bebop

Charlie Parker would have been a chin-stroking one hundred years of age this month. Kloop. Mop. Rebop. Apocalypse. Happy birthday, with a whirlwinding flurry of breathless demisemiquavers on top. He was Bird. His nickname. And we were bird…

60 years ago, one of the most influential and self-destructive jazz artists pushed his body to the limit and died at the age of 34. Charlie Parker was in the Stanhope Hotel in New York City on March 12 1955 when he took his last breath. He…