Bird Lives - The High Life And Hard Times Of Charlie Yardbird Parker

Jazz is a curious business. While ordinary musicians are generally expected to play the notes in front of them, the truly great ones have a habit of inventing entirely new notes, rearranging the rules and leaving everybody else wondering whether they have been practising the wrong instrument. Charlie Parker, universally known as Bird or Yardbird, took this tendency to such extraordinary heights that he effectively helped reinvent modern jazz, although his personal life was rather less successfully organised.

Bird Lives: The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie Yardbird Parker (1973), by Ross Russell and published by Quartet, is a vivid, turbulent and frequently astonishing biography of one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century.

Born in Kansas City in 1920, Parker emerged from the vibrant American jazz scene with an extraordinary talent for improvisation, harmonic invention and playing the alto saxophone at speeds that might reasonably have required official permission. Alongside Dizzy Gillespie and other pioneering musicians, he helped develop bebop, a revolutionary musical style that transformed jazz from popular dance entertainment into something considerably more adventurous, intellectually demanding and occasionally bewildering to anyone expecting a straightforward tune.

Parker’s playing was electrifying. His improvisations seemed to defy conventional musical logic, combining dazzling technical brilliance with emotional intensity and an almost supernatural instinct for melody. Fellow musicians admired him, audiences were astonished by him, and aspiring saxophonists discovered that attempting to imitate him could become a rather discouraging occupation.

Unfortunately, extraordinary musical genius does not automatically confer the ability to manage money, relationships, health or everyday responsibilities. Parker’s life was marked by addiction, financial instability, personal tragedy and the relentless pressures of performing in an industry that was not particularly famous for looking after its most vulnerable talents.

Ross Russell, who knew Parker and recorded him for his Dial label, was unusually well placed to describe this remarkable world. His account captures the excitement of the bebop revolution, the atmosphere of jazz clubs and recording studios, and the complicated personality of a musician whose artistic achievements were frequently accompanied by personal disaster.

The book is filled with the colourful characters, restless creativity and sometimes chaotic circumstances of American jazz during its most innovative years. Parker emerges as a figure of extraordinary brilliance and profound vulnerability, capable of creating music that would influence generations while struggling with the practical requirements of staying alive.

He died in 1955 at just thirty-four, leaving behind a musical legacy of almost incalculable importance. The famous declaration that ’Bird Lives’ became both a tribute to his genius and an assertion that great art can endure long after its creator has departed.

Condition: Good. This 1973 Quartet edition is a previously owned copy showing ordinary signs of age, reading and handling, but remains ready to introduce another reader to the extraordinary life behind the music.

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where we appreciate musical genius, admire inspired improvisation and generally prefer our own financial arrangements to be conducted with rather more predictability than those of the average bebop musician.

An absorbing, colourful and occasionally heartbreaking biography for jazz enthusiasts, music historians and anyone fascinated by the uncomfortable relationship between extraordinary talent and ordinary human frailty. Proof that some people can change the entire course of music while finding everyday life almost impossibly difficult to negotiate.

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