American Masters

Celebrating Bird: The Triumph of Charlie Parker

At age eleven, he had just begun to play the saxophone. At age twenty he was leading a revolution in modern jazz music. At thirty-four, he was dead from years of drug and alcohol use. Today, Charlie “Yardbird” Parker is considered one of the great musical innovators of the 20th century. We're bringing this film back to celebrate what would have been Charlie's 100th birthday in August 2020.

How Charlie "YardBird" Parker got his nickname

1m 51s

Charlie Parker's nickname "Yardbird" came to be while he was on the way to a gig with some fellow musicians and involved a bird in a yard that had an unfortunate fate.

  • This TV ad shows how bebop wasn't taken seriously: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    This TV ad shows how bebop wasn't taken seriously

    S4 E5 - 1m

    Bebop, a style of jazz developed in the 1940's, changed American music but wasn't taken seriously for much of Charlie Parker's life. This mid-century popcorn television commercial shows how the public's perception of bebop was riddled with stereotypes.

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