Carnival of Soul

Today marks the centennial of the birth of jazz great Charlie Parker, an event that is being celebrated nationwide in a wide variety of ways.

If jazz history can be divided into two epochs — danceable swing and improvisational bebop — then Charlie Parker is the fault line. During his brief but remarkable career, the alto saxophonist nicknamed “Bird” gave jazz lightning tempos, mind-bending chord substitutions and previously unexplored harmonic depth, paving the way for hard bop, free jazz, fusion and everything that came after. Miles Davis summed up his accomplishments: “You can tell the history of jazz in four words. Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker.” 

Parker, who died in 1955 at 34, was a meteoric musician who burned bright, though briefly. His legacy more than lives on, it’s jazz scripture. Jack Kerouac called him “as important as Beethoven.” Four of his recordings were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and, in 1974, he was awarded a posthumous Grammy for best performance by a soloist on “First Recordings.”

In 1988, the Clint Eastwood-directed biopic Bird was released, while the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in his honor in 1995.

The first installment of this year’s socially distanced, three-day Record Store Day falls today, and Bird aficionados can buy a reissue of Jazz at Midnite on midnight blue vinyl. The album documents performances recorded live in 1952 and 1953 at the Howard Theatre in Washington, D.C. featuring band members Max Roach, Charlie Byrd, Zoot Sims and others.

Because of the pandemic, many events planned to celebrate Parker have taken new forms. 

City Parks Foundation’s annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival in New York has shifted to a digital series, featuring events taking place today and previously. Drummer and historian Jerome Jennings hosted a recent Q&A session with Erika Elliott, executive artistic director of the foundation’s SummerStage Performing Arts Festival and Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, and Sam Turvey, co-founder of the Parker festival, who discussed the festival’s history and relevance in New York’s culture scene, as well as the legacy of Bird in his centennial year.

92Y, also in New York, is marking Parker’s centennial with a multi-disciplinary celebration, through today, featuring 24 hours of special events. Highlighting multiple facets of Parker’s genius and its profound influence on jazz and beyond, this celebration includes a screening of Eastwood’s biopic, Bird; a conversation-with-music led by Celebrating Bird author Gary Giddins and featuring saxophone greats Joe Lovano, Charles McPherson, Grace Kelly and Antonio Hart; a listening party of essential Parker recordings; and the premiere of a specially commissioned dance film directed and choreographed by former Alvin Ailey dancer Hope Boykin..

Spotlight 2020: Charlie Parker, a celebration of his life and music, is taking place through August online and at various venues around Kansas City, Mo., Parker’s birthplace.  KC Jazz ALIVE, University of Missouri-Kansas City, the American Jazz Museum, KC Bier Co, Kansas City Museum, Bruce R. Watkins Cultural Heritage Center and numerous other cultural and civic organizations have partnered to host jam sessions, tours, lectures, exhibits, panel discussions, poetry readings, workshops and concerts celebrating native son Parker. 

This fall, Parker’s longtime label Verve Records will offer an illuminating new perspective on a previously underexamined chapter of Parker’s life with a new collection titled Bird In LA, featuring unreleased songs recorded during Bird’s storied visits to Los Angeles in the mid 1940’s through the early 1950’s.

And in conjunction with Bird In LA,Z2 Comics will release the graphic novel, Chasin’ The Bird: Charlie Parker In California. This will chronicle the story of Bird’s time in Los Angeles starting in December 1945, when Dizzy Gillespie and Bird brought frenetic sounds of bebop from the East Coast jazz underground to the West Coast for a two-month residency at Billy Berg’s Hollywood jazz club. This marked the beginning of a tumultuous two years for Bird, bumming around LA, showing up at jam sessions, crashing on people’s couches, wreaking havoc in public places and recording some of his most groundbreaking tracks, including “A Night in Tunisia” and “Ornithology,” as well as “Relaxin’ At Camarillo,” inspired by his stay at the Camarillo State Mental Hospital.