Charlie Parker: the 100 most inspiring musicians of all time

Charlie Parker: the 100 most inspiring musicians of all time

American alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader, Charlie Parker (b. Aug. 29, 1920, Kansas City, Kan., U.S.—d. March 12, 1955, New York, N.Y.) was the principal stimulus of the modern jazz idiom known as bebop, and—together with Louis Armstrong and Ornette Coleman—was one of the great revolutionary geniuses in jazz.

charlie parker free sheet music & score pdf

Charlie Parker grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, during the great years of Kansas City jazz, and began playing alto saxophone when he was 13. At 14, he quit school and began performing with youth bands, and at 16 he was married— the first of his four marriages. The most significant of his early stylistic influences were tenor saxophone innovator Lester Young and the advanced swing-era alto saxophonist Buster Smith, in whose band Parker played in 1937.

Parker recorded his first solos as a member of Jay McShann’s band, with whom he toured the eastern United States in 1940–42. It was at this time that his childhood nickname “Yardbird” was shortened to “Bird.” His growing friendship with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie led Parker to develop his new music in avant-garde jam sessions in New York’s Harlem. Bebop grew out of these experiments by Parker, Gillespie, and their adventurous colleagues; the music featured chromatic harmonies and, influenced especially by Parker, small note values and seemingly impulsive rhythms. Parker and Gillespie played in Earl Hines’s swing oriented band and Billy Eckstine’s more modern band.

In 1944, they formed their own small ensemble, the first working bebop group. The next year Parker made a series of classic recordings with Red Norvo, with Gillespie’s quintet (“Salt Peanuts” and “Shaw Nuff ”), and for his own first solo recording session (“Billie’s Bounce,” “Now’s the Time,” and “Koko”). The new music he was espousing aroused controversy, but also attracted a devoted audience. By this time Parker had been addicted to drugs for several years. While working in Los Angeles with Gillespie’s group and others, Parker collapsed in the summer of 1946, suffering from heroin and alcohol addiction, and was confined to a state mental hospital.

Following his release after six months, Parker formed his own quintet, which included trumpeter Miles Davis and drummer Max Roach. He performed regularly in New York City and on tours to major U.S. cities and abroad, played in a Gillespie concert at Carnegie Hall (1947), recorded with Machito’s Afro-Cuban band (1949–50), and toured with the popular Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe (1949). A Broadway nightclub, Birdland, was named after him, and he performed there on opening night in late 1949; Birdland became the most famous of 1950s jazz clubs.

The recordings Parker made for the Savoy and Dial labels in 1945–48 (including the “Koko” session, “Relaxin’ at Camarillo,” “Night in Tunisia,” “Embraceable You,” “Donna Lee,” “Ornithology,” and “Parker’s Mood”) document his greatest period. He had become the model for a generation of young saxophonists. His alto tone was hard and ideally expressive, with a crying edge to his highest tones and little vibrato. One of his most influential innovations was the establishment of eighth notes as the basic units of his phrases. The phrases themselves he broke into irregular lengths and shapes and applied asymmetrical accenting.

Parker’s most popular records, recorded in 1949–50, featured popular song themes and brief improvisations accompanied by a string orchestra. These recordings came at the end of a period of years when his narcotics and alcohol addictions had a less disruptive effect on his creative life. By the early 1950s, however, he had again begun to suffer from the cumulative effects of his excesses; while hospitalized for treatment of an ulcer, he was informed that he would die if he resumed drinking. He was banned from
playing in New York City nightclubs for 15 months. He missed engagements and failed to pay his accompanying musicians, and his unreliability led his booking agency to stop scheduling performances for him. Even Birdland, where he had played regularly, eventually fired him. His two year-old daughter died of pneumonia; his fourth marriage fell apart. He twice attempted suicide and again spent time in a mental hospital.

If Parker’s life was chaotic in the 1950s, he nonetheless retained his creative edge. From roughly 1950 he abandoned his quintet to perform with a succession of usually small, ad hoc jazz groups; on occasion he performed with Latin American bands, big jazz bands (including Stan Kenton’s and Woody Herman’s), or string ensembles. Recording sessions with several quartets and quintets produced such pieces as “Confirmation,” “Chi-Chi,” and “Bloomdido,” easily the equals of his best 1940s sessions. Outstanding performances that were recorded at concerts and in nightclubs also attest to his vigorous creativity during this difficult period. He wanted to study with classical composer Edgard Varèse, but, before the two could collaborate, Parker’s battle with ulcers and cirrhosis of the liver got the better of him.

While visiting his friend Baroness Nica de Koenigswarter, he was persuaded to remain at her home because of his illness; there, a week after his last engagement, he died of a heart attack. The impact of Parker’s tone and technique has already been discussed; his concepts of harmony and melody were equally influential. Rejecting the diatonic scales common to earlier jazz, Parker improvised melodies and composed themes using chromatic scales. Often he played phrases that implied added harmonies or created passages that were only distantly related to his songs’ harmonic foundations (chord changes). Yet for all the tumultuous feelings in his solos, he created flowing melodic lines. At slow tempos as well as fast, his were intense improvisations that communicated complex, often subtle emotions.

The harmonies and inflections of the blues, which he played with passion and imagination, reverberated throughout his improvisations. Altogether, Parker’s lyric art was a virtuoso music resulting from a coordination of nerve, muscle, and intellect that pressed human agility and creativity to their limits.

Jazz sheet music and transcriptions download.

Charlie Parker – The Best of Charlie Parker volume 1

Track List:

1. Cool Blues 00:00 2. No problem 3:34 3. Satan in Hight Heels 12:26 4. What’s Right for you 15:52 5. Montage 19:03 6. Shawnuff 21:15 7. You and The Night and The Music 25:42 8. Cheryl 29:02 9. Lost and Lonely 35:14 10. Sidewinder 38:51 11. Abstract Art 41:12 12. Bongo Bop 44:05 13. Easy Side Drive 48:56 14. Jazz Vendor 51:46

15. Coffee Coffee 56:37 16. Over the rainbow 1:00:06 17. Subway Inn 1:02:25 18. The Hymn 1:06:27 19. All the things you are 1:12:04 20. Communion 1:15:25 21. Lake in the woods 1:21:31 22. The Feeling of Love 1:25:01 23. Bongo Beep 1:32:14 24. From Mundy On 1:36:55 25. Pittfall 1:40:15 26. Impulse 1:43:50 27. Long Knife 1:49:16 28. Melancholy Madeline 1:51:35 29. Stop and Listen 1:54:18 30. Blues For A Stripper 1:59:05 31. Born Again 2:02:30 32. Gabriel 2:08:14

Browse in the Library:

Total Records Found in the Library: 12472, showing 120 per page
Artist or Composer / Score nameCoverList of Contents
The Complete Keyboard Player Book 3 by Kenneth Baker free sheet music download
partitions gratuites Noten spartiti partituras
The Complete Piano Player Book 1 by Kenneth Baker free sheet music & pdf scores download The Complete Piano Player Book 1
The Complete Piano Player Book 2 by Kenneth Baker free sheet music download
partitions gratuites Noten spartiti partituras
The Complete Piano Player Book 4 by Kenneth Baker free sheet music download
partitions gratuites Noten spartiti partituras
The Complete Piano Player Book 5 by Kenneth Baker free sheet music & pdf scores download The Complete Piano Player Book 5
The Complete Piano Player Easy Blues free sheet music pdf The Complete Piano Player Easy Blues
The Complete Piano Player Style Book by Kenneth Baker free sheet music & scores pdf download The Complete Piano Player Style – Book by Kenneth Baker
The Conformist – Main theme (Georges Delerue)
The Contradictions Of Jazz (Studies In Jazz) by Paul Rinzler (Book) free sheet music & scores pdf download
The Corrs – Angel
The Corrs – It’s Easy To Play The Corrs sheet music The Corrs – It’s Easy To Play The Corrs
The Corrs – One Night
The Corrs – Play Guitar With – MP3 audio tracks embedded in PDF Play Along with Tablature sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti Play Guitar With – The Corrs
The Corrs – Runaway
The Cottage on the Beach (Atonement OST) Dario Marianelli
The Country Music Fake Book free sheet music & scores pdf download The Country Music Fake Book
The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach Volume I (1695-1717) sheet music
The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Vol II, 1717-1750 free sheet music pdf
The Cure – The Best Of [Guitar Tablature Songbook] sheet music pdf The Cure – The Best Of [Guitar Tablature Songbook]
The Cure Disintegration(Guitar & Vocal sheet music) with Tablature free sheet music & scores pdf The Cure Disintegration Guitar
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Alexandre Desplat free sheet music pdf The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Alexandre Desplat
The Danish Girl – Fonnesbech (Alexandre Desplat)
The Danish Girl (Alexandre Desplat)
The Day of the Dolphin (Georges Delerue)
The Deer Hunter – Cavatina – Stanley Myers
The Definitive Jazz Collection Alto Saxophone With Chords free sheet music partitura partition noten The Definitive Jazz Collection Alto Saxophone With Chords
The Disappearance Of Hatsune Miku Piano free sheet music & pdf scores download
The Doobie Brothers Long Train Runnin Piano Vocal Guitar chords sheet music download partitions gratuites Noten spartiti partituras
The Doors – Hello I Love You
The Doors – Light My Fire
The Doors – Riders On The Storm
The Doors – Rock Score (band songbook) free sheet music pdf
The Doors Anthology (Guitar & Tablature) free sheet music download
partitions gratuites Noten spartiti partituras The Doors Anthology (Guitar & Tablature)
The Doors Guitar Tablature Anthology sheet music download partitura partition The Doors Guitar Tablature Anthology
The Doors Songbook The Doors songbook free sheet music pdf
The Doors The Music Of The Doors sheet music pdf The Doors The Music Of The Doors
The dream within (Lara Fabian)
The Eagles (Guitar Backing) Jam with – (with MP3 audio tracks to play along) with Tablature sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti The Eagles Jam with
The Ecstasy of Gold (Ennio Morricone)
The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind Title Music free sheet music & scores pdf download
The End Of The World – Skeeter Davis sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti
The End Of The World – Skeeter Davis (Musescore File).mscz
The English Patient – Main Theme (Musescore File).mscz
The English Patient Piano Solo Gabriel Yared sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti noten
The Entertainer (Musescore File).mscz
The European Piano Method Vol. 1 Fritz Emonts free sheet music pdf
The European Piano Method Vol. 2 Fritz Emonts free sheet music pdf
The Evolution Of Jazz Arranging by Fred Sturm (Book) free sheet music & scores pdf
The Evolution Of The Art Of Music Cambridge Librar. (Book) free sheet music & scores pdf
The Exciters – Tell Him
The Exercise Book Guitar Grimoire Series Adam Kadmon Guitar Tablature sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti
The Exorcist Main Theme Piano Solo arr. Robert Miles and Storm Kesocascay The Exorcist Main Theme Piano Solo arr. Robert Miles and Storm Kesocascay cover
The Fantasticks – Celebration – Tom Jones & Schmidt, Harvey The Fantasticks. Celebration – Tom Jones & Schmidt, Harvey
The Fault In Our Stars Songbook Sheet Music Piano Vocal Guitar ree sheet music download
partitions gratuites Noten spartiti The Fault In Our Stars Songbook Sheet Music Piano Vocal Guitar
The First Noel – 17th Century English Carol – Easy Piano Arr. With Lyrics (Musescore File).mscz
The First Principles Of Pianoforte Playing (By Tobias Matthay) (1905) sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti
The Fountain – Lastman – Clint Mansell
The Four Seasons – Vivaldi (Musescore File).mscz
The Four Seasons (Complete) (Musescore File).mscz
The Fray – How To Save A Life
The Fray How to Save a Life free sheet music & score pdf The Fray How to Save a Life
The Freddie Mercury album (Queen) Piano Vocal Guitar sheet music The Freddie Mercury -Album
The Free Music Analysis Anthology by Mark Feezell Book Theory
The Frim Fram sauce by Joe Ricardel and Redd Evans -Jazz Play Along jazz sheet music download The Frim Fram sauceMusic:
The Full Monty (The Musical) – Piano Conductor Score Book by Terrence McNally Music and Lyrics by David Yazbek free score download The Full Monty (The Musical) – Piano Conductor Score
The Fusion Guitar Workbook (Deutsch German) with Tablature free sheet music & scores pdf download
The Genius Of Kurt Weill (1938) free sheet music & scores pdf The Genius Of Kurt Weill (1938)
The Genius Of The Jazz Giants Vol 4 free sheet music & scores pdf The Genius Of The Jazz Giants Vol 4
The Giants Of Jazz Piano sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti noten  The Giants Of Jazz Piano
The Gipsy Jazz Guitar Songbook free sheet music pdf The Gipsy Jazz Guitar Songbook
The Girl From Ipanema (Antonio Carlos Jobim & Vinícius de Moraes) Jazz Piano Solo arr. sheet music free scores download
The Girl From Ipanema (Guitar Tabs) (Musescore File).mscz
The Girl with the Sun in her Hair (John Barry)
The Glorious Ones – I Was Here (Piano vocal) by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty The Glorious Ones – I Was Here (Piano vocal) by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty
The Godfather – Love theme (Nino Rota)
The Godfather – Main Theme
The Godfather 2 – End Title (Nino Rota)
The Godfather Songbook – piano sheet music pdf sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti
The Godfather Theme (Nino Rota)
The Godfather Waltz (Musescore File).mscz
The Godfather Waltz (Nino Rota)
The Golden Era Of Rock And Roll (Piano, vocal and Guitar Chords) sheet music download
partitions gratuites Noten spartiti partituras The Golden Era Of Rock And Roll (Piano, Vocal And Guitar Chords)
The Gravel Road (The Village OST) James Newton Howard
The Great American Movie Songbook (for organ & keyboard) Very easy free sheet music & scores pdf download The Great American Movie Songbook
The Great Composers (By Hezekiah Butterworth) (1884) sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti
The Greatest Love Songs Of The 21st Century sheet music pdf The Greatest Love Songs Of The 21st Century
The Greatest Love Songs Of The 60s The Greatest Love Songs Of The 60s
The Greatest Love Songs Of The 70s sheet music The Greatest Love Songs Of The 70s
The Greatest Love Songs Of The 80s sheet music The Greatest Love Songs Of The 80s
The Greatest Love Songs Of The 90s The Greatest Love Songs Of The 90s
The Greatest Showman Vocal Selections sheet music pdf The Greatest Showman Vocal Selectionsfree sheet music pdf
The Grinch You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch (Easy Solo Piano Arr.) By Dr. Seuss And Albert Hague The Grinch You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch (Easy Solo Piano Arr.) By Dr. Seuss And Albert Hague
The Grinch You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch (Jazzy Solo Piano Arr.) By Dr. Seuss And Albert Hague The Grinch You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch (Jazzy Solo Piano Arr.) By Dr. Seuss And Albert Hague
The Grinch – You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch (Easy Solo Piano Arr.) By Dr. Seuss And Albert Hague (Musescore File).mscz
The Grinch – You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch (Jazzy Solo Piano Arr.) By Dr. Seuss And Albert Hague (Musescore File).mscz
The Guitar Works Of Garoto Vol 1 Guitar Scores free sheet music & scores pdf download The Guitar Works Of Garoto Vol 1 Guitar Scores
The Guitarist’s Scale Book by Peter Fogl with TABs free sheet music & scores pdf
The Hanging Tree Sheet Music (From The Hunger Games Mockingjay, Part 1) (James Newton Howard) sheet music partitura partition noten spartiti
The Harmonious Blacksmith – Gf Händel (Musescore File).mscz
The Harmony Of Bill Evans by Jack Reilly free jazz scores bill evans The Harmony Of Bill Evans (Piano Score)
The Healing – Lady In The Water The Healing – Lady In The Water
The Hill (Marketa Irglova)
The History Of Jazz – Book by Ted Gioia (Oxford Un. Press) free sheet music & scores pdf download
The history of the blues – Koopmans Andy (Book) free sheet music & score pdf
The Hobbit – Song of the lonely mountain (Neil Finn) sheet music pdf The Hobbit song of the lonely mountain
The Horse Whisperer Sheet Music Voice Of God – Thomas Newman
The Horse Whisperer Sheet Music – Montana – Thomas Newman The Horsewisperer – Montana – Thomas Newman
The Horse Whisperer Sheet Music – The Vast Continent – Thomas Newman The Horsewisperer – Montana – Thomas Newman
The Horsewisperer – Montana – Thomas Newman
The Horsewisperer – The Vast Continent – Thomas Newman
The Horsewisperer – Voice Of God – Thomas Newman
The House of the raising Sun – Traditional (Guitarr arr. sheet music) The House of the raising Sun – Traditional (Guitarr arr. sheet music)
The Hundred Best Short Classics Book 2 Cuthbert Whitemore Free Sheet Music The Hundred Best Short Classics Book 2 Cuthbert Whitemore
The Hunger Games – James Newton Howard The Train
The Immigrant – Love theme (The Godfather OST) Nino Rota
The Immigrant (The Godfather OST) Nino Rota
The Imperial March Star Wars Sheet Music For Piano by John Williams free sheet music & pdf scores download The Imperial March Star Wars Sheet Music For Piano
The Improvisation Of Musical Dialogue A Phenomenology Of Music (Bruce Ellis Benson) Book sheet music download partitions gratuites Noten spartiti partituras
The Interpretation Of Piano Music (By Mary Venable) (1913) sheet music score download partitura partition spartiti
The Jazz Piano Book Mark Levine free sheet music jazz piano book
sheet music library

It’s nice to meet you.

Sign up to receive our new posts in your inbox.

This field is required.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.