Ornithology - Charlie Parker

It's not far from Clint Eastwood to Charlie Parker. Mr. Eastwood is a committed Jazz fan, his son Kyle a professional Jazz musician. In 1988 Eastwood produced and directed the film "Bird", dramatising the troubled life and music of Charlie "Bird" Parker, with an awesome Forest Whitaker in the name part.

Charlie Parker. Drawing. Mixed media. 42x29,7cm.

Charlie Parker was one of the most influential musicians in Jazzhistory. His role model drove nearly a whole generation of younger musicians into excessive drug abuse (assuming that it takes heroin to play like Bird); his improvisations, phrasing and harmonic developments revolutionised the stagnating Jazz music of the Swing era. Like his own life, the creation of his famous improvisations and breaks was elusive: „Learn the damn changes to forget them!“, Parker once said.
A creative principle, by the way, which I always recommend to my students (however, they first have to learn...).

To get an impression of Parker's musical power and alto saxophone style: The famous alto break (A Night In Tunisia) + Ornithology .

The Charlie Parker portrait drawing is combining various techniques & media. Pencil, charcoal, ink, chalk, pastel and water color.

The best Jazz concert ever (against all odds)
Many Jazz enthusiasts consider the 1953 concert at Massey Hall (Toronto, Canada) the best live event in Jazz history. All leading musicians of the time gathered together: Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Charles Mingus and Max Roach - in front of almost no audience. At the same time the world boxing heavyweight championship between Rocky Marciano and Jersey Joe Walcott was broadcasted - and back then, a heavyweight championship still counted for something.

Charlie Parker, Sketch on wrapping paper

The external preconditions really were disadvantageous: Original bassist Oscar Pettiford broke his arm and was instantly replaced by Charles Mingus (an adequate replacement for sure), Pianist Bud Powell was just recently released from a sanatorium undergoing electric shock therapy and already seriously drunk before the concert even started. Charlie Parker, in terrible physical condition, had mortgaged his own instrument and loaned a white plastic horn from a local music store.

The performance of all musicians and the sound of the plastic sax were brilliant though, and the record from Massey Hall, as the story goes, inspired years later the young, unorthodox Ornette Coleman deliberately to choose a white plastic saxophone as the main means of artistic expression.
But probably, he was just broke.