Charlie Parker: 'Bird Lives!' Part 2

Charlie Parker: 'Bird Lives!' Thanks to Parker's eminence, that instrumentation thereafter became the "standard" jazz combo, according to jazz writers Gary Giddins and Stanley Crouch. Billed as "the greatest concert ever," it featured Parker at the top of his game and in the familiar environs of the quintet, with Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Bud Powell on piano, Charles Mingus on bass and Max Roach on drums. Almost penniless, broken by his young daughter's death and unsuccessful at suicide, Parker found refuge in the residence of jazz patron "Nica," the Baroness Panonnica van Koenigswarter. Charlie Parker's persona proved larger than life; almost immediately after he died, graffiti sprouted up all around New York City with the message "Bird Lives."