Discover 9 essential Charlie Parker tracks that define the genius of bebop. From “Ornithology” to “Embraceable You,” explore Bird’s timeless brilliance and why his music still swings hard today.

On the heels of Louis Armstrong: The Complete Hot Fives and Sevens Savoy releases another seminal chapter in the development of Jazz. If Louis Armstrong’s The Complete Hot Fives and Sevens can be seen ...

Decades after Parker's death, a new album compiles previously unknown performances by the alto sax legend. Critic Kevin Whitehead says the record... 'Unheard Bird' Gives Fresh Insight Into Charlie ...

They're Bird's alto saxophone solos that we hear all through the soundtrack. Not someone else. Charles McPherson was only added to three of the songs, as a member of the ensemble. Musical director ...

There are no Parker tunes on the sax player's latest album, Bird Calls, but it's a tribute nonetheless. Bird Of A Feather: Rudresh Mahanthappa On Learning From Charlie Parker In the early 1980s, when ...

In 1952, bluesman Bull Moose Jackson recorded a suggestive song called “Big Ten Inch Record,” which became a hit on so-called race radio stations of the day that catered to black audiences throughout ...

Part of this year's Parker centennial, the American Jazz Museum's competition was well-timed for musicians out of work due to COVID-19. One-hundred years after his birth, a Kansas City jazz legend is ...

More blues singer than Broadway, the Bird helped introduce bebop to jazz — and along the way redefined jazz velocity with his scrappy sound and pithy melodic figures. This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry ...

Jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker, whose nickname was "Bird," was born in Kansas City on August 29th, 1920. For the past month, his hometown has been celebrating his 100th birthday, ...

Rudresh Mahanthappa's latest album is Bird Calls. "Each composition is based on a particular Charlie Parker song or solo," he explains. "Really, I feel like the best way we can pay tribute is to show ...