Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker: The tragic saxophone genius with a voracious appetite for drugs, hard liquor and jazz

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. it was comical but still pitiful to see the reaction on Bird’s face.” Before walking off in tears, Parker defiantly told the band, “Oh, man, I’ll be back. Ruffin later told Parker’s biographer Stanley Crouch about how distressing it was to find her young husband using one of his ties to bind his arm before he would “shoot up on heroin”. Z2 Comics are releasing a graphic novel in September 2020 called Chasin’ the Bird – written and drawn by trumpeter Dave Chisholm and coloured by DreamWorks Animation Director Peter Markowski – that tells the story of Parker’s tumultuous time in California, which included recording an impassioned version of “Lover Man” when he was so wasted that he could barely stand, let alone play. Parker pulled himself together – even going on to compose the jazz standard “Relaxin’ at Camarillo” about his stay – and returned to New York to make some of the finest music of his career.