Category: Features

The presiding doctor at his death assumed he was between 50 and 60. Four possible causes of death were given: perforated ulcer, advanced cirrhosis, pneumonia and heart-attack. In fact Charlie Parker was only 34. In his brief career he’d burned brighter than any comet in the jazz firmament, and this…

So effective was he with his fists that they called him “The Brute”. Then you heard him play, and his opulent, breathy tenor saxophone sang of tenderness, loneliness and romance. In the yawning chasm between these extremes lies that fact that big, mean drunks can also be gentle giants. And,…