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Charlie Parker, Ballade

Charlie Parker, Kim

Charlie Parker, Starvation blues

Charlie Parker, Toby

Charlie Parker, Yardbird suite

Charlie Parker, Baby Look At You

Billie Holiday/Lester Young, Fine and Mellow

Benny Goodman/James Mundy/Charlie Christian, Air Mail Special

Charlie Parker, Bird of Paradise

George Gershwin/Ira Gershwin, Oh, Lady Be Good!

Charlie Parker, Swingmatism

Thelonious Monk, Blue Monk

Charlie Parker, Shaw Nuff

Charlie Parker, Au privave

Charlie Parker, Koko

Dizzy Gillespie, A Night in Tunisia

Roger Ramirez, Lover Man

Charlie Parker, Scrapple from the apple

Dizzy Gillespie/Gil Fuller, Things to Come

Charlie Parker, Bloomdido

John Klenner/Sam M.Lewis, Just Friends

Tadd Dameron/Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Hot House

Charlie Parker, Anthropology

Johnny Hodges, Funky Blues

Charlie Parker, Variations On Embraceable You

Charlie Parker, Parker’s mood

Charlie Parker, Confirmation

Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker

Masters of American Music

Jazz
Subscribers

Cast

Charlie Parker

Dizzy Gillespie

Roy Haynes

Jay McShann

Chan Parker

Rebecca Parker Davis

Frank Morgan

Program notes

The flagship release in the Masters of American Music Series, Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker was the first and only authorized documentary about one of the great legends in American music. A virtuoso saxophonist, Parker—nicknamed Bird—created a new style of jazz before his death at 34, and won equal fame as the king of the hipsters. In film clips, photos and interviews with his associates, Parker's life is traced from Kansas City, Kansas, where he was born in 1920 to his ascendancy as a pioneer in the New York jazz scene of the 1950s.

Celebrating Bird is the story of a musical era. It shows how the Swing Era gave way to bebop, and how Parker used the traditions of jazz to fashion a startling and innovative music.

Celebrating Bird is a revealing look at an enigmatic yet endlessly appealing man, who soared to the heights of creative freedom but couldn't beat a lifelong addiction to heroin. It includes his only surviving TV appearance (with Dizzy Gillespie, playing Hot House); rarely seen silent footage by famous Life photographer Gjon Mili; and a treasury of film clips, featuring Billy Eckstine, Count Basie, Art Tatum, Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Kenny Clarke, Lucky Thompson, Lester Young, among others. The exciting soundtrack consists of many of Parker's finest recordings.

Parker's childhood sweetheart and first wife, Rebecca Parker Davis, is interviewed for the first time on camera, along with Jay McShann, the bandleader who brought Parker out of Kansas City; Dizzy Gillespie, with whom he created the new jazz; Chan Parker, his companion during his last years; drummers Roy Haynes and Roy Porter; critic Leonard Feather; and saxophonist Frank Morgan.
Hear Ballade, Yardbird Suite, Relaxin' at Camarillo, Just Friends, Koko (rare 1947 concert recording), Confirmation, Au Privave, Kim, Bloomdido and more.

Writer: Gary Giddins

Program: © Multiprises, LLC

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