Charlie Parker

On July 25, 1936, while he was still a teenager and already into drugs, Charlie Parker married Rebecca Ruffin. They had two children; Francis and Leon. However, the marriage did not last long. He divorced her in 1939 and moved to the New York City.

Later on April 10, 1943, he married Geraldine Marguerite Scott, a dancer. But soon enough, a rift appeared between then and he left her not long after they got married.

Next in 1948, soon after his release from T Camarillo State Hospital at Los Angeles, Charlie Parker married Doris Snydor. However, the marriage too fell apart within a year. Many believe that his second stint with heroin was the result of this break up.

Charlie Parker was born as Charles Christopher Parker Jr. on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City in the state of Kansas. His father, Charles Parker, was a pianist, dancer and singer of African-American ancestry while his mother, Addie Parker, was a charwoman of Native-American origin. Charlie was their only child.

In 1927, when he was seven years old, the family moved to Kansas City in the state of Missouri. Here, Charlie began his education at a public school.

Sometime around 1930-1931, Charles Parker abandoned his family and young Charlie was greatly saddened by the incidence. By now, he had started playing baritone horn at the school band. To cheer him up, his mother now bought him a saxophone.

Later in September 1934, his mother had him enrolled at the Lincoln High School. However, by that time, he had become too engrossed in music to pay much attention to his studies.

While his mother was away, working as a night cleaner, he began to visit the city’s clubs, listening to Lester Young, his saxophone hero. Finally in December 1935, he withdrew from school and joined the local musicians’ union. He was then fifteen years old and already into drugs.

Very soon, Charlie Parker began working at jam sessions with various city bands. Even then, he was much too enthusiastic about improvising and very often, his fingers could not cope with the ideas that flowed in at great speed, resulting in great chaos.

In 1937, while working at a jam session with Count Basie's Orchestra at Reno Club, he tried to improvise but failed miserably, losing track of the chords. Enraged, drummer Joe Jones threw a cymbal at his feet, asking him to leave.

Humiliated, he started practicing earnestly for fifteen hours a day, mastering the fundamentals and building up his techniques. Later in the same year, he joined Buster Smith's band and imbibed much from him.

In 1938, Charlie joined Jay McShann's big band and in 1939 toured New York and Chicago with them. Once the tour ended, Charlie decided to stay back at New York.

In New York, Charlie started his life as a dishwasher at Jimmie's Chicken Shack for nine dollars a week. Art Tatum was a pianist there and Charlie listened to him raptly, imbibing much from his music. Subsequently he started playing at different jam sessions and dime dance halls.

Sometime now, while working at a jam session with Biddy Fleet, he experienced a stylistic breakthrough. He later said that. “By using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes I could play the thing I’d been hearing. I came alive.

He remained in the city for one year and then moved temporarily to Chicago before returning to New York City. Some time now, he came to know that his father had died and therefore, he went back Kansas City for his funeral, remaining there for five months.

At Kansas, he rejoined Jay McShann’s band and in 1941, made his debut record, the ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ with the orchestra. As the band performed in radio quite often, he also became quite popular. It was during this time that he began to be known as ‘Yardbird’.

In 1942, he recorded a few more pieces such as ‘Jumpin’ Blues’, ‘Lonely Boy Blues’ and ‘Sepian Bounce’ with the band. Concurrently, he also started playing at jam sessions at Harlem, where he met Dizzy Gillespie.