Yardbird Parker

One thing I can say about the majority of my generation is that not many of us are aware that there was great music before 1975. I don't know many kids like me that extend their ear to jazz. They think it's just loud, random noise that you can't follow. Charlie Parker is one of my favorite master jazz musicians and also considered an influencial innovator of jazz in the 20th century.

"They teach you there's a boundary line to music, but man, there's no boundary line to art."

Jazz is just something that makes you feel good. It's upbeat and very in the moment. It makes you wanna tap your toes and fingers. Get up and move your body. Almost like letting the music take you, eat you up and never digest you.

Even if it's a sad or slow song. It'll have the effect of making you feel very introspective and self-reflective. Me, personally, I think it to be one of the rawest forms of music. And you don't need words to comprehend that. It is whatever you want it to be. That's the other great thing!

People can take lyrics out of songs and the song could be about a bicycle, but the person applies the lyrics to their current situation. Be it love or lost, or whatever. With jazz, there aren't words to make up an emotion. There's nothing BUT emotion. You create the sadness or the happiness once it hits your ears. Charlie Parker said it best himself;

"Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your own wisdom."

When I hear Charlie Parker's "Embraceable You", it makes me want to sit outside on a stoop and enjoy a nice glass of Brandy on ice. (And I don't usually drink Brandy which makes the idea even funnier.) The song just makes you feel like that's what you should be doing. Or maybe strolling through a park hand in hand with someone that makes your insides shake at their touch. Kissing in the sun or tracing all of their curves with your fingers. It's entitled "Embraceable You" afterall.Then you have other songs by Charlie Parker like "Street Beat" that makes you wanna violently throw everything off of a table onto the floor, then dance atop it in a mad happiness. Take a perfect stranger by the hand and on contact the energy feeds through the tips of your fingers into their skin. Soaking up the enticement, the excitement, the life.

Though Charlie Parker's life was short lived, he made memorable jazz. In the beginning before it was jazz. Before it was anything. Before it was hip and way before it was world known and praised. He followed his own beat. He made music that made people feel good--it made him feel good. And that's precisely what music is suppose to do. He got the name Bird/Yardbird because they say he lived his life free as a bird.

I can't see any other way to live it either.