Caption: Charlie "Yardbird" Parker, Credit: Getty Images
Image by: Getty Images 
Charlie "Yardbird" Parker 

Charlie Parker: 'Bird Lives!' Part 1

From: NPR Music
Series: Jazz Profiles
Length: 54:00

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It's safe to say that without Charlie Parker, the music we now call bebop might never have existed. In the first of a two-part Jazz Profiles, we explore Parker's formative years and his arrival in New York. Read the full description.

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It's safe to say that without Charlie Parker, the music we now call bebop might never have existed. While other musicians in New York — Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell among them — were creating the musical building blocks that would later become part of bebop, it was Parker's innovative phrasing on alto saxophone that provided the glue that brought it all together as a new jazz revolution. In the first of a two-part Jazz Profiles, we explore Parker's formative years and his arrival in New York.

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Piece Description

It's safe to say that without Charlie Parker, the music we now call bebop might never have existed. While other musicians in New York — Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell among them — were creating the musical building blocks that would later become part of bebop, it was Parker's innovative phrasing on alto saxophone that provided the glue that brought it all together as a new jazz revolution. In the first of a two-part Jazz Profiles, we explore Parker's formative years and his arrival in New York.

Timing and Cues

Show
00:00 IC: Support for...
29:07 OC: ...National Public Radio.
29:08 Music Break (:30)
29:38 IC: When the Eckstine band...
53:59 OC: ...National Public Radio.