Charlie Parker

Let’s face it: When it comes to bebop, there’s Charlie Parker, and then there’s everybody else. In the ’40s, the saxophone visionary known to jazz fans as Bird gave wings to swing by turning it inside-out in a million directions at once, sending the soaring sounds of bop into the air for the first time. “KoKo” was bebop’s big bang, an electrifying explosion of sophisticated lines that Bird brainstormed over the original changes of swing standard “Cherokee.” The high-flying classic “Ornithology” was born of similar circumstances, when Bird put the frame of Tin Pan Alley tune “How High the Moon” in front of a funhouse mirror and sent the results streaming from his sax. But no matter how far Parker’s explorations took him, tunes like the bluesy “Now’s the Time” showed that the former Jay McShann saxman’s swingin’, Kansas City roots remained strong.

Discover bop’s dynamic duo of Diz and Bird, in Next Steps.

Trumpet titan Dizzy “Birks” Gillespie was Charlie Parker’s accomplice in breaking jazz free from its boundaries in the ’40s, and when these sparring partners went toe-to-toe on a tune, the rest of the world could only look on in awe. A history-making 1945 Gillespie session unleashed the Diz-penned milestone “Dizzy Atmosphere,” with Birks and Bird’s horns racing each other to the top of a ladder, and then leaping off into the ether. That same breakthrough session showed that the bebop revolutionaries still had plenty of love for a sweet melody and an easygoing pace, as they recast Jerome Kern’s “All the Things You Are” in bold, new colors. And even when Diz and Bird weren’t blowing together, they loomed large in each other’s legend — Miles Davis takes the trumpet chair for the exotic, unprecedented “A Night In Tunisia,” as Parker’s powerhouse licks deliver the definitive cut of this dazzling Diz composition.

In Deep Cuts, find out why Bird ruled the Royal Roost.

In the annals of jazz, the Charlie Parker quintet’s 1948-49 residency at NYC bebop hotspot the Royal Roost — usually including Miles Davis on trumpet and Max Roach on drums — is a glittering, golden moment. Bird never achieved as much altitude in the studio as he did live, and on a Roost run through “Anthropology,” his horn is an endless fount of ideas, making him sound like three different saxmen taking turns on the same solo. On the standard “East of the Sun,” Parker wrings some of the warmest, sweetest riffs in his repertoire from his trusty alto. And on the wild Roost ride “Chasin’ the Bird,” Miles, Max, & co. try to take the title literally, but there’s never been anyone who could keep a hold on Bird once he started flapping his wings skyward.

Charlie Parker was just 34 when he died, but he packed more mind-blowing innovation into his too-brief time on our planet than almost anyone else ever managed in twice as many years. Bebop was his baby, and it blew jazz wide open, altering everything forevermore, from phrasing to harmony. More than half a century after Parker’s passing, it’s impossible to imagine a world without Bird, and the trail of superhuman sonic feats he left behind remains as daunting and dazzling as ever. From his Latin journey with Machito on “No Noise” to his symphonic swing on the orchestra-backed “Just Friends” — not to mention evergreens like “Grooving High” and “Salt Peanuts” — we’ve built a Bird house full of his most phenomenal flights.