Ricky Frein
April 7, 2014
Research Paper
Charlie Parker, a legendary jazz musician, was born on August 29, 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas. He grew up an only child, and later dropped out of school to start a music career. He created Bebop with Dizzy Gillespie and together they made a couple of albums. Near the end of his career, he started using drugs and having some mental problems. At one point, he even tried to kill himself by drinking iodine. His health deteriorated and he eventually died as a result of his drug abuse. He is best known for being a great musical artist and for developing Bebop. He is often remembered for saying “Don’t play the saxophone, let it play you.” (Source 1)
Charlie Parker’s parents were Charles and Addie Parker. His father was an African American stage entertainer, pianist, and dancer while his mother, Addie, worked nights at the local Western-Union office. When Charlie was seven, his family moved to Kansas City Missouri. Jazz, Blues, and Gospel music was very popular at that time in Kansas City, and Charlie began to realize that he had a musical talent so he started taking musical lessons at the public school. He also started playing in the band at school and played the baritone horn for a school play. At times, he would play the saxophone in local clubs nearby. Around this time, his father abandoned their family and later that year Charlie dropped out of school to pursue a full time music career.
Charlie loved playing music and people loved hearing him play. He began receiving so much attention that he soon started to travel and play on the road. He would play in the nightclubs with jazz and blues bands and began making more money. He toured Chicago and New York with other bands, and...
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...on Fifty-Two Street”, “Bird and Diz”, and “Jazz at Messy Hall”. Some of his other achievements were winning Grammy awards for the Hall of Fame, The Lifetime Award, and an award for Best Improvised Jazz Solo. He is remembered for changing the world of jazz music by using complex rhythms and improvisational style. He remodeled Clique Club in New York, which was renamed Bird Land in his honor.
Charlie Parker lived for only thirty-five years. His life was not always so good and he had may struggles, but he loved playing music and it shaped his life in many ways. Although his life was cut short due his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, he is remembered today for being one of the best known saxophonists in the world, and for creating the music called Bebop. He is a music legend and his influence will continue to live on today through the music he created.
Bobby Brown is a singer, songwriter, dancer, and rapper. His net worth is $2 million.
Eventually in 1937, Dizzy Gillespie decided to head out to New York to carry out his dream of becoming a famous jazz player. During his time at New York he talked with many different bands and earned a job with Teddy Hill’s band. Hill was very impressed with Gillespie’s unique playing style. The group went on a tour from Great Britain to France shortly after Gillespie had joined the band. After getting back from the tour G...
Developed in the early 1940's, Bop had established itself as vogue by 1945. It's main innovators were alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. In this stage in jazz, improvisation differed immensely. Bebop soloists engaged in harmonic improvisation, often avoiding the melody altogether after the first chorus. Usually under seven pieces, the soloist was free to explore improvised possibilities as long as they fit into the chord structure. Popular and influential jazz artists include: Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis, & Cannonball Adderley. Armstrong is most known for his involvement in hot jazz as a trumpeter, but is especially renowned for his improvisation capabilities. Louis Armstrong, born August 4, 1901 right in the beginning stages of the jazz movement, was originally from New Orleans. Armstrong was a bandleader, soloist, comedian/actor, and vocalist. Another famous, Miles Davis, is what some consider to be the best trumpeter of the era. Davis was born on May 26, 1926 in Alton, Illinois. One unique thing about Davis was that he was taught to play without vibrato, which was incredibly contrary to the popular way of
Did you know that it wasn’t until 19__ until an Australian Aboriginal graduated university? Well it was and that person was Charles Perkins.
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe, more commonly known as Jelly Roll Morton, was born to a creole family in a poor neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana. Morton lived with several family members in different areas of New Orleans, exposing him to different musical worlds including European and classical music, dance music, and the blues (Gushee, 394). Morton tried to play several different instruments including the guitar; however, unsatisfied with the teachers’ lack of training, he decided to teach himself how to play instruments without formal training (Lomax, 8). ...
When it comes to jazz music, there is one name that everyone knows, whether they’ve never listened to jazz before or if they’ve listened to it their whole lives. That name is Louis Armstrong. Armstrong was one of the pioneers of jazz music, from his humble beginnings in one of New Orleans roughest districts, “the Battlefield”, to playing concerts for sold out crowds in Chicago and New York City, Louis left a massive impact on the way America listened to music for a long time. One of his premier tracks, “West End Blues”, left an impact on jazz music, which other musicians would try to emulate for years.
His boisterous personality influenced many aspects of American culture, and his contributions and influence on Jazz are immeasurable. Nobody has done more for Jazz than Louis Armstrong, without question he is a Jazz legend (Friedwald). Armstrong excelled at everything he performed. A renaissance man of our time, his appreciation for music and life showed in his performances, and his talent showed his techniques and improvisation. Louis’s technique and improvisation on the trumpet set the standard for Jazz musicians (Friedwald). Fellow trumpeter Dizzie Gillespie credited Armstrong with this honor stating, “If it weren’t for him there wouldn’t be any of us.” This reputation would lend him to be referred to as Jazz royalty. With his trumpet and his scat singing he revolutionized Jazz. Though vocally limited, his understanding of how to use his voice beyond his natural abilities led to his perfection of scat (Edwards). Scatting allowed him to perfect his improvisational skill. Scatting, or scat singing would come to be known as the “House that Satch Built” and Armstrong the “Original Man of Scat.”
In the mid 1930s, Benny Goodman sparked the beginning of the Swing Era of jazz music shortly after leading his first band, which was monumental to the development of jazz. This marked a transition from the early Jazz Age, which resulted from combining aspects of ragtime and blues music over the previous two decades. Through Goodman’s live performances at various gigs and NBC’s radio show Let’s Dance, he gained increased recognition as a jazz performer and band leader. Following his pivotal Palomar Ballroom gig in Los Angeles, Goodman’s music inspired teenagers to create dances to accompany his new jazz style. As a result, his music grew to gain national acclaim and popularity among many different types of people. Goodman greatly influenced
Charles Mingus was born in Arizona in 1922 to a biracial father and white mother. His biracial father did not promote pride in their African American heritage, so Mingus grew up faced with many racist attitudes and often was unsure of where exactly, in society, he belonged because of his mixed race heritage (Dunkel 17).
Miles Davis was a key player in the evolution of modern jazz. In the 1940’s he participated in the bebop craze, then initiated the cool jazz era in the 1950’s. Bebop involved a higher register and note fueled playing while Miles favored the middle register, with longer and less frequency of notes, and a
Born in Alton, Illinois, Miles Davis grew up in a middle-class family in East St. Louis. Miles Davis took up the trumpet at the age of 13 and was playing professionally two years later. Some of his first gigs included performances with his high school bandand playing with Eddie Randall and the blue Devils. Miles Davis has said that the greatest musical experience of his life was hearing the Billy Eckstine orchestra when it passed through St. Louis. In September 1944 Davis went to New York to study at Juilliard but spend much more time hanging out on 52nd Street and eventually dropped out of school. He moved from his home in East St. Louis to New York primarily to enter school but also to locate his musical idol, Charlie Parker. He played with Parker live and in recordings from the period of 1945 to 1948. Davis began leading his own group in 1948 as well as working with arranger Gil Evans. Davis’ career was briefly interrupted by a heroin addiction, although he continued to record with other popular bop musicians.
Jazz music prospered in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Jazz was created by African Americans to represent pain and suffering and also represented the adversity that racial tension brought. (Scholastic) African American performers like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie “Bird” Parker came to be recognized for their ability to overcome “race relati...
Through his contribution to early Jazz, he had a direct hand in developing the new field of academic jazz scholarship, although it had been extensively debated on his contribution. None the less, his talent formed a popularity that was surpassed by none, even to the point that once in his career; he was more popular than the Beatles. Undoubtedly, he was the first, if not the only to present Jazz to the public as a form of art. This changed the direction of Jazz to not just leisure listening music, but a teachable and complicated
A single artist can have a very strong impact on a whole genre of Music. We have seen this time and time again through artists such as Charlie Parker, David Brubeck, John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Miles Davis, and various others. All of these artists had tremendous influences on the different eras that evolved throughout the history of Jazz. Bill Evans, and American jazz pianist, was no different. Just as Charlie Parker had started the evolution of Bebop and influenced the subsequent generations of Jazz Artists, Bill Evans has influenced Modern Jazz and the generations of artists that followed him. Throughout his career and his works with various other artists, Bill Evans has cemented himself as one of the great influences on modern day Jazz.
John William Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina, on September 23, 1926. Two months later, his family moved to High Point, North Carolina. He grew up in a typical black family in the South. The Coltranes were very religious and steeped in tradition. Playing was in his blood. Both of his parents were musicians, his mother was a member of the church choir and his father played the violin. For several years, young Coltrane played the clarinet, however it wasn‘t his passion. It was only after he heard the great alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges playing with the Duke Ellington band on the radio, that he became enthusiastic about music. He dropped the clarinet to take up the alto