Any musician who says he is playing better either on tea, the needle, or when he is juiced, is a plain, straight liar.   -------Charlie Parker

* Jazz alto saxophonist Charlie Parker was not only the representative figure in the Bebop movement in terms of his musical exploration, but also in his continuous struggle with substance abuse.  Evidently, the problem of substance abuse was pervasive during that period within the jazz community, as Burton W. Peretti elucidated that "while World War I, Prohibition, and the first flush of the adolescent subculture had prompted alcoholism among some early white jazz musicians, a deeper disappointment fueled the bebop turn to drugs."1  Parallel to the widespread problem of substance abuse among jazz musicians during the Bebop movement, the community of classical musicians was also affected by the very same problem, as Ortiz Walton cited that "during the Bebop period a number of symphony conductors and classical musicians were users of hard drugs, especially cocaine."2  However, Parker's unique role as the one of the leading figures during the Bebop movement within the jazz community has consequently created a platform in which his behaviors were correspondingly exemplifiable to his followers.  Jackie McLean stated that while he "does not blame Parker for his becoming a drug addict, he does feel that the Bird image was extensive that many musicians turned to drugs as an unconscious emulation of the master."3  Red Rodney also remarked that:

When you're very young and immature and you have a hero like Charlie Parker was to me, an idol who proves himself every time, who proves greatness and genius . . . that's a hard word to throw around.  But you can't say less.  When I listened that genius night after night, being young and immature and not an educated person, I must have thought, "If I crossed over that line, with drugs, could I play like that?"4

Parker seemed consciously aware of his social responsibility and publicly reiterated the negative impacts of narcotics addiction.  In a 1947 article published in Metronome, Parker commented about his narcotics addiction that "I was a victim of circumstances.  High school kids don't know any better.  That way, you can miss the most important years of your life, the years of possible creation."5  In a 1949 article published in Down Beat, Parker's position regarding narcotics was paraphrased:

Parker feels very strongly on the subject of dope in all its forms.  He told us that while he was still a young boy in Kansas City he was offered some in a men's room by a stranger when he hardly knew what it was.  He continued to use it off and on for years until his crackup in 1946, and says bitterly that people who prey on kids this way should be shot.6

In the same article, Parker also delivered a direct statement indicating his feelings about the perception that there is a connection between the musical creativity and narcotics:

Any musician who says he is playing better either on tea, the needle, or when he is juiced, is a plain, straight liar.  When I get too much to drink, I can't even finger well, let alone play decent ideas.  And in the days when I was on the stuff, I may have thought I was playing better, but listening to some of the records now, I know I wasn't.  Some of these smart kids who think you have to be completely knocked out to be a good hornman are just plain crazy.  It isn't true.  I know, believe me.7

Privately, Parker sometimes discussed his addiction to narcotics with his acquaintances, as Walter Bishop, Jr. recalled an incident in which Parker stated his rationalization about the issue:

Bish, you know there's quite a number of things wrong with me.  I go to this heart specialist, you know, give him a hundred dollars for the relief of my heart.  He treats me, don't do no good; my heart is still messed up.  I go to this ulcer man, give him seventy-five dollars to cool my ulcers out; it don't do no good.  There's a little cat in a dark alley around the corner.  I give him five dollars for a bag of shit; my ulcer's gone, my heart trouble gone, everything gone, all my ailments gone.8

Parker often made deliberate efforts in preventing his acquaintances from opportunities that might lead to narcotics addiction.  Jackie McLean recalled that Parker told him to "emulate the straight cats."9  Chet Baker recounted that Parker "treated me like a son, putting down any and all guys who tried to offer me some shit."10  Howard McGhee also remembered that:

Bird used to walk around with a clarinet case full of heroin, man.  He told me the first time I saw him . . . We were in Philadelphia when I was with Barnet, and I said, 'What's all of that in the clarinet case?'  So he said, 'Oh, you don't want to know nothin' about that, man.  That ain't good for you.'11

Parker also helped tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins to rehabilitate.  Rollins recalled that:

You know that Bird helped get me off drugs when I was younger.  That was a major turning point in my life.  When I made that record, Collector's Items, with Miles and Bird, Bird found out that I had been indulging.  He really didn't like it.  I saw for the first time that he didn't dig my doing that.  I realized I must be doing the wrong thing.  Up until that time I had thought it was all fun and games and that it was okay to use drugs.  I subsequently got myself off drugs, when he showed me that wasn't the way to go.12

Nevertheless, Parker's well-intentioned efforts were demonstrated by the ineffectual stance of "don't do as I do, do as I say."13  Due to his continuous consumption of narcotics, the effectiveness of Parker's advice was limited.  Some of Parker's protégés suffered from substance abuse.  Trumpeter Miles Davis was arrested in 1950 for narcotics possession and continued his elongated battles with narcotics addiction.  Trumpeter Red Rodney was arrested twice for narcotics possession around 1950, and was rehabilitated in the Federal Narcotics Hospital at Lexington, Kentucky, and the U. S. Public Health Service Hospital at Fort Worth, Texas.  Trumpeter Chet Baker was arrested for narcotics possession numerous times in the States and volunteered to check into the Federal Narcotics Hospital at Lexington, Kentucky.  Baker later also became a repeat offender for narcotics possession in Europe.  Alto saxophonist Jackie McLean was arrested in 1957 for narcotics possession and was subsequently arrested twice again for the same offense.14  Red Rodney recalled Parker's reaction when he found out about Rodney's addiction, as Parker was "furious. . . . He was very sad, very angry."15  Startlingly, Rodney's recollection also reveals Parker's questionable stance in coping with Rodney's addiction:

He was smart enough to know that once you're involved, there wasn't anything he could say.  So we shared.  He was great even that way.  He was a genuinely nice man.  He was disappointed that I had gone out and messed up, but once it was done, it was done.16

Substance abuse was ultimately blamed as the cause for Parker's untimely death at the age of thirty-four, as Frederick Spencer stated that "it was years of unremitting substance abuse that really killed him."17  Nonetheless, Parker's efforts in rehabilitation were noted, as Spencer also pointed out that Parker had stopped using heroin, although he substituted it with excessive drinking, before his death on March 12, 1955.18

 

*NOTE: This article is based on materials and information presented in “Charlie Parker: The Analytical Study of Twenty-Two Performance Versions of Now's The Time”.


  1. Peretti, Jazz in American Culture, 104.  It is noted that Peretti questionally portrayed Parker's problem regarding substance abuse as the refection of ethnic inequality, stating that "like Gillespie's militancy, Parker's drug use reflected bebop's roots in the pain and increasing despair of ghetto black." in Jazz in American Culture (104). ↩
  2. Ortiz Walton, Music: Black, White and Blue (New York: William Morrow, 1972), 99. ↩
  3. A. B. Spellman, Four Lives in the Bebop Business (New York: Pantheon Books, 1966), 219. ↩
  4. Gene Lees, Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White (New York: Da Capo Press, 1995). 103. ↩
  5. Leonard Feather, "Yardbird Flies Home (1947)," in Charlie Parker: Six Decades of Commentary, ed. Carl Woideck (New York: Schirmer Books, 1998), 62. ↩
  6. Michael Levin and John S. Wilson, "No Bop Roots in Jazz: Parker," Down Beat, September 1949, 19. ↩
  7. Ibid. ↩
  8. Robert G. Reisner, ed., Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker (New York: Da Capo Press, 1975), 47. ↩
  9. Ibid., 146. ↩
  10. Chet Baker, As Though I had Wings: The Lost Memoir (London: Indigo, 1998), 55. ↩
  11. Howard McGhee, "Jazz Oral History Project: Howard McGhee (1982)," interview by Ira Gitler (23 November 1982), Charlie Parker: Six Decades of Commentary, ed. Carl Woideck (New York: Schirmer Books, 1998), 150-151. ↩
  12. Arthur Taylor, Notes and Tones: Musician-to-Musician Interviews (New York: Da Capo Press, 1993), 167. ↩
  13. Gene Lees, Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White (New York: Da Capo Press, 1995). 104. ↩
  14. A. B. Spellman, Four Lives in the Bebop Business (New York: Pantheon Books, 1966), 225. ↩
  15. Lees, Cats of Any, 104. ↩
  16. Ibid. ↩
  17. Spencer, Jazz and Death, 139. ↩
  18. Ibid., 135. ↩
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