Kansas City lightning : the rise and times of Charlie Parker / Stanley Crouch.

Author/creator Crouch, Stanley author.
Format Book
EditionFirst edition.
Publication InfoNew York : HarperCollins, ©2013.
Description365 pages, 16 pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Subjects

Portion of title Rise and times of Charlie Parker
Contents Born in bleeding Kansas -- Infinite plasticity -- An apprenticeship in blues and swing -- Sorry, but I can't take you.
Abstract The first installment in the long-awaited portrait of one of the most talented and influential musicians of the twentieth century. Charlie Parker personified the tortured American artist: a revolutionary performer who used his alto saxophone to create a new music known as bebop even as he wrestled with a drug addiction that would lead to his death at 34. With the wisdom of a jazz scholar, the cultural insights of a social critic, and the narrative skill of a novelist, drawing on interviews with peers, collaborators, and family members, the author recreates Parker's Depression-era childhood; his early days navigating the Kansas City nightlife, inspired by lions like Lester Young and Count Basie; and on to New York, where he began to transcend the music he had mastered. The author reveals an ambitious young man torn between music and drugs, between his domineering mother and his impressionable young wife, whose teenage romance with Charlie lies at the bittersweet heart of this story.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 341-344) and index.
LCCN 2013015773
ISBN9780062005595 (hbk.)
ISBN0062005596 (hbk.)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Closed Stacks - Ask at Circulation Desk ML419.P4 C76 2013 ✔ Available Place Hold