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 Coltrane was only six years younger than Bird, and he lived only seven years longer. He was born in North Carolina in 1926, and died in Long Island, NY in 1967.
He came from a musical family, and his father played assorted instruments. But John Coltrane settled on the saxophone in his early teens. Though only six years younger, it was his fate to come after Charlie Parker in the story of modern jazz. Coltrane's early career can be seen as a struggle to both digest and escape from Bird's influence. |
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 07 January 2007 )
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The tormented genius of Charlie Parker was a direct and personal influence in the early career of the trumpet player Miles Davis — considered by some today the "major musical force of the second half of the 20th century," in the USA and beyond.
The remarkable Thelonious Monk entered modern jazz at an odd angle and left the same way. Or as Francis Bacon said in the age of Shakespeare: "There is no excellent beauty that has not some strangeness in the proportion." 
An increasing trend toward multicultural romance is only an arguably benign and reassuring wave of the future in some parts of North America today. There is no denying that the Yardbird was an alcoholic heroin junkie, whose private life can never qualify as a model for anyone who wants to live beyond early middle age. It might be complained that Charlie Parker can only be any kind of icon for one side in the early 21st century culture wars. 
Bird's short but stunningly energetic and productive
private life was tormented for a host of reasons. Even the sketchy
story that we know about is besieged by human complexities. But as a
crude first cut at one part of the truth, there were at least two
birds struggling against each other inside Charlie Parker's soul. 
