The incomparable
life and extraordinary, trailblazing career of jazz titan and influential
composer Charlie Parker will be honored throughout 2020 with a worldwide
celebration commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth (August 29, 1920).
Lovingly dubbed Bird 100 after the nickname of the preeminent alto saxophonist
who was one of the fathers of bebop and progenitors of modern jazz, the
centennial will include a host of major initiatives including exciting new
music releases, a tribute tour, festivals and events, prestigious exhibitions,
special partnerships, a unique graphic novel, exclusive collectible art, and
myriad of independent appreciations and concerts. "The centennial of
Charlie Parker is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate his life,
legacy and art form with the world. We are thrilled to honor Bird's
transformative musical impact on past, present and future generations,"
said the Estate of Charlie Parker.
Parker's longtime label Verve Records, in conjunction with
UMe, the global catalog company of Universal Music Group, will kick off the
yearlong celebration this week with a limited edition vinyl pressing of the
rare 12" LP, The Magnificent Charlie Parker, an exclusive release for
Record Store Day's Black Friday, taking place Friday, November 29 at
independent record stores around the country. The limited album, out of print
on vinyl since its original 1955 release, is pressed on vibrant yellow vinyl
and includes a quintessential David Stone Martin cover as well as painstakingly
recreated art including Clef Records labels. The 11-song LP features Parker
going toe-to-toe with frequent collaborators Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Max
Roach and John Lewis with arrangements by Gil Evans.
The artwork for The Magnificent Charlie Parker is also available
for purchase, along with four additional classic album covers, including four
by David Stone Martin, as archival quality, framed canvas prints exclusively
via uDiscover. The high-end wall art is available in a variety of sizes and
includes the albums: Big Band, Machito Jazz With Flip & Bird, The
Magnificent Charlie Parker, Charlie Parker With Strings and Charlie Parker With
Strings (Vol. 2). For more information and to order, visit uDiscover:
https://shop.udiscovermusic.com/collections/charlie-parker
Verve/UMe plan to celebrate Parker with several releases
throughout 2020 and are currently in the works on a vinyl boxed set of Parker's
complete Clef 10" albums featuring David Stone Martin's iconic illustrated
covers. Charlie Parker: The Clef 10" Albums Collection will arrive on
August 28, 2020 timed with Parker's 100th birthday and include five
extraordinary albums he recorded for Norman Granz's Clef Records: Bird and Diz,
Charlie Parker, Charlie Parker Plays South Of The Border, Charlie Parker With Strings
and Charlie Parker With Strings (Vol. 2). The LPs will feature newly remastered
audio from the original analog tapes and will include faithful reproductions of
the classic artwork and packaging. The albums will pressed on 180-gram black
10" vinyl and will be housed in an attractive slipcase. Representing
Bird's fruitful late '40s to mid-50s Clef period, the albums have never been
released together and all but Bird and Diz have been out of print on vinyl
since their original releases. These albums are being presented in the form
they were originally released in for the first time in more than six decades.
Craft Recordings will release The Savoy 10-inch Collection
in February 2020. The deluxe boxed set features four 10" LPs cut from
newly restored and remastered audio. The collection highlights Parker's
pioneering bebop recordings for Savoy Records from 1944-1948, featuring jazz
legends Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Lewis, Bud Powell, Max Roach and
more. The package includes faithfully restored original album artwork, plus a
booklet containing vintage photos, rare ephemera and new liner notes by
GRAMMY®-winning author Neil Tesser. The complete set will also be released
digitally.
Bird's incredible legacy and immortal music will soar
throughout the year with a variety of festivals, concerts, events and an
exciting tribute tour. Sanctioned by the Estate of Charlie Parker, "Fly
Higher: Charlie Parker @ 100" features acclaimed co-musical directors
Rudresh Mahanthappa (alto saxophone) and Terri Lyne Carrington (drums) as they
celebrate the jazz master, one of the most innovative and influential artists
in modern musical history and examine his impact in pop, hip-hop, rap, rock and
jazz. Joined by a superb lineup including Charenée Wade (vocals), Adam O'Farrill
(trumpet), Kris Davis (piano), Larry Grenadier (bass) and Kassa Overall (DJ),
Mahanthappa and Carrington will honor Parker's centennial year by showcasing
Parker's uncompromising musical joy, humor and beauty by mining his deep
repertoire and showcasing new, modern compositions. The tour is produced by
Danny Melnick for Absolutely Live Entertainment and represented for bookings by
International Music Network. For more information, visit
charliebirdparker.com/events/tour-events
Parker's hometown Kansas City, Kansas and his adopted
hometown New York City will honor the legend with their annual festivals and
both have big plans for his 100th birthday. On the last weekend of August 2020,
the annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival will kick off in New York City. For the
past 28 years, the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival has presented some of the
finest musicians in the world who reflect Charlie Parker's musical
individuality and genius to promote appreciation for this highly influential
and world-renowned artist. Produced by City Parks Foundation, the festival is a
vibrant and free celebration of jazz that brings together storied, veteran
players and the next generation of jazz artists. The festival is held over the
course of three days in neighborhoods where Charlie Parker lived and worked, in
Harlem's Marcus Garvey Park and the East Village's Tompkins Square Park. More
information will be available here soon: cityparksfoundation.org/charlieparker
Birdland, the NYC jazz club that adopted their
ornithological name in 1949 to capitalize on the popularity of their regular
headliner Charlie "Yardbird" Parker, will curate a month-long Charlie
Parker Jazz festival at the famed venue in August 2020. Each week will feature
a different headliner honoring Bird with the festivities launching with
"Bird With Strings" in which renowned clarinetist Ken Peplowski will
be the music director and he and a conductor friend will invite different
soloists, on many different instruments, to play the arrangements with a chamber
orchestra. This will be followed with Birdland's 10th annual "Bird-thday
Celebration" featuring an all-star ensemble performing Parker's
compositions. The month will culminate with celebrated saxophonist Joe Lovano
and the Joe Lovano Us Five who will do a reprise of Bird Songs, their
Bird-themed album released on Blue Note Records in 2011. For tickets and more
info, visit Birdlandjazz.com.
Additionally in NYC, Jazz Congress will host a panel
discussion about Parker titled "Bird and Beyond: Celebrating Charlie
Parker at 100" at the conference taking place January 13-14th, 2020 at
Jazz at Lincoln Center. Later in the year, the New York Public Library for
Performing Arts at Lincoln Center will present a series of programs that will
include conversations and screenings in the Library's Bruno Walter Auditorium,
plus listening salons of rarely heard recordings in the Library cafe.
Celebrating its sixth year, the annual Charlie Parker
Celebration in Kansas City, Kansas will celebrate Parker's centennial with
Spotlight: Charlie Parker, a 10-day citywide celebration of his life and music
on August 20-29, 2020. KC Jazz Alive, University of Missouri Kansas City, the
American Jazz Museum, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Mutual Musicians Foundation,
Bruce Watkins Cultural Center and numerous other cultural and civic
organizations will host jam sessions, tours, lectures, exhibits, panel
discussions, poetry slams, workshops and concerts celebrating Charlie
Parker—Kansas City's native son. More information available at Spotlightcharlieparker.org
Other collaborations and partnerships include an event at
The GRAMMY Museum® in Los Angeles to be announced at a later date, an official
custom Charlie Parker Legends Series alto saxophone mouthpiece with RS
Berkeley, modeled after the original one Parker used, and a graphic novel that
the Charlie Parker Estate is currently developing with the esteemed Z2 Comics.
The boutique company which has pioneered the "graphic album" format
will bring some of Charlie Parker's wild stories to vivid life through the
marriage of comics and music.
Bird 100 will be an incredible opportunity to bring Charlie
Parker's music to new audiences, expand awareness of his role in not only
advancing jazz but helping to invent the artform known as bebop, celebrate his
importance as an early "superstar soloist" of modern music and bring
the extraordinary, inspirational and heartbreaking story of the man known as
"Bird" to new platforms.
If jazz history can be divided into two epochs — danceable
swing and improvisational bebop — then Charlie Parker is the fault line. During
his brief but remarkable career, the alto saxophonist nicknamed
"Bird" gave jazz lightning tempos, mind-bending chord substitutions,
and previously unexplored harmonic depth, paving the way for hard bop, free
jazz, fusion and everything after. Miles Davis summed up his accomplishments:
"You can tell the history of jazz in four words. Louis Armstrong. Charlie
Parker."
Parker was born in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1920, but
"Bird" was arguably born during a jam session at the city's Reno Club
in 1937. Invited to play with Count Basie's drummer Jo Jones, 16-year-old
Parker began a promising solo over George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" —
and bricked on the chord changes. Jones threw a cymbal that clashed at Parker's
feet; the audience jeered. Instead of giving up the horn, he practiced harder
than ever and moved to New York City in 1939 to prove his mettle.
One night that year, Parker woodshedded the Ray Noble song
"Cherokee" with the guitarist William "Biddy" Fleet and had
a eureka moment. "I'd been getting bored with the stereotyped changes that
were being used all the time," he later told Down Beat. "By using the
higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with
appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came
alive." Armed with this new knowledge, Parker composed pieces that went on
to be standards, like "Yardbird Suite," "Chasin' the Bird"
and "Ornithology."
Parker, who died in 1955 at only 34, was a meteoric musician
that burned bright and much too quick. But his legacy more than lives on; it's
jazz scripture. Jack Kerouac called him "as important as Beethoven."
Four of his recordings were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame including
albums Charlie Parker With Strings and Jazz At Massey Hall and the songs
"Ornithology" and "Billie's Bounce." In 1974, he was
awarded a posthumous Grammy for Best Performance By A Soloist for "First
Recordings." In 1988, the Clint Eastwood-directed biopic "Bird"
brought his story to the silver screen. The U.S. Postal Service issued a
commemorative stamp in his honor in 1995.
Although his life and career were short, the New Yorker has
praised Parker as "one of the wonders of twentieth-century music" and
the New York Times deemed him "matchless" and a "bebop
exemplar." And Parker's popularity continues to grow. Today, one of his
saxophones is on view at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American
History and culture in Washington, D.C. — an enduring reminder that America
will always have a "Bird" in its hand.
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