Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker

by Gary Giddins

Overview

Celebrating Bird is the groundbreaking and award-winning account of the life and legend of Charlie Parker from renowned biographer and critic Gary Giddins. Fully revised and with a new introduction, it is a portrayal of a jazz virtuoso whose gargantuan talent was haunted by his excesses and a view into the ravishing art of one of jazz’s most remarkable figures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452940793
Publisher:	University of Minnesota Press
Publication date:	09/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	16 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Gary Giddins is one of the world’s foremost jazz critics. His books include Visions of Jazz, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, Satchmo, Weather Bird, Natural Selection, Jazz, and Warning Shadows, and his many recognitions include a National Book Critics Circle Award, the Jazz Journalists Association Lifetime Achievement Award, a Guggenheim, a Grammy, and six ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for Excellence in Music Criticism. He is executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Table of Contents

Contents

Prelude to the New Edition
1. Bird Lives!
2. Youth
3. Apprenticeship
4. Mastery
5. Bird Lives

Acknowledgments
A Selected Discography of Long-Playing Records
A Selected Bibliography
Photo Credits
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Giddins writes with something like Bird’s bravado. . . . [Parker] can practically be heard ripping through ‘Cherokee’ and stewing over ‘Koko’ straight off the pages of this book." —L. A. Weekly



"As penetrating a character study of Bird as any yet written." —New York Times



"Since his death in 1955, myth-makers have sounded the bebop battle cry—Bird Lives!—but Giddins is the first biographer to make it sound true." —Village Voice



"A major contribution to jazz biography . . . has the verve and adrenaline of its subject matter." —Ishmael Reed



"A tribute . . . to Parker’s gift and grief. Giddins gives the man his due." —Los Angeles Times

From the Publisher