubt that Bird was utterly addicted to heroin. He couldn’t function without it, and Los Angeles was prone to supply problems. Even when you could get it, the quality ranged from so-so to rock bottom, including a product called “mud”, which lived … Continue reading Weekly Posting, April 3rd, 2020

Ross Russell, the founder of Dial Records, was a witness to jazz history. The ballads that Charlie Parker (Bird) recorded for his label in the late 40s (Embraceable You, Out Of Nowhere, My Old Flame, Don’t Blame Me) are among the most sublime creations in 20th Century music. In fact, all of Bird’s Dial recordings are of immeasurable value. Russell deserves a great deal of credit for making this happen, and it was, in many ways, a thankless task. Did this qualify him to write Bird’s biography? Yes and no. The biography in question, Bird Lives, published in 1973, is more accessible, entertaining, and … Continue reading Weekly Posting, March 28th, 2020

There is much evidence of Bird’s extensive vocabulary and his love of wordplay, but he left behind almost no writings, aside from his many telegrams to Chan, which are a story unto themselves. So the long letter he wrote on Saturday, May 22nd, 1954, is one of the very few we have. Unfortunately, it’s a rebuttal to charges brought by Jack Tucker, the manager of the Tiffany Club in Los Angeles, where Bird was working the week Pree died. As such, Bird’s tone is matter-of-fact and understandably humorless, but he expresses himself clearly in long, well-constructed sentences interspersed with short, … Continue reading Weekly Posting, March 20th, 2020

Charlie Parker (Bird) died of old age at 34. His life was not cut short. When he died at the Stanhope Hotel on March 12th, 1955, the arc of his existence was complete. By the close of 1954, after his two-year-old daughter had died and his marriage to Chan had disintegrated, Bird was living in poverty in Greenwich Village, waiting for death to claim him. He was well aware that his heart, liver, and stomach were finally giving out. Roaming the streets on New Year’s Day, he remarked to a friend, “I never thought I’d live to see 1955.” Bird … Continue reading Weekly Post, March 12th, 2020

On Saturday, March 6th, 1954, Charlie Parker’s two-year-old daughter, Pree, died from what may have been undiagnosed cystic fibrosis. Bird was out on the road in California when she died, and not by choice. After a grueling road trip with Stan Kenton, during which Bird was in constant pain from his ulcers, the Moe Gale agency booked a one-week appearance at theTiffany Club in Los Angeles, preventing him from returning to New York. This was a disaster in every conceivable way. Pree’s condition was critical, and during the week Bird learned that she had been placed in an oxygen tent. … Continue reading Weekly Posting, March 6th, 2020.

How close were Charlie Parker (Bird) and Dizzy Gillespie (Diz)?  It’s worth noting the statement Bird (allegedly) made to Ahmed Basheer a few months before his death. He said, “Basheer, I don’t let anyone get close to me, even you.” When Basheer asked why, Bird said, “Once in Kansas City I had a friend who I liked very much, and a sorrowful thing happened. He died.” Bird was referring to Robert Simpson, a trombonist six years Bird’s senior, who was an older-brother figure and constant companion. Bird was just getting started on saxophone, and was, by all accounts, terrible, but … Continue reading Weekly Posting, February 28th, 2020

On February 24th, 1952, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie appeared on Channel 5 in New York, on a Down Beat awards show. It’s the only live performance by Bird in existence. (Norman Granz financed a short film that included Bird, but, for technical reasons, the music was overdubbed.) Television was just getting off the ground in the early 50s, and only certain programs were videotaped, so we must be grateful for this one remarkable scrap, in which we witness Bird and Diz playing Tadd Dameron’s “Hot House”, one of their seminal recordings from 1945. (This clip is readily available on … Continue reading Weekly Posting, February 24th, 2020

Charlie Parker ( Bird) had four wives, three of whom he legally married and none of whom he legally divorced. He married his childhood sweetheart, Rebecca Ruffin, when he was not quite 16 years old. During the period when he was bouncing back-and-forth between Kansas City and New York, he married Geraldine Scott. He married Doris Sydnor in 1948, in the midst of his most productive period artistically. (They had been a couple since 1945.) By 1950, that marriage had run its course and Bird began a romantic relationship with Chan Richardson. Chan was young, beautiful, intelligent, hip, and a vocal proponent of … Continue reading Weekly Post, February 18th, 2020