238 Culture, Identity, and Community: From Slavery to the Presentwith Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Th elonius Monk, and
other up-and-coming bebop musicians. In the middle of
this period, in 1943, Parker married his second wife, Geral-
dine Scott. In 1945, Parker went on the road with Gillespie,
hoping to make something happen in California. But the
project went sour, the band broke up, and all the musicians
headed back to New York, except for Parker, who decided
to stay on the West Coast. While living in Los Angles,
Parker began to use heroin and quickly became addicted.
In 1946, shortly aft er recording “Lover Man” for the Dial
record label, Parker was committed to Camarillo State
Hospital following an alcohol- and drug-related “nervous
breakdown.” Aft er his release from the hospital in 1947 and
return to New York, Charlie Parker was able to stay clean
for only a short period of time, a period that, some claim,
facilitated his best playing and most solid recordings.
During what might be considered the high point of his
musical career, the years 1947–1951, Charlie Parker, by all
accounts, was playing at his best and recording his most
memorable work. In 1947, Parker released Yardbird Suite,
a group of recordings that included a number of diff er-
ent lineups of musicians, including the legendary Charlie
Parker Quintet he formed with such jazz powerhouses as
Max Roach, Tommy Potter, Duke Jordan, and Miles Davis.
In addition to his quintet, Parker formed several other en-
sembles that also appear on the record: the Charlie Parker
Septet, the Charlie Parker Quartet, Charlie Parker’s New
Stars, Charlie Parker’s All Stars, and Charlie Parker’s Re-
Boppers. Parker married his third wife, Doris Snyder, in
1948, and then married his fi nal wife, Chan Richards, in- Parker fathered fi ve children, two with Richards and
three in his other marriages. In 1949–1950, Parker traveled
to Europe to perform and was well received. Back home
in the United States, Parker continued to record and play
venues throughout New York. But in 1951, Parker’s cabaret
license was revoked due to a drug-related issue, banning
him from seeking employment at nightclubs around town.
From 1952 to 1953, Parker struggled with unemployment,
which likely contributed to his excessive drug and alcohol
use and mental illness. Nevertheless, he was still able to
produce valuable music during this period.
In 1953, the same year his license was reinstated,
Parker, along with Max Roach, Bud Powell, Charles Min-
gus, and Dizzy Gillespie, was invited to perform at Massey
Hall in Toronto, Canada. Th is performance recorded by
Mingus, Jazz at Massey Hall, has been described as one of
“Yardbird” and “Yard,” was a jazz saxophonist, composer,
and leader in the development of bebop, a radical move-
ment in jazz away from the popular, orchestrated swing
music of big bands to smaller ensembles that relied more
on improvisation and complicated, rapidly played melo-
dies and rhythms. Parker’s distinctive, infl uential approach
to music took shape during the 1940s and 1950s, when he,
along with such musicians as Th elonius Monk, Bud Powell,
Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Max Roach,
and Dizzy Gillespie, revolutionized jazz music and chal-
lenged the sensibilities of what was acceptable musically
and socially in the mid-20th century. Parker and the other
bebop innovators directed jazz music away from the realm
of entertainment and into the arena of cultural, political,
and social critique and “high art” to voice a pro-black, race-
conscious perspective on the world and present a complex,
sophisticated art equal to or better than any of the great Eu-
ropean artistic creations. Th e bebop revolution, with Parker
at the helm, sought to disrupt the status quo, musically and
intellectually, to reprogram jazz and reestablish African
American infl uence and presence in jazz, and to challenge
the way big-band jazz was being appropriated by white mu-
sicians and protest the ways the older swing-era jazz was
losing its African American “voice” by accommodating to
white audiences.
Charles and Addie Parker’s only child, Charlie Parker,
began playing saxophone in 1931, at the age of 11. By the
time he was a teenager, Parker was playing sax in the high
school band and immersing himself in the thriving local
musical scene of Kansas City. By 1935, he was gigging
around town with a number of jazz and blues ensembles
and, at the same time, taking in the music of Count Basie (as
well as other talented, well-established jazz groups playing
around Kansas City) and learning various techniques and
ideas from Buster Smith. He married his fi rst wife, Rebecca
Ruffi n, in 1936. And in 1938, Parker joined the pianist Jay
McShann’s group and began to tour across the United States.
Aft er playing in Chicago and New York and throughout the
southwestern United States with McShann, Parker moved
to New York in 1939, where he took odd jobs to support
himself; participated in jam sessions with other African
American musicians at Monroe’s Playhouse, Minton’s Play-
house, and other “uptown” African American clubs; and
continued to perform and record on and off with McShann.
In 1942, Parker left McShann to play with Earl Hines,
and by 1945, he was leading his own band and collaborating