Charlie Parker ‘changed the language of jazz.’ Learn about his legacy with local events.

If you’re not yet a fan of jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker, spend a few minutes with UNC Charlotte professor Will Campbell.

“His virtuosic approach to the saxophone was unmatched,” Campbell said. “The great jazz bass player Ray Brown once told me there were people who played jazz really well, people who played the blues really well and people who had wonderful tone on their instrument. But Charlie Parker did it all — and he did it better than anyone else.”

Campbell wasn’t about to let the 100th anniversary of Parker’s birth go uncelebrated. COVID-19 postponed the party — but it didn’t cancel it.

“August 2020 would have been his 100th birthday,” Campbell said of the jazz legend, who died in 1955 at age 34. “But last fall, no one could do much of anything.

“I was supposed to be a part of a concert with an ensemble I play with in the area (Piedmont Triad Jazz Orchestra) and that had to be indefinitely postponed due to COVID,” he said. We were going to celebrate the lives of Charlie Parker and Dave Brubeck, who both would have turned 100 last year.”

“I’m an alto saxophone player, which is what Charlie Parker played,” Campbell added. “And, he’s very near and dear to me. After possibly Louis Armstrong, he’s the most influential jazz artist in the history of music.”

Charlie Parker 101

Campbell took the idea of a tribute concert to his department chair, Joseph Skillen. Campbell wanted to recreate “Charlie Parker with Strings,” one of “Bird’s” most popular recordings and one that was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

“It’s not easy,” Campbell said. “Using string musicians in a jazz context is not typically done.”

But Skillen suggested more than a concert. He wanted a multifaceted, months-long celebration of Charlie Parker. “After missing the centennial, it came to mind that we could title it Charlie Parker 101 and give it a college course flavor,” Campbell said.

The course kicked off Aug. 30 with Grammy-winning saxophonist Branford Marsalis at UNC Charlotte’s campus, teaching a master class on Parker and leading a public conversation that evening.

Campbell has known Marsalis — originally from New Orleans and now of Durham — for three decades through his guitarist brother, Jeffrey (who, along with Marsalis, played in Sting’s band).

Even Parkerphiles like Campbell and Lonnie Davis, president, CEO and co-founder of Jazz Arts Charlotte and a partner in bringing Charlie Parker 101 to life, learned something from Marsalis.

“Branford stressed the early part of Parker’s career and the influence that growing up in Kansas City had on his musicianship,” Campbell said.

“Parker had the benefit of living in a city that, at the time — in the ’30s and early ’40s, especially — was a breeding ground for great music, and it was largely due to the fact that Tom Pendergast, Kansas City’s mayor, led a corrupt administration. Alcohol was readily available, as were many other vices.

“Where you have these sorts of vice opportunities, there’s a need for music,” he said. “Kansas City had a district that was a huge center for jazz. Even musicians from New York relocated to Kansas City — most notably Count Basie, who grew up in New Jersey.

“As a teenager, Charlie Parker would sneak out at night and go down to the clubs and listen to these people play, and it had a tremendous effect on his musicianship.”

Class is in session

Why are people still talking about — and celebrating — Parker, 101 years after his birth?

“He changed the language of jazz. He made it very much his vocabulary, and that’s a vocabulary we still use today,” Campbell said.

Parker was one of the founders of the Bebop style of jazz. Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell were other bebop musicians, but Parker is considered by many to be first among equals.

Bebop introduced much more complex harmonies than had previously been heard, Davis said: “It sounds very complex, and it actually is.” Fast tempos, musical virtuosity and improv, rather than set harmonic structures, are characteristic of the Bebop style.

Parker was also a prolific composer. “He was composing all the time when he was improvising,” Campbell said. “He wasn’t primarily a pen-to-paper composer, but his improvised solos are still worthy of analysis and imitation by jazz musicians.”

The saxophonist basically wrote the book on jazz.

“It doesn’t matter what instrument you play, every jazz musician, at one time or another, has picked up the Omnibook,” Davis said. “It’s literally a transcription of Charlie Parker’s recorded solos. And we, as jazz musicians and educators, think that book is so important because there’s so much language in it. If you can just grab a little bit of that vocabulary and incorporate it into your own sound, you can grow by leaps and bounds.”

A life cut short

Parker got his nickname, “Yardbird” — which is generally shortened to “Bird” — while traveling with the Jay McShann Orchestra when their vehicle accidentally struck a chicken at night out in the country, Campbell said.

“Back then, Black musicians couldn’t stay in all-white hotels,” he said. “They stayed with Black families. The story goes that Charlie told Jay McShann, ‘Stop and get that yardbird.’ They took the dead chicken to the family they were staying with. They cooked it for him, and he ate the whole thing himself.”

The musician struggled with alcohol and drugs throughout much of his life. He began taking painkillers for a broken spine as a young man. “Eventually, he’d abused his body so much that it just gave out,” Campbell said. “You could certainly say that a lack of decent health care at that time didn’t help, so he resorted to using illicit drugs for pain management.”

“I’m concerned that when we talk about Charlie Parker, we way too quickly talk about his addiction to drugs and alcohol,” he added.

“There are a lot of musicians throughout history who have struggled with substance abuse, but we don’t always make that a primary point when we talk about them,” Campbell said. “We do that about Charlie Parker too often — and granted, he had a very serious problem — but his genius far, far outweighs any personal shortcomings.”

Charlie Parker 101 events

Check out all the Charlie Parker 101 events at UNC Charlotte’s webpage. The programs include:

• “Life of Bird” on Mondays through Oct. 18. The four-week, interactive online course is offered by The Jazz Room and UNC Charlotte and is taught by UNC Charlotte musicologist Kelsey Klotz.

• UNC Charlotte Jazz Ensemble and Combos, 7:30 p.m., Nov. 22. Belk Theater at UNC Charlotte.

• “Charlie Parker: Reverberations,” Jan. 12, 2022. The event, presented in partnership with the Harvey B. Gantt Center of African-American Arts + Culture, will explore the intersections of jazz and art, architecture, urban design and literature and will include live music, spoken-word performance and a panel conversation.

• THE JAZZ ROOM: “Bird Lives!,” Jan. 14 and 15, 2022. The performance will feature Campbell.

• “Charlie Parker with Strings,” March 3, 2022. The performance at Central Piedmont Community College’s Halton Theater will feature student ensembles from UNC Charlotte and CPCC.

• Spoken word artist/storyteller Hannah Hasan was commissioned to compose a piece for the project and will perform it at multiple events in 2022.
  
  

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