Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker
Contents:
Crouch exhaustively details Parker's childhood and adolescence in mob-run Kansas City, Mo. Parker was a bit lazy and spoiled, but a good-natured boy, one who grew up pampered by his adoring mother. As a teenager he fatefully fell in love with and married his neighbor, Rebecca Ruffin. He was eager and excitable, though unfocused — until he found his horn. After a few humbling experiences, including being laughed off the stage at a late-night jam session, Parker started "woodshedding," practicing to the exclusion of almost all else.
Crouch quotes him claiming that he would "put in at least from eleven to fifteen hours a day.
Most fun is watching Parker go from stumbling wannabe to a suddenly dead-serious genius-to-be. The change began when Parker fell under the influence of a prominent Kansas City musician, Crouch says: In the vivid and exciting chapters that follow, Crouch shows in minute detail how Parker engaged in a prolonged apprenticeship in the late s. Still in his late teens, he plays under various bandleaders in Kansas City before earning his chance in the spotlight. He follows his mentor Buster Smith to New York, with a stop along the way in Chicago, where he lives like a hobo, literally riding the rails.
In New York, he must prove himself all over again in late-night jams. Equally vivid are snapshots of Parker's drug-addled off-hours, as his problems with morphine and heroin begin, and the steady dissolution of his marriage; at one point, he even pulls a gun on Rebecca. There is also the sad moment, now a part of jazz legend, when Parker asks his wife to let him go: But I believe I could become a great musician if I were free Please free me, Rebecca.
Crouch is a critic by trade, not a biographer, and there's less music writing here than one might want. Parker eventually decides that Kansas City isn't big enough for him, and he rides the rails to Chicago and New York, ending up on Buster Smith's doorstep, eager to absorb all the lessons the big city has to teach him.
By now, he had long since mastered the physical challenges of playing As Crouch reminds us, however, Charlie Parker, no matter how highly talented, was not greater than his idiom. But his work helped to lead the art form to its most penetrating achievement. Kelley on Thelonious Monk.
This is, it must be noted, the first of two projected volumes. Would you like to tell us about a lower price? If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support? Read more Read less.
Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker
Add both to Cart Add both to List. Buy the selected items together This item: Ships from and sold by Amazon. Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Both Directions At Once: A Life of Duke Ellington. The Life and Times of an American Original. Celebrating Bird the Triumph of Charlie Parker. Here's how restrictions apply. From Publishers Weekly With the straight-ahead timing and the ethereal blowing of a great jazzman, Crouch delivers a scorching set in this first of two volumes of his biography of Charlie Yardbird Parker, capturing the downbeats and the up-tempo moments of the great saxophonist's life and music.
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Jazz Writer Crouch, 'Considering Genius' of Jazz
Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Sometimes, something new is added, but often, a repeat of the story is worth the effort even if only told in a different tone and with some different details or emphasis. This is such book. Charlie Parker was a major figure in American music, though probably now much forgotten in either legend or music by a younger generation. Crouch retells the story of 'Bird' from early life through his years immediately before the explosion of the "be-bop revolution".
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The Rise And Times Of Charlie Parker
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