The Life and Music of Charlie Parker

Saxophone virtuoso Charlie "Bird" Parker began playing professionally in his early teens, became a heroin addict at 16, changed the course of music, and then died when only 34 years old. His friend Robert Reisner observed, "Parker, in the brief span of his life, crowded more living into it than any other human being." Like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and John Coltrane, he was a transitional composer and improviser who ushered in a new era of jazz by pioneering bebop and influenced subsequent generations of musicians.

Meticulously researched and written, Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker tells the story of his life, music, and career. This new biography artfully weaves together firsthand accounts from those who knew him with new information about his life and career to create a compelling narrative portrait of a tragic genius.

While other books about Parker have focused primarily on his music and recordings, this portrait reveals the troubled man behind the music, illustrating how his addictions and struggles with mental health affected his life and career. He was alternatively generous and miserly; a loving husband and father at home but an incorrigible philanderer on the road; and a chronic addict who lectured younger musicians about the dangers of drugs. The preeminent hipster, he used his considerable charm to con friends and strangers alike. Above all he was a musician who overcame humiliation, disappointment, and a life-threatening car wreck to take wing as Bird, a brilliant improviser and composer.

With in-depth research into previously overlooked sources, Chuck Haddix corrects much of the misinformation and myth about one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century. Illustrated with several never-before-seen images, Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker chronicles Parker's trials and triumphs: his struggles in Kansas City; his collaboration with Dizzy Gillespie that led to the development of bebop; his incarceration in the California State Mental Hospital at Camarillo; his rise to international acclaim; his stormy relationship with his fourth wife Chan; the death of his daughter Pree; and his untimely death from a life of excess. This is the story of Charlie "Bird" Parker.


Author: Chuck Haddix
Pub Date: September 2013
Pages: 224 pages
Dimensions: 6 x 9 in.
Illustrations: 16 black & white photographs
Series: Music in American Life

Read more: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/66xkc6nx9780252037917.html