The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival 2024 at SummerStage celebrates the legacy of the jazz saxophonist who was a leading figure in the creation of bebop (modern jazz) in 1940s New York City.
32th Charlie Parker Jazz Festival 2024
The 32nd Charlie Parker Jazz Festival 2024 at SummerStage is at Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem and Tompkins Square Park in the East Village on Friday-Sunday, August 23-25, 2024.
Charlie Parker Jazz Festival presents the Christian McBride Big Band and trumpeter Wallace Roney Jr. at Marcus Garvey Park SummerStage in Harlem, Manhattan; on Friday, August 23, 2024, from 7-9pm. FREE. cityparksfoundation.org 🇺🇸
Charlie Parker Jazz Festival presents vocalist Carmen Lundy, pianist Helen Sung, saxophonist Isaiah Collier & the Chosen Few, 2023 Sarah Vaughn International Jazz Vocal winner Tyreek McDole, and DJ KulturedChild AKA Angelika Beener; at Marcus Garvey Park SummerStage in Harlem, Manhattan; on Saturday, August 24, 2024 from 3-7pm. FREE. cityparksfoundation.org 🇺🇸
Charlie Parker Jazz Festival presents NEA Jazz Master drummer Louis Hayes, Superblue: Kurt Elling & Charlie Hunter featuring the Huntertones (singer and guitarist), Cameroonian American vocalist Ekep Nkwelle, vocalist Alexis Lombre, and DJ KulturedChild AKA Angelika Beener; at Tompkins Square Park SummerStage; on Sunday, AUgust 25, 2024 from 3-7pm. FREE. cityparksfoundation.org 🇺🇸 🇨🇲
Harlem is a home of jazz, and Charlie Parker lived next to Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan’s East Village from 1950-1954. It’s still cool, but the East Village was a very cool place back then. That was the Beat Era and a time when lots of culture you think happened in Greenwich Village, actually happened in the East Village. It was still called the Lower East Side. Can you imagine hearing Charlie Parker practice in Tompkins Square Park?
Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker’s sound ranges from the depth of pearlized paint to a full ruckus. When he plays, it often makes you stop, listen and marvel. The legend was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1920. He played in Jazz bands there and moved to New York City in 1939.
He got his nickname “Yardbird,” later shortened to “Bird” as a joke while touring. Birdland jazz club is named after him because he used to play at the original venue on 52nd Street.
Parker was an intense artist. He would dream something up and work on it until he got it. While looking for different chord changes in his solos, Bird figured out that off a 12-tone chromatic scale, he could jump into any key. This was a key innovation of Bebop Jazz. Nobody had done that before.
The 1940s were a pivotal time in history. Nuclear weapons and modern warfare were developed for World War II. Meanwhile Bebop (Modern Jazz) and Cubop (Latin Jazz) were developed for the people. Nuclear technology manipulates very small things to great effect. Parker did the same with his music. He had a natural talent for getting very small or very big where quantum effects can produce surprising results.
From 1950-54, Charlie Parker lived at 151 Avenue B across from Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. In his honor, Avenue B between 7th & 10th St is called “Charlie Parker Place.”
Parker died young at 34 at the former Stanhope Hotel at 995 Fifth Avenue in New York City in 1955.
Bird’s vision continues to impact artists. In the 1970s, Chucho Valdés and Paquito D’Rivera wanted to bop, but Jazz wasn’t allowed in Cuba then. So they said we’re not playing jazz, we’re playing Cuban folk music. They added an Afro-Cuban rhythm section, rock elements and bopped as Irakere, an important Cuban jazz band at the intersection of jazz, rock, and folk. Irakere’s innovations led to songo and timba, the evolution of Son Cubano dance music. The band’s music is still marvelous. One moment you’re here, the next you’re way over there, in the same way that bebop (and quantum physics) jumps all over. A lot of Irakere’s bop was inspired by Charlie Parker.
Bird was completely free, and his artistry freed us all. He’s gone, but his spirit will never leave us. When a jazz horn goes off on solo and seems to play every possible note in the most beautifully organized way, that’s Charlie Parker, free as a bird.