Charlie Parker was a famous jazz saxophonist and composer, as well as the leading figure in the development of bebop. He introduced the harmonic ideas of passing chords and chord substitutions. Charles”Charlie” Parker Jr., also known as “Bird”, was born on August 29, 1920 in Kansas City to Charles and Addie Parker. Charlie discovered his talent for music through the lessons he was taking at school and through the musical influence his father provided. Charlie picked up the saxophone at the age of 11 and by the age of 15, he knew the alto saxophone was his instrument of choice. He started playing in bands of local clubs and he fell so in love with jazz that in 1935, he decided to drop out of school and pursue a full time musical career. In the …show more content…
(1945-1948 signed with Dial, 1948 signed with Mercury.) The following year, in 1949 he made his European debut at the Paris International Jazz Festival. Parker made his last public performance at Birdland, which was a week before his death. All throughout his adult life, he battled with heroin addiction, alcoholism and mental illness which caused disorder in his career and personal relationships. When he married Rebecca Ruffin in 1936, he had already started abusing drugs and alcohol. They manage to have two children before divorcing in 1939. In 1942, Parker remarried to Geraldine Scott and shortly after the marriage, financial stresses created a drift between them and Parker turned to heroin for an escape. He ended up leaving his second wife not long after they were married. During a performance in Los Angeles in 1946 Parker had to cut his tour short when he suffered a nervous breakdown and was interned to a mental hospital .Sober and out he married Doris Synder in1948 but the marriage fell within a year when Parker started again with his addiction. In the 1950s he lived with a girlfriend of his and she managed to give him two children a daughter, who only lived for two years and a son, who was born just a year and a day before Parker’s death. On top of all that chaos, it only got worse for Parker. In 1951 he was arrested for possession of heroin and