Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kultur Video
• VHS Release Date: October 22, 1991
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302023661
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #328,659 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This 1987 film represents the first substantial documentary devoted to virtuoso saxophonist and bebop icon Charlie Parker, whose wildly inventive style and hip charisma made him a legend well before his untimely death at 34. Parker's huge, ultimately self-destructive appetites and sad demise long ago confirmed him as a poster boy for the doomed romanticism associated with the jazz life, and arguably apotheosized in a number of the bop era's most brilliant players, but while the film doesn't ignore Parker's life as a long-term heroin addict, the portrait hews more closely to exploring his creative genesis.

Through film clips, stills, and interviews with family members, musical peers, and writers, we follow Parker from his native Kansas City, Kansas, through his apprenticeship with band leaders Jay McShann and Bennie Moten, and on to New York. There, Parker would step forward as a de facto co-architect (with erstwhile partner Dizzy Gillespie, among others) of bebop, the small-group style that hot-wired swing rhythms and pop melodies with breakneck tempi, inventive harmonies, and extended improvisations, leaving behind the terra firma of swing for the high wire of a musician's music that mainstream listeners initially found daunting to follow.

Liberally scored with Parker's best-known performances, Celebrating Bird represents one of the most literate jazz documentaries extant, thanks to writer and codirector Gary Giddins, one of America's most thoughtful jazz writers, and Toby Byron, the producer behind the Masters of American Music series including The Story of Jazz. Engaging interviews with McShann, Gillespie, drummer Roy Haynes, veteran jazz writer Leonard Feather, first wife Rebecca Parker Davis, and final companion Chan Parker provide a balance of musical analysis and personal insight. For Bird's fans, this is a treat; for newly converted listeners, the story represents a keystone to the history of the music's crucial transition from swing to bop and beyond. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Bird is always bird, November 22, 2011

By 

Federico "fedefunk" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker (DVD)

Its ok for a single DVD. However, if you are looking for an extended documentary on his life, buy the big 4 or 5 DVD volume by Ken Burns, there's nothing like it, and it spends quite a lot of time on Bird. Its a must-have for jazz fans.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars BIRD, June 28, 2011

By 

Elliott Vincent (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker (DVD)

DVD collection of Charlie Parker recalls his fantastic abilities. Good selections, but things that I have on other DVDs. Recommended to those who have little or no Bird flix!