Charlie Parker In memorian Ch. P.

S fiel hasta la muerte

Apocalipsis, 2.10
O make me a mask

Dylan Thomas

The tale El perseguidor by Julio Cortzar starts with the three statements that are written before and it is based in the life of Charlie parker. The tale portraits an addicted jazz saxophonist, Johnny Carter, that is locked up in his music and the only moment in which he feels released is while he is playing his saxophone. Sometimes, while he is playing, he feels there is a door that can take him somewhere else, to the heaven. The music is a need but also a dreadful torment for him. After reading the tale, I had to know who Ch. P. was. Charlie Parker was born on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City. Son of a musician; Charlie began playing the saxophone in 1931, at the age of eleven. After three years, in 1934, he joined the school's band using a rented school instrument. Charlie Parkers first music record was with the McShanns orchestra and big band with themes like "Oh, Lady Be Good" and "Honeysuckle Rose". In 1944, Charlie started working with Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1945, Charlie become famous with the themes "Groovin' High", "Dizzy Atmosphere", "Shaw 'Nuff", "Salt Peanuts" and "Hot House" and in 1946, in New York, he recorder Lover man. Charles Mingus considered this version of "Lover Man" to be among Parker's greatest recordings, despite its flaws. In 1947 he joined a quintet with Miles Davis, Duke Jordan, Tommy Potter and Max Roach. Charlie Parker had drug problems since he was a teenage, but it started to affect his career in 1851 when he started to miss gigs and lose work more and more frequently. In 1954, Charlie Parkers daughter died and he started to consume more heroin and tried to commit suicide twice. Charlie Parker finally died in 1955 of lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer. He was in the suite of his friend and patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel in New York City and he died while he was watching The Dorsey Brothers' Stage Show on television. The same way of die has the principal character, Johnny Carter, of Cortzars tale. The tale says that the last words of Johnny Carter were something like: O! make me mask..