Charlie Parker
Charles "Bird" Parker, Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Early in his career Parker was dubbed "Yardbird" (there are many contradictory stories of the name's origin). It was later shortened to "Bird" and remained Parker's nickname for the rest of his life and inspiration for the titles of his works, such as "Yardbird Suite" and "Bird Feathers".
One of the artists who played with Charlie Parker have been Chuck Higgins.
Frank Zappa about Charlie Parker
"I didn't hear any bebop until I moved away from San Diego, and moved to Lancaster, and I came across a Charlie Parker album. I didn't like it – because it sounded very tuneless, and it also didn't feel like it had any balls to it." - Frank Zappa, Zappa, 79/8, Musician, No. 19, August 1979.
"I'd come into contact with Charlie Parker records and things like that, but they didn't hold my interest. I couldn't follow it. Same kind of argument that you'd get from people today, just "Huh, what are they doing? They just noodling around", you know. I mean, now I understand why they're noodling and where they're noodling, and I can tell the difference between good noodling and bad noodling, but without certain musical clues it just all sounded like noodles to me." - Frank Zappa in BBC Television Tribute, 1993.
