Do u guys know anything about charlie parker?!
Question: i need it for a skool project
Answers: i need it for a skool project
Charlie Parker is at the source of the modern style of jazz saxophone.
There had been great sax players before him, most notably Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, but Parker was harmonically and rhythmically on a different level to everyone else around him, at least when he first emerged. Other musicians such as Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie had painstakingly worked out the elements of the style of jazz that would become known as bebop, but they would have agreed that it was Parker who made the style seem natural and inevitable. There are various stories about how he got the nickname 'Bird', but I like to think it's because his best solos have an incredible sense of freedom about them. On most of his records, Parker is just that little bit more free and more relaxed and more confident and powerful than everyone else.
In the 1940s, Parker, Gillespie and Monk, along with other musicians such as pianists Bud Powell, Al Haig and Tadd Dameron, drummer Kenny Clarke, trumpet player Miles Davis, and (to a slightly lesser extent) guitarist Charlie Christian, were the primary founders and creators of bebop, a style of jazz that focused on small group playing and featured more complex harmonies than swing, which had been the dominant kind of jazz up until then.
Bebop was usually played at very fast tempoes, it welcomed dissonance and unusual harmonies, and it placed a high value on instrumental virtuosity, if only because you had to be very good at your instrument in order to play bebop at all.
To this day, most mainstream jazz is distantly descended from bebop but is normally based on hard bop, a slightly simpler and more bluesy and soulful style developed in the 1950s and 60s partly as a reaction against the frenetic speed and harmonic intricacy of bebop.
Parker was a phenomenally gifted musician who was always generous with encouragement and advice to younger musicians, perhaps in response to his own youthful humiliation as a teenager in Kansas City. The story goes that, as an apprentice musician who didn't know much about music, he attempted to jam with some older musicians and when he failed to pick up the cue that they didn't think he was any good and should leave the stage, the drummer (Jo Jones) took off one of his cymbals and threw at at Parker's feet as a more emphatic rejection. Parker was deeply humiliated, and would go on to practice so hard that when he emerged in his 20s as a mature musician, he was the most advanced player in jazz at the time.
The certain thing about Parker's legacy is that, to some extent, all jazz musicians since his early death are living in his shadow. His recordings are still incredibly exciting and his creativity as a player and composer is hard to match. He had a brief and tough life (he was a lifelong user of hard drugs) but he was an immortal musician.
He was one of the leading pioneers of bebop, a style of jazz characterized by rapid tempos and very complex melodies and chord progressions. If you do a web search you should find loads of articles on him.
Charlie Parker was one of the greatest saxophone players to have ever lived. He was born in Kansas City and moved to New York City in the late 1930's. He and Dizzy Gilespie are responsible for taking jazz from swing music (like Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong used to play) to bebop. He and Gilespie collaborated on many songs although never officially formed their own band. Parker's bans featured such jazz greats as Thelonious Monk on piano and Charles Mingus on bass. He was a major influence on John Coltrane, the greatest jazz saxophonist who ever lived. His nickname was "Yardbird" which was later shortened to "Bird". He had a major heroin addiction. He opened a nightclub in the Village called Birdland which is still there today. He died in the late 50's of phenomena worsened by his drug addiction. Clint Eastwood made a movie about his life called "Bird" that came out in the late 80's. You should check it out. I have a poster in my room that has a picture of Charlie Parker. Under the picture it says "Proof, perhaps that Mozart was indeed reincarnated." Tells you all you need to know. Those are the basics as I know them.
Here's a nice safe short bio
http://www.umkc.edu/orgs/kcjazz/jazzfolk...
here's the home page if you cite the site
http://www.umkc.edu/orgs/kcjazz/mainpage...
Nice NPR write up
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...
Yes. I know that he's 1000% better than 100% of what is referred to as "music" these days.
I'm not going to add any bio links because someone has done that and I'm sure they're fine. Go to this link http://www.columbia.edu/cu/wkcr/ and stream the following show (description is from the website):
Bird Flight
(Monday through Friday, 8:20 - 9:30 am)
WKCR's own Phil Schaap, one of the world's leading jazz historians, hosts this daily forum for the music of Charlie Parker. Besides offering a variety of approaches to listening to Bird's music, the show is often an example of scholarship in action, as Phil uncovers and preserves jazz history through countless on-air interviews.
I teach jazz and it will be a great addition to your project if you actually sit down and listen to some of the music as it will help to enhance your knowledge.
Jazz is all about interpretation so I hope you will interpret info as opposed to just copying something down.
If you live in the NYC area you can get the show on 89.9FM
I know that at one time he played a Grafton plastic saxophone.
yes
he died of drugs
He's the 'Bird'...
If you really need it for a school project you should first listen 'Ornithology' and 'Au Privave' for a start.
yip, i agree with the mozart-bird comparison.
i would say that mozart was the best musician ever, living or dead, followed by bird.
getting off the subject: Art Tatum was the best pianist of any style in any era, living or dead.
it seems that the other instruments and skills are more debatable than the above; even though the above could be debatable (but not in my humble opinion)
well i can refer you to who2.com or biography.com they helped me alot.
Byrd was ahead of his time.
He could never keep up with his own head.
you will find all details listed within the answers listed above.
A jazz musician.
Dorian.