Charlie Parker - Now's The Time/Back Up

It's funny how your mind sometimes just clicks when you hear an artist and right there on the spot you find your new favorite musician. Pretty much this happened to me when I first heard Charlie Parker. Strangely enough I found about him through, out of all places/people, Morita Douji. I really liked her most popular song "Bokutachi no Shippai" so I decided to hunt down the lyrics to read what's it actually about. It was, not surprisingly, a love song which contained this one segment:

"I found myself all alone.
I found the Charlie Parker record you loved so,
in the room
You've probably forgotten me."

"So who was this Charlie Parker?" I asked myself and decided that I'll nab something off the torrents from him. Through my whole life up until then the jazz I listened was exclusively from the 30s and 40s and the rest more "wankery" stuff I had not much interest in. Then I stumbled upon this guy and he refurnished my interpretation of jazz. I greatly enjoyed what I heard and from there on my love for jazz flourished in new directions.

Will it reshape your thinking of jazz? I really hope it will but it really depends on your taste. Charlie Parker is widely known for popularizing bebop and forming the modern jazz and there's really not much to say that hasn't been said in hundreds of documentaries, stories, studies, interviews etc. so I thought a little more personal story would be more fitting.

In any case this is a great introductory to his work. There are quite a few of his trademark songs here like Confirmation, Now's The Time, Leap Frog, Bloomdido etc. and there's some standards that he completely reworks as well. The recordings vary from 1949 to 1953 and at that time he was really blossoming as player. So yeah, there really is no reason not to download this if you like Charlie Parker or would like to start with him.

Enjoy.

Download.