Charlie Paker

            The only child of Charles and Addie Parker, Charlie Parker was one of the most important and influential saxophonists and jazz players of the 1940's. Charlie Parker, also named "Bird", was born on August 29, 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas. He was one of the major forces in the creation of modern jazz known as Be-bop. Bop, known as Be-bop or Re-bop, is a form of jazz that was created as a revolt against the restrictions on creative freedom that were typical of the big bands of the swing era. Charlie's tone and approach on the alto saxophone, as well as his musical ideas have been followed, understood, adopted, and imitated by performers of all jazz instruments. During this time, two other individuals, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, began following a similar approach to the new form of music as Parker did. Basically, they were following the form of A-A-B-A, or the 12-bar blues pattern in their music.
             The piece of music that I chose to analyze is the Confirmation by Charlie Parker, composed in 1953. In addition to Charlie's alto saxophone there are three other instruments which are being played in this piece of music, that of piano, bass, and drums. All these accompaniments play important roles in this piece, since they provide a harmonic foundation which allow the alto saxophone a much more rich, distinguished and tangible sound. .
             This piece begins in a G major with a 5 second introduction by the piano, while right after the first measure, it leaves the G major and goes to relative minors such as E minor, D minor and C minor. Finally, at the end of the piece, it returns to G major again. In general, the signature of the piece keeps changing which makes it hard for the audience to predict how the music will go. As a result of this the audience is made to focus their attention all the way to the end.
             For the first 5 seconds, it sounds like the texture of the piece is homophony, but it changes when Parker starts to play to polyphony.