Charlie Parker

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(b Kansas City, 29 Aug 1920; d New York, 12 March 1955). American jazz alto saxophonist. In 1942 he joined Earl Hines's band and in 1944 Billy Eckstine's. In New York he first led his own group, with Dizzy Gillespie. In Los Angeles, he had a nervous breakdown, exacerbated by addictions. Back in New York from 1947, he formed a quintet which recorded many of his most famous pieces. He toured Europe and had a large following, but drugs forced him into a more peripatetic life and sporadic employment. A virtuoso with distinctive tone and thorough control, he was a brilliant improviser. His line combined drive and a complex organization of pitch and rhythm; he used pitches outside the harmony, with a variety of melodic devices, but his best work retained a clear, coherent line.

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Charles Christopher Parker, Jr. (1920-1955), American musician, was one of the most widely influential soloists in jazz history.

Charlie Parker, widely known as Yardbird or Bird, was born in Kansas City, Kans., on Aug. 29, 1920. His mother bought him an alto saxophone in 1931, and in the following years he played with several prominent local big bands. In 1941 he became a member of Jay McShann's band, with which he made his first commercial recordings.

At this time Parker met Dizzy Gillespie, widely accepted as the cofounder with Parker of the jazz style that became known as bop or bebop. In 1945 they recorded the definitive titles in the new idiom. Although younger musicians quickly realized his genius, Parker met with considerable hostility from musicians of earlier stylistic persuasions. In 1946, as a result, he suffered a mental breakdown and was committed for 6 months to a sanitarium. Upon his release he formed his own quintet and worked with this format for several years, mainly in the New York City area. He also toured with Norman Granz's "Jazz at the Philharmonic" and made trips to Paris in 1949 and Scandinavia in 1950. From his teen-age years Parker had been a narcotics addict, and in the last 5 years of his life he worked irregularly as a result of physical and mental illness. On March 4, 1955, he made his final public appearance; he died 8 days later.

Parker's earliest records reveal that he was already developing the more complex harmonic approach that was characteristic of his mature work. This style is notable for a then unheard-of variety of rhythmic accentuation, harmonic complexity allied to an acute melodic sensitivity, solo lines that employ a wider range of intervals than had previously been the norm, and a disregard for the four-and eight-bar divisions of the standard jazz repertoire. This approach and his strident, even harsh, tone made it difficult for the casual listener to follow the logic of his choruses. Also, with major changes taking place in the rhythm section, it was not altogether surprising that his music sometimes met with opposition or downright incomprehension. Another facet of Parker's playing was its extraordinary technical facility, enabling him to express his ideas with the greatest clarity even at the most rapid tempos.

Parker composed a number of tunes that became jazz standards, though these were usually casually assembled items based on chord sequences of popular tunes. In terms of melodic skill, his recordings of ballads such as "Embraceable You" and "How Deep Is the Ocean" are even more revealing than his interpretations of the bebop repertoire. He spawned dozens of imitators, but his own achievements were unique.

Further Reading

Robert George Reisner, Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker (1962), contains a great deal of material on Parker by his fellow musicians and friends, some of it more colorful than enlightening. A critical study that offers many valuable insights into Parker's music is Max Harrison, Charlie Parker (1960). See also Marvin Barrett, The Jazz Age (1959), and Albert McCarthy, Jazz on Record: A Critical Guide to the First Fifty Years, 1917-1967 (1968).

jazz musician; saxophonist; composer

Personal Information

Born Charles Christopher Parker, August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, Missouri; son of Charles Parker (traveling entertainer and Pullman chef) and Addie (domestic); married Rebecca Ruffin July 25, 1936; children Francis Leon; Geraldine Marguerite Scott (dancer) April 10, 1943; Doris Snydor (hat check girl); Chan Richardson (model and dancer) July 1950; children Pree and Baird, also adopted Richardson's daughter Kim. Died March 12, 1955 in New York City. EXCEPTION: March 12, 1955 in New York City.

Career

Left school to play music at sixteen; mid 1930s played in Kansas City bands; 1937 with Buster "Prof" Smith; with Jay McShann orchestra 1940-1942; performed with Earl Hines 1942-1943; joined Billy Eckstine big band 1944; 1945 made first solo recordings in a quintet with Dizzy Gillespie; performed in California 1945-1947; first performed with Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic series; recorded for Dial label 1945-1948; returned to New York in April 1947; recorded for Savoy label 1948; signed with Norman Granz's Mercury label 1948 and subsequently with recorded with Granz's Verve label; played the Paris International Jazz Festival, May 1949; recorded with strings 1949-1952; visited Scandinavia 1950; performed with various sidemen 1950-1955.

Life's Work

When alto-saxophonist Charlie Parker made his first significant solo recordings with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie in 1945, his music had a tremendous impact on a new generation of jazz musicians. In cities across the country, jazz instrumentalists sought to play in the Parker-style. Known to fellow musicians as Yardbird, Yard, or Bird, Parker expanded the musical horizons of jazz and influenced various instrumentalists with his unique phrasing and harmonic conception. Parker drew much of his inspiration from the blues, swing jazz standards, popular song forms, Afro-Cuban music, and modern European symphonic music. While Parker's blues-based compositions elevated the form to a new creative level, his deep interest in the modern symphonic works of composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Bela Bartok inspired countless other jazzmen to study classical music. An avant-gardist of the bebop subculture, Parker's heroin addiction elevated him to cult status among hipsters, poets, and intellectuals. Despite his self-destructive lifestyle and early death, Parker remains one of the twentieth century's most innovative instrumentalists and composers.

Parker was born on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, Kansas. His father, Charlie Sr., was a stage entertainer and his mother, a domestic of Native American descent. Raised by his mother, Parker attended Catholic schools and, not long after, became a student at Charles Sumner Elementary. In 1931 Addie took her son to live in Kansas City, Missouri, a hotbed of swing jazz and home to Tom Pendegast's political machine which, as a result of its widespread corruption, fostered the city's musical night club scene. A follower of tenor saxophonist Lester Young, Parker took up alto horn. Having never received any formal musical instruction, he faced stiff competition at local jam sessions from more seasoned musicians. Although Parker experienced humiliation at the hands of more experienced players, he persevered by practicing relentlessly and using exercise books.

Parker dropped out of school at age sixteen to pursue a career in music. His mother's full-time employment at Western Union offered Parker plenty of opportunities to experience Kansas City's nightlife and drug subculture alone. In 1937 Parker worked in Ozark mountain resort clubs, including a four-month stint with George E. Lee's band. The job with Lee's band afforded Parker ample time for private practice, and he spent hours trying to imitate the Lester Young tenor saxophone solos featured on recordings by the Count Basie Band. Back in Kansas City, he broadened his musical knowledge by performing with another influential saxophonist, Buster "Prof" Smith.

In 1938 Parker performed for several months with pianist Jay McShann's Sextet, and then moved on to New York City. On his way to New York, he stopped in Chicago where, at a breakfast dance, he sat-in with the band on saxophone. Despite his disheveled appearance, Parker's saxophone lines astounded listeners. Unable to find musical work in New York City, he washed dishes at Jimmy's Chicken Shack in Harlem. While working at Jimmy's, Parker had the opportunity to hear the brilliant house pianist, Art Tatum. As Royal W. Stokes remarked in The Jazz Scene, Art Tatum "was an important transitional figure" in Parker's musical education. Eventually, Parker performed at dime dance halls and jam sessions. At Don Walls' Chili House, his interaction with guitarist Bill "Biddy" Fleet expanded his knowledge of harmony and chord substitutions. Parker also took part in jam sessions at Clark Monroe's Uptown House in Harlem, where he worked out brilliant lines over the changes of pop standards such as his favorite showpiece, "Cherokee."

After returning to Kansas City in 1940, Parker joined Jay McShann's big band and was put in charge of organizing the reed section. "But it was no question [Parker] had a profound effort on the band," commented McShann in Talking Jazz, "...when Bird took a solo, he just lifted the band, lifted everybody." In April of 1941, Parker made his first commercial recordings with McShann's orchestra, including the Decca side "Hootie Blues." His playing on this slow blues number, though ignored by critics at the time, made an immediate impression on many saxophonists. Parker's appearance on McShann's 1942 sides "Jumpin' Blues," "Lonely Boy Blues," and "Sepian Bounce," inspired Gunther Schuller to remark in The Swing Era, "Although the 'cool' timbre and linearization of musical ideas of Lester Young are clearly the base of [Parker's] inspiration, he is also beginning to be very much his own man."

In January of 1942, Parker opened at Harlem's Savoy Ballroom. When he was not performing with McShann's orchestra, he sat in at Harlem jam sessions held at Monroe's and Minton's Playhouse. At these impromptu performances, Parker joined other jazzmen in experimenting with small ensembles and playing extended solos over complex harmonic forms built upon standard song and compositional forms. Although Parker's talent impressed his contemporaries at the jam sessions, his worsening drug habit forced McShann to fire him. Parker then bided his time between jam sessions and free lance work until December of 1942 when, through the intercession of Billy Eckstine and trumpeter Benny Harris, he found work as a tenor saxophonist in Earl "Fatha" Hines' big band which included vocalist Sarah Vaughan. However, Parker's erratic behavior forced Hines to fire him after only eight months with the band.

In 1944, Parker joined Billy Eckstine's innovative bebop big band. He often shared the bandstand with Dizzy Gillespie and several other former alumni of the Hines orchestra, including Sarah Vaughan. After a few months, Parker left Eckstine's band and played on 52nd Street with saxophonist Ben Webster, and later worked with trumpeter Cootie Williams. In February of 1945, Parker collaborated with Gillespie on sessions for the Guild label which produced the numbers "Groovin' High" and "Dizzy Atmosphere." Three months later, a session for Guild yielded "Salt Peanuts," "Shaw Nuff," "Hot House," and "Lover Man" with vocalist Sarah Vaughan. Not long after the first Guild sides were released, Parker's music divided musicians and critics into warring camps. "With Parker's emergence," noted jazz trombonist Benny Green in The Reluctant Art, "the term [jazz] had no longer a precise meaning." It forced jazz musicians to align themselves with "music that was pre-Charlie Parker or the music he was playing."

In the fall of 1945, Parker and Gillespie landed a job at the Three Deuces. Shortly thereafter, Parker's irresponsibility and disregard for promptness caused Gillespie to quit the group. Parker subsequently hired trumpeter Miles Davis to perform in a quintet which included drummer Max Roach. As Davis enthusiastically recounted in his memoir Miles, "I was nineteen years old and playing with the baddest alto saxophone player in the history of music." A month after opening at the Three Deuces, Parker debuted on the Savoy label. Under the name "Charlie Parker's Reboppers," Parker, Gillespie , Davis, Russell, and Roach recorded the classics "Ko Ko" and "Now's the Time." Gary Giddins stressed in Celebrating Bird that, ""Ko Ko' was the seminal point of departure for jazz in the postwar era. It's effect paralleled that of [Louis] Armstrong's 'West End Blues' in 1928."

As a member of the Dizzy Gillespie sextet, Parker traveled to Hollywood in December of 1945 to perform at Billy Berg's, a one- story stucco building on Vine Street. "That little band was very skillfully assembled, recalled Gillespie in To Be or Not to Bop. "Charlie Parker I hired, because he was undeniably a genius, musically, the other side of my heartbeat." Billed with the popular acts Slim Gillard and Henry "The Hipster" Gibson, the sextet played to packed houses. With the exception of a small circle of followers, however, the reaction to the sextet's modern sound was met with indifference.

After finishing their stint at Berg's, Parker and Gillespie recorded several sessions for Hollywood record store owner Ross Russell. As a result of poor organization and personnel problems, these first sessions for Russell's newly formed Dial label yielded little material. When Gillespie's band returned to New York, Parker stayed behind in Los Angeles and continued to record for Dial. Parker then took a job playing in Howard McGhee's group at the Club Finale. He also attended several Dial recording sessions which produced a wealth of music including "Yardbird Suite," "Moose the Mooche," and "A Night in Tunisia." As Ted Goia noted in West Coast Jazz, these sides "rank among the landmarks of jazz music. On a level with Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Hot Sevens and Ellington's work from the early 1940s, the Parker Dial sessions stand out as monumental achievements."

Despite the fine musicianship Parker displayed on the Dial recordings, his personal life was in shambles. He was living in poverty and suffering from drug withdrawal. On July 29, 1946, Parker attended a Dial recording session. Later that night a fire, presumably caused by careless smoking, destroyed his room at the Civic Hotel. Earlier that evening, Parker was seen wandering around the hotel lobby wearing only his socks. He was arrested and held in the psychiatric ward of the East Los Angeles Jail. Charged with arson, indecent exposure, and resisting arrest, Parker served a six-month term at the Camarillo State Hospital. He was released in January of 1947 and periodically experienced episodes of good health, only to succumb to eating binges and further drug abuse. Before returning to New York, Parker participated in recording sessions for Dial with pianist Erroll Garner, Howard McGhee and Wardell Gray.

Between 1947 and 1948 Parker led a quintet which included, at various times, Miles Davis, pianists Duke Jordan and Al Haig, and Max Roach. Also, extended engagements at New York nightclubs such as the Three Deuces and the Royal Roost provided Parker with a relatively stable period of work. In September of 1948, Parker cut the Savoy side "Parker's Mood." Acclaimed as one of Parker's finest blues numbers, "Parker's Mood," as Thomas Owens noted in Bebop: The Music and Its Players, "contains a number of [Parker's] standard melodic figures, but the slow tempo gives him more time than usual to reshape and combine them, and to think of new phrases. In the process he creates a beautiful and poignant picture of the poetic meaning of the blues - he 'tells his story' as though he was a great blues singer." In December of 1948 and January of 1949, Parker recorded with Machito's Afro-Cuban orchestra for the Verve label.

In May of 1949, Parker made his European debut at the Paris International Festival of Jazz. That same year, Parker hired trumpeter Red Rodney. Rodney told Ben Sidran in Talking Jazz, "Charlie Parker was very much like he played. He was beautiful. He was so proficient that the instrument was like a toy." In November of 1949, Parker recorded with a string section conducted by Mitch Miller. The session yielded the smash hit, "Just Friends." In 1950 and 1952, he continued to perform and record with string quartets and other small groups. In March of 1951 and January of 1952, Parker recorded his Latin-inspired album, South of the Border. This album, released on the Verve label, contained his popular number "My Little Suede Shoes."

In 1953 Parker joined Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, bassist Charles Mingus, and pianist Bud Powell for a performance at Toronto's Massey Hall. Around this time, Parker's constant drug use began to take its toll. Although he was still capable of delivering fine performances, his reputation for showing up in mid-performance or missing entire shows often forced club owners to hire Parker on a per set basis. After being admitted twice to Bellevue psychiatric hospital in 1954, Parker attempted suicide. On March 4, 1955, he made his final appearance at Birdland--the club named in his honor. During the performance, he exchanged harsh words onstage with Bud Powell and left the nightclub. Five days later, Parker traveled to New York City to visit his close friend and benefactor, Baroness "Nica" Ponnonica de Koenigswarter. Parker suffered an ulcer attack while visiting the Baroness, but refused to be hospitalized. He died on March 12, 1955. Autopsy results attributed the cause of death to lobar pneumonia and the long-term effects of alcohol and heroin abuse.

During his brief life, Charlie Parker inspired a school of jazz, a legion of followers, and helped to define a generation of post-war poets and writers. A few months after Parker's death, Beat writer Jack Kerouac hailed him in his book of poems Mexico City Blues, as "the perfect musician...and a great creator of forms." In recent decades, Parker has become the subject of books, film documentaries, and a feature motion picture. His music remains an internationally recognized source of musical inspiration and one of America's highest artistic achievements.

Awards

Down Beat New Star Award, 1946; elected to Down Beat Hall of Fame 1955.

Works

Selective Discography

• Charlie Parker, The Verve Years (1952-54), Verve, 1977.
• Charlie Parker at Storeyville, Blue Note, (recorded 1953) 1988.
• Charlie Parker The Legendary Dial Masters Vol. I, Stash, 1989.
• Charlie Parker Swedish Schnapps+, The Great Quintet Sessions 1919-1951, Verve, 1991.
• Charlie Parker, "Round Midnight and Other Gems," Tel-Star, 1991.
• Bird at St. Nick's, Original Jazz Classics, (recorded 1950) 1992.
• Charlie Parker, Jazz at the Philharmonic 1949, Verve, 1993.
• Bird on 52nd Street, Original Jazz Classics, (recorded 1948) 1994.
• Charlie Parker Plays Standards, Jazz Masters 28, Verve, 1994.
• Charlie Parker, South of the Border, (recorded 1951-1952), 1995.
• Charlie Parker, The Complete Dial Recordings, Rhino, 1996.
• Bird and Diz, (recorded 1948) Verve, 1997.
• Yardbird Suite, The Ultimate Charlie Parker, Rhino, 1997.

Further Reading

• Davis, Miles with Quincy Troupe. Miles, The Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 1990.
• Giddins, Gary. Celebrating Bird, The Triumph of Charlie Parker, Beech Tree Books, 1987.
• Gillespie, Dizzy with Al Fraser. To Be, or not...To Bop, Memoirs, Doubleday & Co., 1979.
• Gioa, Ted. West Coast Jazz: Modern Jazz in California 1945-1960, Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Gitler, Ira. Jazz Masters of the Forties, Collier Books, 1966.
• Green, Benny. The Reluctant Art: Five Studies in the Growth of Jazz, Da Capo, expanded edition, 1991.
• Hennessey, Mike. Klook: The Story of Kenny Clarke, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990.
• Kerouac, Jack. Mexico City Blues (242) Choruses, Grove Press, 1959.
• Owens, Thomas. Bebop: The Music and Its Players, Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Reisner, Robert, ed. Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker, Da Capo, 1962.
• Schuller, Gunther. The Swing Era: The Development of Jazz 1930-1945, Oxford University Press, 1989.
• Sidran, Ben. Talking Jazz: An Oral History, expanded edition, Da Capo, 1995.
• Stokes, Royal W. The Jazz Scene: An Informal History From New Orleans to 1990, Oxford University Press, 1990.

— John Cohassey

Parker, Charlie "Bird" (Charles Christopher Parker, Jr.), 1920-55, American musician and composer, b. Kansas City, Kans. He began playing alto saxophone in 1933, and after shifting from one band to another he met Dizzy Gillespie in New York City. They formed a quintet, which in 1945 made the first bop (or bebop) records and thus became the leaders of the bop movement in jazz. Parker's brilliant improvisations, noted for their power and beauty, soon earned the admiration of innumerable musicians. He composed several instrumental quartets and made many recordings. For many years Parker was addicted to drugs, which hastened his death.

Bibliography

See biography by B. Priestley (2006); studies by L. O. Koch (1988) and G. Giddens (1998).

Quotes:

"Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art."

For The Record...

Original members included Chris Dreja (born November 11, 1944, in Surbiton, London, England) rhythm guitar, then bass; Jim McCarty (born July 25, 1943, in Liverpool, Merseyside, England), drums; Keith Relf (born March 22, 1943, in Richmond, London; died of electrocution, May 14, 1976), vocals, harmonica; Paul Samwell-Smith (born May 8, 1944, in Richmond; left group 1966), bass; and Anthony “Top” Topham (born in 1947 in England; left group 1963), lead guitar. Other members included Jeff Beck (born June 24, 1944, in Wallington, London; joined group 1965; left group 1966), lead guitar; Eric Clapton (born Eric Patrick Clapp, March 30, 1945, in Ripley, Derbys, England; joined group 1963; left group 1965), lead guitar; Jimmy Page (bom April 9, 1944, in London; joined group 1966), bass, then rhythm guitar, then lead guitar. Relf, Samwell-Smith, Dreja, and Topham met at London’s Kingston Art School, 1963; band originally called the Metropolitan Blues Quartet; performed in Richmond and London clubs; became house band at Crawdaddy club, 1963; backed Sonny Boy Williamson on tour, 1963; signed with EMI/Columbia (in U.K.), 1964; supported the Beatles, Paris, 1965; toured U.S., 1965; toured Australia and Far East, 1967; appeared in film Blow Up, 1967; disbanded, 1968. Page went on to form the New Yardbirds, which became Led Zeppelin. Awards: Inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1992.

Rock band

Although the British rock and roll scene of the 1960s introduced bands more popular and longer-lived than the Yardbirds, only a few can match that august quintet for their lasting influence. Extant only from 1963 to 1968, the Yardbirds were crucial to the development of rock and roll from its roots in rhythm and blues to its growth into psychedelia and heavy metal. At the heart of the band’s distinctive sound were three of rock’s most gifted guitarists: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. Each shouldered lead guitar duties during the band’s brief history—Beck and Page simultaneously at one point—and their technical innovations, as well as the prominence they have achieved since, have combined to create a Yardbirds legacy that has lasted considerably longer than the band itself.

The Yardbirds were born of the same early 1960s London rhythm and blues club scene that produced the Rolling Stones. The original lineup included Keith Relf on vocals, Chris Dreja on rhythm guitar, Jim McCarty on drums, Paul Samwell-Smith on bass, and Anthony "Top" Topham on lead guitar. By the end of 1963, Eric

Clapton had taken Topham’s place (the latter going back to school), and the Yardbirds were developing an enthusiastic following both in London and on the southern Home Counties club circuit. Enthusiasm for the group rivaled that of the Stones, but while both bands played the same R&B standards, the Yardbirds remained more faithful to the material onstage.

When the Rolling Stones moved beyond the local club circuit, the Yardbirds took over their spot as house band at the legendary Crawdaddy club. Their shows became famous for "rave ups," the term used by the group to describe their method of constantly increasing the tempo during a set in order to push the crowd into a frenzy. 1964 saw the release of the band’s first album in England, Five Live Yardbirds, which featured performances at the Marquee Club. Though the group’s renowned live performances did not translate into commercial success for the album, the Yardbirds’ reputation continued to spread. They toured Europe as the backing band for veteran blues performer Sonny Boy Williamson, whose songs they regularly covered. In 1965, an album from that tour was released on both sides of the Atlantic, but Williamson had top billing and the Yardbirds remained hitless.

"For Your Love" Inspired Clapton’s Departure
The fivesome finally hit the charts later in 1965 with the driving single "For Your Love," but the song created strife within the band. written specially for the Yardbirds by Graham Gouldman, later of 10cc, "For Your Love" marked a departure from the group’s focus on the blues. Upset by this sacrifice of their roots for the sake of commercial success, Clapton left. Still, neither he nor the band suffered because of the break; while Clapton went on to join John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers—during his tenure with that group the graffito "Clapton Is God" began appearing on walls around London—and later formed the seminal power trio Cream, the Yardbirds recruited another highly respected local guitarist, Jeff Beck, to take his place, and their fame continued to grow. "For Your Love" hit the Number Three spot on the U.K. singles chart and went to Number Six in the U.S. And in the fall of 1965, the new lineup mounted their first American tour, on the heels of their first American album release, For Your Love, which would only make it to Number 96. Later in the year the Yardbirds became regulars on a celebrated weekly British radio show.

Their next U.S. release, Having a Rave Up With the Yardbirds, debuted in late 1965 and managed to hit Number 53. Four of the cuts on Rave Up were recorded before Clapton’s departure; the rest featured Beck on lead guitar. The album, firmly rooted in blues-based rock, spawned another hit single written by Gouldman, "Heart Full of Soul," which climbed to Number Two in the U.K. and Number Nine stateside. It also featured psychedelic experimentation, evidenced on "Still I’m Sad," a British Number Three hit based on a Gregorian chant. The bands next record, Over Under Sideways Down, moved even further toward psychedelia, both lyrically and in Beck’s innovative guitar work. The title cut was a Top Ten hit in the U.K. and reached Number 11 in America; the single "Shapes of Things" went to Number Three at home and again, to Number 11 in the U.S. The album, however, failed to rise above Number 52 stateside.

Page on Bass, then Rhythm Guitar
By this time the Yardbirds had established themselves as an outstanding rock outfit, but dissension again wrought change; in June of 1966, Samwell-Smith left to give his full attention to producing records. To counter this loss, Dreja switched from rhythm guitar to bass, and Jimmy Page stepped in to assume the role of rhythm guitarist. Already one of the most sought-after session musicians in London, page had turned down an offer to join the band when Clapton bowed out. The next month, the Yardbirds issued their first, self-titled studio album, which ascended to the Number 20 spot on the U.K chart.

Shortly after Page arrived, Beck developed health problems—in April of 1966, according to Rock Movers & Shakers, he was hospitalized in France with suspected meningitis—that forced his extended absence from the band; at that point, the ever-versatile Page took over on lead guitar. When Beck recovered and returned to the group, he and Page shared lead duties—the Yardbirds thus boasting two of the greatest axemen rock has ever seen. Still, Beck and page did have their moments of discord. Page looked pack at their pairing in a 1992 interview in Guitar Player: "I was doing what I was supposed to, while something totally different would be coming from Jeff. That was alright for improvisation, but there were other parts where it just did not work. Jeff had discipline occasionally, in that when he’s on, he’s probably the best there is. But at that time he had no respect for audiences. When I joined the band, he supposedly wasn’t going to walk off anymore. Well, he did a couple of times." Beck left the group in 1966, making the quintet a quartet.

While the Yardbirds continued to play to packed houses, 1967 brought no hit singles in the U.S. Their album of that year, Little Games, consisted mostly of material that the band reportedly never intended to release (in fact, they successfully prevented the release of Little Games in the U.K.); it was received poorly by both critics and the public. But that year also saw the unveiling of The Yardbirds’ Greatest Hits, their first and only album to make Billboard’s Top 40.

Breakup
In 1968 the Yardbirds tried once again to infiltrate the U.S. singles chart, but their goal eluded them. By this time, various members of the band had decided to go their separate ways. Beck left first and, after recording two solo singles, formed the Jeff Beck Group with vocalist Rod Stewart and guitarist Ron Wood. Relf and McCarty performed as a folk duet called Together, then helped form Renaissance, which continued some of the experimentation with various musical styles that they had begun with the Yardbirds. Reif died in 1976 from an electric shock sustained while playing guitar at his home. Dreja, after initially casting his lot with Page, eventually left music for photography. Perhaps the most significant development for rock following the demise of the Yardbirds, however, was the result of contractual obligations for a concert tour of Scandinavia. Page inherited the band’s name and the responsibility for fulfilling the northern dates, so he recruited three other musicians and performed with them as the New Yardbirds. When Page and his new crew—drummer John Bonham, bassist John Paul Jones, and vocalist Robert Plant—returned to England, the New Yardbirds became Led Zeppelin (after Who drummer Keith Moon’s pet description for a catastrophic concert—"going down like a lead Zeppelin").

The five-year life of the Yardbirds weathered major changes in the nature of rock, and more than most bands, the Yardbirds aided in the transformation. As author and rock critic Dave Marsh stated in Rolling Stone, "The Yardbirds helped introduce almost every technical innovation in the rock of the period: feedback, modal playing, fuzztone, etc. Their influence can’t be overestimated. Cream, Led Zeppelin, and heavy metal in general would have been inconceivable without them." And though the Yardbirds did not achieve mass popularity during the British Invasion that carried them to the U.S., their 1992 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame attests to the enduring impact that their songwriting and musicianship has had on the character of rock.

Selected discography

Singles (U.S.); on Epic
"For Your Love," 1965.
"Heart Full of Soul," 1965.
"Over Under Sideways Down," 1966.
"Shapes of Things," 1966.

Albums (U.S.); on Epic, except as noted
Sonny Boy Williamson and the Yardbirds, Mercury, 1965.
For Your Love, 1965.
Having a Rave Up With the Yardbirds, 1965.
Over Under Sideways Down, 1966.
The Yardbirds’ Greatest Hits, 1967.
Little Games, 1967.
Five Live Yardbirds, Rhino, 1988.
The Yardbirds: Little Games Sessions and More, EMI, 1992.

Sources
Books
Logan, Nick, and Woffinden, Bob, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, Harmony, 1977.

Naha, Ed, Liflian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia, Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.
Rees, Dafydd, and Luke Crampton, Rock Movers & Shakers, ABC/OJO, 1991.
The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, edited by Jon Pareles and Patricia Romanowski, Rolling Stone Press/Summit Books, 1983.
Stambler, Irwin, The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul, St. Martin’s, 1989.

Periodicals
Guitar Player, January 1992; November 1992.
Entertainment Weekly, September 18, 1992.
Pulse!, August 1992.
Rolling Stone, February 6, 1992.

• Genres: Jazz

Biography

One of a handful of musicians who can be said to have permanently changed jazz, Charlie Parker was arguably the greatest saxophonist of all time. He could play remarkably fast lines that, if slowed down to half speed, would reveal that every note made sense. "Bird," along with his contemporaries Dizzy Gillespie and Bud Powell, is considered a founder of bebop; in reality he was an intuitive player who simply was expressing himself. Rather than basing his improvisations closely on the melody as was done in swing, he was a master of chordal improvising, creating new melodies that were based on the structure of a song. In fact, Bird wrote several future standards (such as "Anthropology," "Ornithology," "Scrapple from the Apple," and "Ko Ko," along with such blues numbers as "Now's the Time" and "Parker's Mood") that "borrowed" and modernized the chord structures of older tunes. Parker's remarkable technique, fairly original sound, and ability to come up with harmonically advanced phrases that could be both logical and whimsical were highly influential. By 1950, it was impossible to play "modern jazz" with credibility without closely studying Charlie Parker.

Born in Kansas City, KS, Charlie Parker grew up in Kansas City, MO. He first played baritone horn before switching to alto. Parker was so enamored of the rich Kansas City music scene that he dropped out of school when he was 14, even though his musicianship at that point was questionable (with his ideas coming out faster than his fingers could play them). After a few humiliations at jam sessions, Bird worked hard woodshedding over one summer, building up his technique and mastery of the fundamentals. By 1937, when he first joined Jay McShann's Orchestra, he was already a long way toward becoming a major player.

Charlie Parker, who was early on influenced by Lester Young and the sound of Buster Smith, visited New York for the first time in 1939, working as a dishwasher at one point so he could hear Art Tatum play on a nightly basis. He made his recording debut with Jay McShann in 1940, creating remarkable solos with a small group from McShann's orchestra on "Oh, Lady Be Good" and "Honeysuckle Rose." When the McShann big band arrived in New York in 1941, Parker had short solos on a few of their studio blues records, and his broadcasts with the orchestra greatly impressed (and sometimes scared) other musicians who had never heard his ideas before. Parker, who had met and jammed with Dizzy Gillespie for the first time in 1940, had a short stint with Noble Sissle's band in 1942, played tenor with Earl Hines' sadly unrecorded bop band of 1943, and spent a few months in 1944 with Billy Eckstine's orchestra, leaving before that group made their first records. Gillespie was also in the Hines and Eckstine big bands, and the duo became a team starting in late 1944.

Although Charlie Parker recorded with Tiny Grimes' combo in 1944, it was his collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie in 1945 that startled the jazz world. To hear the two virtuosos play rapid unisons on such new songs as "Groovin' High," "Dizzy Atmosphere," "Shaw 'Nuff," "Salt Peanuts," and "Hot House," and then launch into fiery and unpredictable solos could be an upsetting experience for listeners much more familiar with Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Although the new music was evolutionary rather than revolutionary, the recording strike of 1943-1944 resulted in bebop arriving fully formed on records, seemingly out of nowhere.

Unfortunately, Charlie Parker was a heroin addict ever since he was a teenager, and some other musicians who idolized Bird foolishly took up drugs in the hope that it would elevate their playing to his level. When Gillespie and Parker (known as "Diz and Bird") traveled to Los Angeles and were met with a mixture of hostility and indifference (except by younger musicians who listened closely), they decided to return to New York. Impulsively, Parker cashed in his ticket, ended up staying in L.A., and, after some recordings and performances (including a classic version of "Oh, Lady Be Good" with Jazz at the Philharmonic), the lack of drugs (which he combated by drinking an excess of liquor) resulted in a mental breakdown and six months of confinement at the Camarillo State Hospital. Released in January 1947, Parker soon headed back to New York and engaged in some of the most rewarding playing of his career, leading a quintet that included Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter, and Max Roach. Parker, who recorded simultaneously for the Savoy and Dial labels, was in peak form during the 1947-1951 period, visiting Europe in 1949 and 1950, and realizing a lifelong dream to record with strings starting in 1949 when he switched to Norman Granz's Verve label.

But Charlie Parker, due to his drug addiction and chance-taking personality, enjoyed playing with fire too much. In 1951, his cabaret license was revoked in New York (making it difficult for him to play in clubs) and he became increasingly unreliable. Although he could still play at his best when he was inspired (such as at the 1953 Massey Hall concert with Gillespie), Bird was heading downhill. In 1954, he twice attempted suicide before spending time in Bellevue. His health, shaken by a very full if brief life of excesses, gradually declined, and when he died in March 1955 at the age of 34, he could have passed for 64.

Charlie Parker, who was a legendary figure during his lifetime, has if anything grown in stature since his death. Virtually all of his studio recordings are available on CD along with a countless number of radio broadcasts and club appearances. Clint Eastwood put together a well-intentioned if simplified movie about aspects of his life (Bird). Parker's influence, after the rise of John Coltrane, has become more indirect than direct, but jazz would sound a great deal different if Charlie Parker had not existed. The phrase "Bird Lives" (which was scrawled as graffiti after his death) is still very true. ~ Scott Yanow, Rovi

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