Charlie Parker's Swing Jazz

By the 1940s, most of the jazz music scene was Swing Jazz, it was classically structured harmonies, commercialized big bands and it had limited room for improvisation; most of the bands at the time were limited in uniqueness. Such a borderline bland music scene proved fertile ground for Bebop, but what started as a musical form unknown, or at least not meant to be known, by the public, played in afterhours of nightclubs, was revolutionized by the alto-sax player, Charlie Parker. Despite his short life, his contributions to jazz and bebop persist to this day. Charlie Christopher Parker Jr. was born on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, Kansas, to Charles and Addie Parker, both of whom worked nighttime jobs, while Parker went to school (Megill, …show more content…
After hours, Gillespie and Parker would develop their skills and eventually collaborate to create Bebop, replacing the simple melodies of the big bands with complicated rhythms, as well as creating higher tempos for their music (Verity, New York City), this would lead them to perform a six-week tour in Los Angeles, where Parker would remain until 1946 (Bio.com, Creating Bebop). Parker’s work with Gillespie produced his influential recording “Koko” in 1945 (Megill, 159). That same year, Parker began showing signs of narcotic addiction, requiring mental hospitalization after he ruined a recording session and burnt his hotel room (Megill, 159). He was committed to Camarillo State Hospital for the mentally disordered, where he remained until 1947, when he moved back to New York (Bio.com, Creating Bebop). Despite this setback, Parker came out with several popular solos and recordings, forming groups with acclaimed musicians, such as Miles Davis and Max Roach, and set out for the most productive years of his life from 1947 to 1950 (Megill, 159), he toured all of Europe and New York (Verity, Relapse), he recorded for Dial, Savoy Records and …show more content…
In 1954, his two-year-old daughter died, leading Parker to attempt suicide by ingesting iodine, though this failed, he still suffered from drug-use and depression and, by this time, his career was effectively over (Verity, Relapse). That same year, he attempted suicide again, this time with iodine and aspirin, after a disastrous concert at Birdland Club (Megill, 159) and, a year later, he died in 1955, at the age of thirty-four, from lobar pneumonia (Bio.com, Heroin Addiction and Death). However controversial Charlie Parker’s personal life was, it cannot be denied that his contributions to jazz are felt to this day, Parker invigorated young musicians, much to the dismay of older ones and helped bring about a new style of jazz, after years of blandness and commonness from the big bands. In his short, two-decades long career, he created bebop, released a myriad of popular solos and worked with some of the most influential jazz musicians of the time. The result was a return to the original roots of jazz and the reassertion of jazz as an