Milestones Of A Jazz Legend: Bird 100 – Charlie Parker

‘Bird lives!’ — musically that is, and especially now around his 100th birthday. 2020 finds the Jazz world full of tributes to the Bebop pioneer, who died in New York at only 24 years of age in 1955. This goes to show the ongoing influence of Charles Parker Jr., better known as Charlie Parker or Bird, on Jazz music and especially the alto saxophone. As a dazzlingly fast virtuoso, Parker introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas into Jazz. With a truly original tone that ranged from biting to melancholy, the man from Kansas City could have easily earned the nickname ‘Bird’ for the quality of his horn playing most likely it had to do with his appetite for chicken. Still, the feathered creatures inspired many of the titles of Parker’s compositions, such as ‘0rnitholoqy’, ‘Yardbird Suite’, ‘Bird of Paradise’, ‘Bird Feathers’, ‘Chasin’The Bird’, or ‘Bird Gets the Worm’. An icon for the hipster subculture oft he 1940s and later the Beat Generation, Parker epitomized the Jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and innovator.

This 10 CD box set celebrates Charlie Parker and his timeless music on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2020 — with his essential, original recordings, featurin such friends and colleaques as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Lucky Thompson, Dodo Marmarosa, Dexter Gordon, Erroll Garner, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Ben Webster, Oscar Peterson, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Dorham, and Charlie Mingus.

Featuring Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Lucky Thompson, Dodo Marmarosa, Dexter Gordon, Erroll Garner, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Ben Webster, Oscar Peterson, Thelonious Monk, Kenny Dorham, and Charlie Mingus.