On these pages we proudly present many of the original charts from one of the giants of jazz, Charlie Parker. Primarily from the Bird With Strings sessions, these classics are now available for the first time ever, including some which were never recorded.

One of the undisputed true foundations of the genre of jazz, Charlie Parker-in less than 35 years-took jazz to places it had never been, created new ways of thinking about soloing, wrote many tunes which became standards, and left behind a legacy which reflects a rare combination of sheer brilliance and utter beauty. Scott Yanow might have summed it up best when he wrote on the All Music Guide website: "One of a handful of musicians who can be said to have permanently changed jazz, Charlie Parker was arguably the greatest saxophonist of all time. He could play remarkably fast lines that, if slowed down to half speed, would reveal that every note made sense." Amen.

Charles Parker Jr. was born an only child on August 29, 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas, and raised across the border in Kansas City, Missouri. He had many musical influences as a child, including his father, who was an entertainer and musician, and the city of Kansas City was bursting with music of various genres.

By his mid-teens, Parker had become so engrossed in music that he quit high school and began performing full-time. Various sources claim that he practiced up to 15 hours a day as he began to dedicate his life to music. In the late 1930s he joined Jay McShann's band, toured with them, and made his first professional recording. He soon visited New York City for the first time, and after leaving McShann spent time with Earl Hines, where he began his association and friendship with Dizzy Gillespie. Parker began jamming with a group of innovative musicians who would be among the founding fathers of bebop, including Dizzy, Thelonious Monk, and Kenny Clarke, among others.

Parker began jamming regularly and developing his advanced ideas about music, which resulted in a revolutionary soloing style, which was based on much deeper explorations of song structures rather than simply the melodies. He and Gillespie became a team, but due to a union ban on recording in the early 1940s, much of early bebop was undocumented. This did however lead to a somewhat unique situation when recording began again in 1945, as the newness of the music exploded upon the scene; the astonishing new sound of Bird and Dizzy thrilled some and confused others, but clearly was blazing a new trail. The recording ban, as Yanow put it, "resulted in bebop arriving fully formed on records, seemingly out of nowhere."

After an unsuccessul trip to California, Parker, increasingly in the grip of heroin and alcohol, cashed in his return ticket and wound up in such bad shape that he was confined to Camarillo State Hospital. Released and clean in early 1947, he returned to New York, where he resumed his outstanding career-and his heroin habit. He played with Miles Davis, Max Roach, and others, recorded some of his greatest music, and toured Europe. In 1949 he worked with Norman Granz to realize one of his dreams, recording standards with strings. A lover of music ranging from classical to country, Bird was definitely never confined in any way to bebop or even jazz in general. These sessions turned out to be brilliant and hugely successful, leading to Bird's best-selling and most popular records. 

In the early 1950s his personal problems began to take a bigger toll, and he became less reliable, although he certainly still had many shining moments, such as the 1953 Massey Hall concert in Toronto with the incredible lineup of Bird, Dizzy, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. Considered a high point of the era and the only time this quintet was recorded together, the concert was recorded by Mingus for posterity and was also the last recorded date where Dizzy and Bird played together.

Sadly, in 1954, Parker's physical and mental health continued to decline, and he passed away on March 12, 1955, from various conditions due to his intense alcohol and drug abuse. It's often been said that doctors performing his autopsy thought he was 20-30 years older than the young age of 34 which he was when he passed.

It's hard to overstate the influence Charlie Parker had on jazz improvisation. One of the genre's most studied and imitated innovators, his soloing ideas and style literally changed the face of jazz. But he was so much more than just a blazing soloist-his playing could also be hauntingly beautiful, and the Strings sessions showed how complete of a musician he was. A lover of many styles of music and a sincere student, fortunately Bird left behind a huge recorded legacy, and despite his problems was very productive. Someone whose face would be one of the few on a hypothetical jazz Mount Rushmore, Charlie Parker-joined by John Coltrane after him-was one of the absolute greatest and most important saxophone players in American history.