Modern Jazz Archive

Charlie Parker was one of the true giants of American music. A brilliant alto-saxophonist who could play perfectly coherent solos at a blinding speed, Parker (who was known as Bird) had a beautiful and bluish sound, a harmonically adventurous style, and scores of ideas and phrases that became the standard vocabulary of modern jazz.

Parker, who was born in 1920, packed a great deal of living in his 34 years before his premature death in 1955. He was part of the Kansas City jazz scene, worked with Jay McShann's orchestra starting in 1939, and met trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie with whom he is grouped as one of the co-founders of bebop. Parker had stints with the big bands of Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine before revolutionizing jazz with Gillespie in 1945. Bird's recordings for Savoy and Dial during 1945-48 permanently changed jazz.

Parker's two-CD set in the Modern Jazz Archive series is from the second half of his career, 1949-54. Bird is heard in many different settings including combos, with strings, guesting with the 1949 Metronome All-Stars, matching wits with fellow altoists Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter on the lengthy Funky Blues, having a reunion with Gillespie, being backed by Latin rhythms, and playing with a big band. Among the gems are his famous recordings of K.C. Blues, Just Friends, Au Privave, Star Eyes, Bloomdido, My Little Suede Shoes, Blues for Alice and Confirmation.

Overall, this twofer contains some of the greatest recordings from Charlie Parker's career, giving quite a bit of evidence of his innovative brilliance.

—Scott Yanow