Charlie Parker

USA, 1940–1955

American alto saxophonist (1920-1955), known as Bird. His rapid phrasing over extended chord substitutions was central to the creation of bebop, which moved jazz away from dance music.

MusicRoots documents 1 artist who influenced Charlie Parker and 9 artists Charlie Parker influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Charlie Parker?

• Lester Young — The teenage Parker learned Lester Young's recorded solos note for note — the documented foundation of his phrasing.

Which artists did Charlie Parker influence?

• John Coltrane — Parker was Coltrane's idol from 1947: 'The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.' The two occasionally played together in the late 1940s.
• Wayne Shorter — Parker's records were among those that turned the fourteen-year-old Shorter to music.
• Robert Fripp — Named alongside Ellington in the same early listening — the speed and the phrasing rather than the harmony.
• Burt Bacharach — Bacharach's first musical infatuation was the modern jazz of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie — the harmonic daring he carried into pop.
• Miles Davis — Davis's apprenticeship was in Parker's quintet (1945–48) — bebop learned nightly on the bandstand beside its creator.
• Ornette Coleman — Parker was Coleman's first model in Texas — his early alto style imitated Bird before harmolodics broke free.
• Steely Dan — Becker and Fagen built Steely Dan's harmony on bebop — Charlie Parker's chord substitutions are the jazz DNA of their pop.
• Hank Crawford — Charlie Parker's bebop alto was a formative early influence on Crawford's playing.
• The Skatalites — Bebop is where Tommy McCook's solo lines come from — he led a jazz group for eight years before he was talked into fronting a ska band.