Charlie Parker, Culture, And Influences

This work traces the development of jazz saxophonist
Charlie Parker from the musical and cultural
environment of Kansas City. Interviews with primary
sources provide new information and insight
concerning the events and chronology of Parker s
early life. Transcription and analysis of sixteen
early solos illuminate Parker''s improvisational
language from the years 1940-42. In these early
solos, the most important categories of
improvisational techniques include emulations and
quotations from various sources. Parker quotes
Lester Young, Buster Smith, Roy Eldridge, Coleman
Hawkins, and popular tunes of the day, demonstrating
the importance of the African-American oral and aural
transmission of musical vocabulary in the jazz
tradition. This work should be especially useful to
professionals in areas of jazz saxophone performance,
jazz studies, and ethnomusicology.

Autorentext

Kent J. Engelhardt, Ph.D. is a jazz saxophonist and
ethnomusicologist. He is an associate professor of jazz studies,
saxophone, and clarinet, as well as the Coordinator of Jazz
Studies at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio.

Klappentext

This work traces the development of jazz saxophonist
Charlie Parker from the musical and cultural
environment of Kansas City. Interviews with primary
sources provide new information and insight
concerning the events and chronology of Parker's
early life. Transcription and analysis of sixteen
early solos illuminate Parker's improvisational
language from the years 1940-42. In these early
solos, the most important categories of
improvisational techniques include emulations and
quotations from various sources. Parker quotes
Lester Young, Buster Smith, Roy Eldridge, Coleman
Hawkins, and popular tunes of the day, demonstrating
the importance of the African-American oral and aural
transmission of musical vocabulary in the jazz
tradition. This work should be especially useful to
professionals in areas of jazz saxophone performance,
jazz studies, and ethnomusicology.