In praise of Charlie Parker

By DEBORA SHAULIS
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- People think they know jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker after seeing movies such as "Bird," director Clint Eastwood's Golden Globe Award-winning film of 1988.
Parker's heroin addiction and death at age 35 make for interesting cinema, but there's volumes more to be said about his talent, innovation and influence. Parker, along with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and Thelonius Monk, introduced the world to the modern jazz movement known as bop in the 1940s. They crafted music that was more complex and improvisational, less dependent on melody and favored smaller groups over big bands.
"His music was always just a fascination for me," said Dr. Kent Engelhardt, Youngstown State University's coordinator of jazz studies, who has been researching Parker's career for years.
Engelhardt has written a biography of Parker for the new African American National Biography. It will be published by Oxford University Press in conjunction with W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University.
The first volume, to be released early next year, will contain about 600 biographies, including Parker's. In all, an eight-volume collection of about 5,000 biographies will be published.
'Completely baffled'
Engelhardt's interest in Parker dates back to his adolescence, when he was enrolled in a summer jazz camp as a saxophone player. He attended a listening session where he was able to look at transcriptions of Parker's songs while records were played.
"I was completely baffled by it," Engelhardt recalled. "I didn't think I'd ever be able to understand it." He still has the Charlie Parker album he bought after that listening session.
Engelhardt found himself returning to Parker's music time and again. The Boardman High School graduate enrolled at YSU's Dana School of Music, where jazz studies department founder Tony Leonardi "got me more deeply interested" in Parker, he said.
Parker was a frequent writing topic for Engelhardt while he was studying for advanced degrees in ethnomusicology a decade ago at the University of Pittsburgh.
Engelhardt knew what he wanted to write in his doctoral dissertation: "How does a person get to the place where they're utterly amazing?"
Early years
He focused on Parker's formative years in Kansas City, Mo., from the time his mother bought him a saxophone to age 20, "when he was playing things no one had heard before," Engelhardt said.
Putting to use the research and interviewing skills he'd learned in his ethnomusicology classes, Engelhardt pored over other research and telephoned people who had known Parker. He was most surprised to learn "just what he was like as a child and a teenager -- how he was at that point in his life just like everybody else," playing baseball and hanging out with his friends, Engelhardt said.
Once Parker learned about music, "it consumed his life," Engelhardt continued. Kansas City was fertile ground for budding musicians in the 1920s and '30s. Many players who traveled the jazz circuit found themselves stranded in Kansas City once their tours ran out of money, Engelhardt explained. There was plenty of work, however; the city had about 120 nightclubs, most of which offered music every evening.
Musical mentors
Parker didn't have much formal music education, but he was mentored by several musicians and influenced by Lester Young, tenor saxophonist in Count Basie's band, Engelhardt said. The Basie band played seven nights a week at the Reno Club. Parker was 13 when he began to sneak out of his home and into the club on a regular basis.
"That's like going to see ... [saxophonist] Branford Marsalis every night. How could you not learn?' Engelhardt said. Parker also benefited from performing frequently on Kansas City stages, he added.
A sample of Engelhardt's dissertation was posted on the Web. That may be why the Harvard staff came looking for him, he said. He used information from his dissertation in Parker's biography.
"It was difficult to encapsulate someone's life into 2,000 words," Engelhardt said. "Fortunately, I have some good proofreaders" -- his wife, Beth Hargreaves, and Dr. David Morgan, assistant professor of jazz studies at YSU.
Engelhardt reacted skeptically when people told him that once he completed his dissertation, he would use it throughout his career. Now that he has written for the African American National Biography and refers to Parker's technique in the classroom, he realizes it's true.
His writing days may not be over, either. "I see a hole in the area where I've published," Engelhardt said. "I might be able to get some more mileage out of it."
shaulis@vindy.com