The Lyrical Flight of Charlie Parker: From Kansas City Jazz Scenes to Immortal Echoes

Embark on a soulful voyage through the highs and lows of Charlie Parker's life, a narrative as intricate as his legendary jazz improvisations. As I, Harriet, pour a glass of Zinfandel, I invite you to join me in honoring the man behind the saxophone, an enigma who transformed the jazz world with pure genius yet wrestled with demons that threatened to silence his music forever.

In our latest episode, we unravel the complexities of Parker's life, from his self-taught roots in the throbbing heart of Kansas City's jazz scene to his rise among the pantheon of music greats in Chicago and New York. We'll explore the shadows cast by his addiction, the bittersweet symphony of his personal sacrifices for music, and the poignant moments shared with icons like Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis. Feel the rhythm of his story and the beat of his heartache as we delve into the profound impact of his daughter's loss on his psyche and his relentless pursuit of a sound that still echoes through the corridors of jazz history.

As the melodies of our journey with "Bird" fade, we stand at his final resting place in Kansas City, reflecting on the controversy that lingered even in his death. The episode culminates with a heartfelt tribute to his musical legacy, setting the stage for our next exploration into the ephemeral genius of John Coltrane. Tune in for an intimate session where the life of Charlie Parker unfolds, a testament to the enduring spirit of jazz and the indomitable will of its champions.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Hello everybody, harriet, with the More Wine and Music podcast, the podcast where I discuss different types of genre of music over a glass of wine. Tonight I'm going to be drinking some Ziffendale. And welcome to season two, episode number nine. I want to give people an opportunity to come on in. Come on in. I want to give people an opportunity to come on in. Come on in. I'm also on Facebook Live, so I'm going to be looking at both screens here laptop and also phone. So if you will come on in, okay, okay, this episode is brought to you by the More Hair Products and skincare products, fashion, and I also have two different podcasts. So if you will hit that like on anybody on Facebook, please hit that like and share. Share the video. Share the video. Share the video. And also, I wanted to talk about the sale that I have going on on the more online mall. Um, I'm having a 25 off. Actually, the sale ends today. Um, if you go online, I'm going to post it. Um, go online on more shopping co. You can get 25 off on all products. That includes T-shirts and other accessories. Just use the code SUMMER25. Okay, all right. So enough of the commercial.

Speaker 1: 2:38

This week I'm going to be talking about a well-known but lesser known but also well-known musician, one of the greatest innovative saxophone player in the jazz genre, and this one will be longer than the usual five minutes because there's a lot to talk about. As far as this individual and his name is Charlie Parker, also known. His nickname was Yardbird or Bird, so but we're going to start off going back to his earlier years, before he became more known as Bird. Charles Christopher Parker Jr was born on August 29th of 1920. His mother was named Addie Boldly and she was a maid and she part African-American and part Native American. She had Choctaw ancestry. His father was Charles Parker Sr and he was an entertainer, but later he became a pullman, which was worked on the railroad as a more or less like a waiter on the trains. So that's basically what Pullman's job was.

Speaker 1: 4:19

By the time they became older, actually, charlie Parker was the only child between Addie and Charles Sr. So at the age of seven the parents he and the parents and his parents moved to Kansas City Missouri and you know, back then Kansas City Missouri was the up-and-coming jazz scene. So he was basically moved in the right place to learn and become a lover of jazz. He did take some lessons, but he was basically more self-taught than anything. He started off playing the baritone horn but then after a while he became a lover of the saxophone. So he started to self-taught himself and to playing the alto saxophone. And if anybody who knows how the sound of the alto sax, it does have a rich, deep sound. To give an example, I think let's see Boney James. He plays Anybody who knows, anybody who's into the jazz, contemporary jazz. Now Boney knows anybody who's into the jazz, contemporary jazz. Now Boney James, I believe, plays the alto saxophone. So it's that rich, deep sound.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Okay, by the time he became 15 years old, for some, whatever reason, like I said, his father, charles Senior, worked as a pullman and he eventually, whatever reason, his parents split up and his father left him young, charlie and his mother. So it was just those two, just those two. But Charlie he went to school, but then he dropped out at the age of 16. And by 16, he was married and had a young son. His wife was named Rebecca Rebecca Ruffin, I think they were. They were actually neighbors, they were kids together. But so as they grew up as kids, they were young teenagers. So they decided to get married. Like I said her last name was Ruffin, don't know, I don't think it was any relation to David Ruffin. Okay, so just just saying Okay.

Speaker 1: 7:08

So he got married at age 16, dropped out of school, got married at 16, had a son. So obviously he had a family to to support. So he came again. He became good at what he his love of music in the saxophone, as being a saxophone player. So he went out and played among the scene. He kind of got himself acclimated on the jazz scene in Kansas City, missouri, and he started hanging out in the nightclubs and that's how he began to get his gigs and his performance and at that time as a young teenager, impressionable. I can imagine. It doesn't say exactly how. It doesn't say exactly how, but I'm assuming, you know, as most musicians did back then, when you're in that particular scene, he started to dabble into drugs. So he started, you know, was taking drugs at an early age.

Speaker 1: 8:25

By the time he was 18, charlie left Kansas City and went to Chicago. In the meantime Rebecca, his wife Rebecca and his son stayed in Kansas. They didn't, they never traveled with him. He was out on the road on his own with, you know, bands hooking up. He was hooking up with different types of, you know, bands through here and there bands hooking up with different types of bands here and there. He made it to Chicago. He stayed there for a little while and then he went onward up to New York. While in New York, he went to Harlem While waiting for some work as far as playing, he took a job as a dishwasher for a Harlem restaurant and it was there while playing and you know, here and there, but still working as a dish player, but still working as a dish player, he ran upon and met one another famous jazz musician who was one of the great jazz pianists, and that was Art Tatum.

Speaker 1: 9:46

Art Tatum, if everybody, if anybody, knows who he is, he was a innovator as far as playing. He had a different style of playing, and so Charlie met with him and he kind of gravitated to Art Tatum and basically Art Tatum was the one who got him into more of the start, getting him some more gigs to play, and by the time he started getting a little more popular, he decided to join the band with a guy who the band leader called. His name was Jay McShan, and that is kind of the start of him becoming more and more popular. And this is where it gets interesting, because with the Jay McShann band, obviously they would have to travel and they would be on the road a lot. So the interesting part of how he got his nickname was this this is how the story went. Interesting part of how he got his nickname was this this is how the story went One day when the band was traveling onto their next gig, their next destination, they were three cars in tow.

Speaker 1: 10:56

That was part of the band that was traveling. They were traveling on a road A lot of times. I don't know if they were heading down south or wherever, but whatever, it was on a back country road and they would pass by residential houses and back then, especially if you're talking about the country, you think about farms. So the house, one of the particular house that the entourage would pass by, it was a house in the yard was full of chickens, so it must've been some kind of farmhouse or whatever. And just as the car, the vehicle that Charlie was in, because Jay, jay Michin was in one car and Charlie was traveling behind in another car, and it was another car, probably behind Charles, charlie, but as the car was passing where Jay was, I'm sorry, where Charlie was riding in, a chicken just happened to come out of the yard and went on the road where the car was passing and the car inevitably hit the poor bird. So the car kept going, you know, but Charlie told the driver, hold on, you know, turn back around and pick up that bird, go get the bird. I don't want the bird on, you know, laying there on the on the road there, you know he's, he's dead. So the driver went back, picked up the bird and the bird and he and Charles, instead of burying the uh, the yard bird, he carried it to the next destination.

Speaker 1: 12:45

And back then, as everybody knows, it was during segregation, it was during the Jim Crow, and Blacks could not stay in various hotels. It didn't matter whether they were musicians or what, and most of the time a lot of the musicians Black musicians would find places to stay with local people, local other Blacks in the city that they were playing in. So a lot of people open up their houses for these blant out of town musicians. So the one particular house, that where Charlie was staying, the host was a female and over as a husband and wife. But he asked the woman if he, if she, could cook this chicken, if she could cook this chicken, that he found that he actually that the car hit that hit the bird. He carried that dead bird to this to, to where he's going to be staying.

Speaker 1: 13:58

I don't know how long it was in between of traveling from where the you know he hit that bird to the to their actual destination. Again, I don't know exactly where they were going, but you know he asked her well, can you cook this chicken? You know, ring it thick or whatever, however they do it. But you know she said yeah, I'll, yeah, sure, I'll, cook it. So that was he ate. You know that was a, that was a feast for them. So after that, you know that was a feast for them. So after that, you know, his bandmates and friends called him either Yardbird or Bird. So here and after, this is who I'm going to refer Charlie as Bird.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Okay, so in the meantime, while he's out on the road and touring and playing, his home life there wasn't a home life. He wasn't there half the time, he wasn't there most of the time. So the marriage obviously situations like that when you have musicians that are on the road, it is very hard on a marriage, especially if your family is not traveling with you. So Bird wasn't on the road, I mean, wasn't at home a lot, so that causes a strain in the marriage. But it seems, based on the documentation that I've read and I saw an actual documentary where she, you know, seemed like she was faithful to him but you know, he wasn't faithful to her Right and he, while on the road at some point he had gotten into an accident and the accident was pretty bad, where one of the passengers there were three passengers, bert was one of them, I don't know the other two, I don't know if it was a van member or a driver or what, but someone else was killed as a result of the accident and Bird himself suffered from fractured ribs and, as anybody would know, if you're in fractured ribs you're in pain.

Speaker 1: 16:18

And guess what, even though he was dabbing into drugs that really gave him an excuse to take painkillers. So because of the fracture ribs that he suffered. So in the documentary that I viewed today about him was called Celebrating Bird the Triumph of Charlie Parker, his ex-wife Rebecca, his first wife, his ex-wife Rebecca, his first wife she told the story of the first time she actually realized that he was an addict During the time, one rare occasion that when he was actually at home, he called. He was upstairs in their bedroom and he called her to come upstairs. And she says she went upstairs, you know, to see what he wanted. He called for her, he told her to sit on the other. He was sitting on one side of the bed and he asked her to sit on the other side. And she said he whipped out, he had a uh the rubber, uh tube. And you know she jumped up.

Speaker 1: 17:26

And then she saw him put a needle in his arm and she jumped up because she saw the blood dripping. She said what are you doing? He didn't say one word. He was cool and calm as a cucumber. He stuck that needle in his vein, had that tourniquet rubber on his arm, you know, tightening it so that vein would pop out. And he methodically and calmly put that needle in his arm. And she said afterwards he just turned and looked at her. She's in shock. I mean, she's horrified. She's just staring at what he was doing, at what he was doing. And she said he just looked at her and gave her a smile and he said I'll see you later. So he walked out the house, left out the house. I mean it was like he was ate breakfast or something and saying bye, I'll see you later. It was just so normal. And that was the first time that she actually saw him take and it was heroin that was.

Speaker 1: 18:59

His drug of choice was heroin and heroin, as anybody knew even then, to what it is now. It is a horrible, horrible addiction and it takes a lot to actually get off of that stuff. So he would, from that point, I mean, it was on, he was a, I mean he was an addict. He was an addict, he had to have, he had to have it, and to the point that he had to have it to where he had. That's the only time he were able to function. But he would be, you know, be out on the road, you know, and get his stuff and he'll be able to function, up to play. And even you know, band members and his playmates would, you know, say there were days where you would be at a recording session and they could tell when he was quote unquote sick, dope, sick, because he couldn't perform, because he was so, you know, he was so beating for that shot, for that fix. That's the only way as heroin users. That was the only way you could function is to shoot up, and so once he was able to shoot up, he'll be fine.

Speaker 1: 20:20

He eventually made a decision to leave his first wife. It wasn't something that I don't think, based on what I read and the documentary and everything that people have said, and even what she said. It wasn't the fact that he didn't love him, because he did. He wanted, he was very adamant about wanting to succeed in his career. So he came home one day and asked Rebecca, to quote unquote she said that he asked her you know, please free me, because I really want to pursue my career in music. So she didn't say anything, she didn't protest or anything. So he decided to choose his career over his family. But one thing that she did say that he at that time, I guess his mom was living with his wife and son while he was on the road. So he told his mom, he asked his mom to make sure that you know that Rebecca and the son will never go without, they will not be go without food, they will not go without, you know, shelter. He may, you know, had his mom promise him that whatever he's doing, whatever that she will be taken care of. So you know that was the end of that marriage.

Speaker 1: 22:09

It seemed like he did have a caring heart, despite of his you know demon that he's battling. He, you know, made a choice and you know he could say that it was the. He wanted to pursue his career, but I think at the time too, drug overtook his life as well. So he's out there in the streets. After he and Rebecca divorced, he was basically living from pillar to post. After he and Rebecca divorced, he was basically living from pillar to post.

Speaker 1: 22:50

He was a full blown addict. There were times where he would get gigs and when he this is what's interesting about him no matter, you know he was a addict or whatever, but he had people that really believed in him and he. They knew his talent and they knew what he could. You know what he could possibly be. So you have people like Dizzy Gillespie, louis Armstrong and even you know Miles Davis and I recall listening to. I had an autobiography book about Miles Davis and Miles Davis in the autobiography did speak a lot about Burt. They would get into it. But I mean it's something about when they played together. They just had such a chemistry. But I mean it's something about when they play together they just have such a chemistry. And Charlie himself, I mean, wherever he played, who he played with, he was so good that he created a chemistry with his bandmates and that's why it was so sad to see that he's just.

Speaker 1: 24:00

You know, his life of heroin use just overtook him and after a while it became more than just heroin. He became an alcoholic. He had a, he was had a glutton. He was glutton for, you know, drugs and alcohol, to the point when you, you know, if you were a liquor drinker which I'm not you will only drink so much. Bird was able to drink like a glass full. It was like he drank that, like it was like Kool-Aid. So I mean he would be drunk, a stupor. He'd be a drunken stupor, an addict, stupor. He'd be a drunken stupor, an addict. And he had a high sexual appetite for women. So I mean he was like the extremist, he was very much an extremist. He would miss a lot of gigs, the gigs, the bands that he was playing with. I mean it seemed like he connected well with Dizzy Gillespie's band and also Miles Davis and Miles Davis and anybody who knows Miles Davis. He was not an easy person to get along with. But then again he was you know, but he did seem like he did really care about Bird. But again Bird was self-destruct because of the drugs.

Speaker 1: 25:37

Later on in his life he met another woman. She was a white woman named Chan and eventually they became married and out of that union there were two girls, daughters. At three years old he she, unfortunately while he was out on the road playing, performing, just kind of that tore him apart. That tore him apart. He suffered a lot mentally. He had to go into a mental institution and there were times where he was lucid. There were times where he would become clean or get clean or try to become clean. He will come, he'll be clean. For a while People, friends, would help him, they would get him off the street, and especially because they want him to play with them, because he's just such an innovator.

Speaker 1: 27:00

One of the things that was what people say about the way he played that saxophone was that the saxophone, when he played that saxophone, was like a human and he made that saxophone speak like, or you know, sound like a human. I mean, it was that and nobody was able to do that up until that point. He just had that way of of, of playing, and you know he was. That's why people, you know bandmates, you know Dizzy, everybody, they tried, they've tried their best to keep him on the right and narrow and he would do pretty good for a while.

Speaker 1: 27:52

But then he'll relapse. He'll relapse and he really relapsed after he lost his daughter and his daughter. This happened while he was on the road, so that took him into a tailspin. He would basically live from pillar to post. He would live in flop houses, boarding houses, cheap motels. When he was drinking he would drink that cheap liquor. He developed bad ulcers and that cheap liquor just exacerbated, you know, it, just made it worse. So he made it worse, um, so he, uh, he, he, he suffered a lot, um, with that it was. He had a hard time kicking that addiction.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Um, in 1954, same year after his daughter passed, bert came to a revelation. He really wanted to get clean. He really wanted to change his life around, wanted to change his life around and one of the steps besides, you know, trying to detox and or whatever is to make amends. So he knew he had to. All the years of of the hurt that he's caused people you know, through his bandmates, you know not showing up. And if he did show up he would show up high. But when he did perform he was on, he did perform high or not, but he knew he had to kind of make amends to people that he hurt. And the one person that he knew that he had to make amends to people that he hurt and the one person that he knew that he had to make amends to was his ex-wife, rebecca.

Speaker 1: 30:10

So he and his current wife Chan, they went back to Kansas City because Rebecca never left out of Kansas City and they went to see Rebecca and Bird pulled Rebecca to the side and pretty much told her I mean they had a private chat, private moment, and you know he told her that. You know he asked her to forgive him for all the hurt that he caused and if he could do things over again, if he had the opportunity to do things over, he wouldn't have never left, you know, never left her and their son and his wife, his ex-wife. You know she forgave him. And then she had an inkling. She says, you know, when he said that she was like, oh my gosh, he's dying, he's going to die. She just, I mean basically anybody who wants to. You know, you pretty much kind of wonder if anybody's coming back to make you know, to atone for the, for what they did to you One or two things. They're trying to actually turn their life around or there's something going on. Either you know deeper and her premonition was right he was going to die, you know. At the time she didn't know when, but it was true. So I mean she just said, oh my gosh, you know he's going to die. You know for him to come all the way back to Kansas City and just particularly made sure that he reconciled with her and what he did and how he left. That was just a revelation to her that his days were pretty much numbered and it was Months later.

Speaker 1: 32:24

Chan and him separated, he left again and was back on the streets. He couldn't even at this point I mean he was so far gone as far as his drug addiction. He couldn't even get a job playing with anybody. The little jobs that he did, gigs that he did get, the little jobs that he did, gigs that he did get, they were nothing but storefront places, dives, I mean a lot less than what he was known and should have been performing, places where he should have been performing, because he performed everywhere. He even had an opportunity to go over to Europe and perform. That's how you know. He was just a very, very good, very innovative jazz player and if you listen to let's go back and listen to a lot of his playing with the, with Dizzy Gillespie or Miles Davis, with Dizzy Gillespie or Miles Davis, whoever he was playing at the time, you could tell he stole the show because of his playing. Everybody loved the way he played.

Speaker 1: 33:41

So to go from the top and then just drop down to the mere bottom, to, you're playing in front of a storefront, knowing the talent that you have, and you're, you know, sleeping on bathroom floors, you're homeless, you're just looking raggedy, you're just just through all because, you know, because of this dish and it was just too much. So in March 9th of 1955, he happened to was able to stay with a friend that he had met and she was. Her name was Baroness. She was some wealthy woman that was woman who loved the jazz music, who enjoyed listening to the performances. So she would go to a lot of the clubs and befriend a lot of the musicians. So she lived in this fancy hotel in New York and often she would invite a lot of the jazz musicians like Dizzy and Miles and all the other jazz performers that were performing in New York at the time, to her apartment.

Speaker 1: 35:02

And she happened to run up on Bird and so she invited him back to her place to stay, to kind of get himself off the streets. She offered him a drink and surprisingly he refused because at the time his ulcers were just flared up. So obviously drinking, you know, liquor, that would just, you know, that would just, you know, pretty much make him jump out of his seat because his stomach was so inflamed. So he just asked for a glass of ice water and after a while he was there and he stayed a few days with her and she noticed that at first she noticed that he would vomit. At one time he got sick to where he vom, and when he vomited he was throwing up blood. So he went to the hospital. Well, let me take that back. She called her doctor, so the doctor came to her apartment and he checked her and the doctor wanted to take him. You know, you need to go to the hospital.

Speaker 1: 36:25

Bird didn't want to go to the hospital, so he was given some antibiotics and to put him to bed. You know, don't you know to stay in the bed, do not get up, don't try to do anything. And then a couple of days later there was some improvement. There was. I mean he was starting to feel a little better enough to get out of the bed. So he got out of the bed. I mean he was able to.

Speaker 1: 36:54

He was feeling a little better, he wanted to get out of the bed and so he went into the Barron's, his friend's, living room and wanted to watch some TV. So she, she, you know, helped him sit down and watch TV. They were watching the show, the Thomas Dorsey show. You know, again, back then they had a lot of those variety shows. So he was watching the Thomas Dorsey show and there was one scene where somebody was doing a juggling act. On the show they were performing a juggling act. He was in good spirits, he was laughing and joking and carrying on. He was watching this juggling scene and while he was laughing, he, he started choking. He couldn't stop choking and the next, you know, I mean, he kind of slumped over and couldn't stop again, couldn't stop choking, couldn't get his breath, and like a minute or two he passed away. So he passed away.

Speaker 1: 38:10

The medical examiner determined that it was a lumbar pneumonia, which I'm not really sure what that is. It's something I don't know. It was a certain, maybe it was a certain area of his body that had a lot of congestion and pneumonia, because if he was coughing and choking and carrying on and couldn't catch his breath, then that that's basically what killed him. What killed him. Also, the medical examiner determined that you know wrote in his report that he was a 55-year-old Black male or Negro male or colored, I'm not sure 55, he could have who died of lumbar pneumonia. Well, that was incorrect, because Bert was only 34 years old when he died. He wasn't 55., he wasn't in his 50s, he was only 34. So that just goes to show how bad he must have looked to be. You know thought of being older than what he actually was. So he died. You know he died a tragic it was. It's kind of sad when you think about it and when you read about his life. It's kind of sad when you think about it and when you read about his life.

Speaker 1: 39:48

He was a good, good guy, wasn't seemed like. He was well liked by his fellow musicians. Everybody liked him, everybody tried to help him, but he couldn't help himself. The drugs, the alcohol, his lifestyle as a whole ultimately took his life. So there you have it, charlie Parker, one of the great innovators, jazz piano, jazz piano I'm sorry jazz saxophone player of all times. He didn't get his just dues as he should have.

Speaker 1: 40:37

But I think now, as always, now that he's been gone over what 60 something years, close to 70 years, he is now getting his just due. So there you have it, he's actually buried. He was buried back in Kansas City. Now, there was a little bit of discrepancy about that because his estranged wife Chan she stated that because they didn't have a marriage certificate, which leads me to believe that they were actually married she really didn't much have a say so as far as his funeral arrangements or where he used to be buried, because she thought he would want to be buried by his daughter, who they lost a year prior to 1954. But many people who knew him and where he came from he came from Kansas City, so, and that's where his mother was, that's where you know most of his, where he grew up, so that's where he was eventually laid to rest, in Kansas City, missouri, all right.

Speaker 1: 42:05

So that is it for episode number nine the Life of Charlie Bird Parker, episode 10. Next week I think I will be talking about one of my all-time favorites in another short life but made a huge impact in jazz, and that is John Coltrane. So there you have it. You guys stay safe and I will talk to you next week. Good night, thank you.