Customer Reviews

The Charlie Parker Companion: Six Decades of Commentary

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This is an excellent supplemental book to the standard biographies of Bird (Ross Russell's BIRD LIVES! is typical). Included are chapters dealing with Parker's career and influences; a couple of transcribed interviews; some reminiscences by Jay McShann, Gene Ramey, Dizzy Gillespie, and Howard McGhee; a few concert and nightclub reviews; an essay by Stanley Crouch; and quite a number of reviews and appraisals of Bird's recorded legacy. The most impressive inclusions for me were the long essay by Ira Gitler excerpted from his JAZZ MASTERS OF THE FORTIES, and the "conversation" Gitler had with trumpeter Howard McGhee for the Jazz Oral History Project at the Institute of Jazz Studies. McGhee is very up-front with his comments and attempts to correct some long-held beliefs (for example, according to McGhee Parker did not set his hotel room on fire following the infamous LOVER MAN date for Dial). Also impressive is the adaptation from Phil Schaap's liner notes for the COMPLETE CHARLIE PARKER ON VERCE CD set; Schaap is probably the foremost authority on Parker in the world, and decades of scholarship and thinking about Bird went into that CD booklet. Anyone interested in the music and legend of Charlie Parker will appreciate this book.

This book is the most comprehensive review of Charlie Parker's life and his influence on sociey today. This is a must read for any jazz fan or performer.