Lawrence Koch

"Much has been written about Charlie Parker's eccentric behavior, his sexual appetite, his drug addiction, and his compulsive drinking. Although some "Bird-stories" are completely true, many others are exaggerated; the inflations make good copy, and often make Parker something he was not. If we are to look at him as a genius, it is, perhaps, best to see him as a human one; for he utilized talents developed by human striving to deliver the message ingrained in him by fate. He was neither a black messiah nor an inhuman god, but rather a man with very human problems that he could solve and express only through his music. His personal failings, which illuminate universal ones, pointedly magnify human imperfection, but the music itself gives many a clue to his higher nature: Is it possible to listen to The Gypsy and not know that Bird could cry unashamedly? Perhaps, then, it is best to speak about the man in terms that can be related to the music." 
-Lawrence O. Koch, Yardbird Suite: A Compendium of the Music and Life of Charlie Parker

In his book, Lawrence Koch describes the trials of the development of Bird's musical style: 
"He was accused of breaking with the traditions of jazz, playing gibberish, being unmelodic, and lacking in rhythmic strength but in retrospect we see exactly the opposite: Parker was a strong blues player, coming straight from the blues tradition of Kansas City; his improvisations always related to the basic chord and were complete melodies with developments and climaxes; his rhythmic sense was so strong that it could go on "automatic pilot" and allow him to freely create phrases over the bar lines. No matter how revolutionary it seemed then, his music is actually only an expansion of traditional boundaries. If we examine the music we find that it has all the elements of traditional jazz, but developed further and shifted in importance: The driving jazz four-beat became mainly the function of the bass, leaving the drummers right foot free for accents, or "bombs," as they were called this created a lighter pulse, but retained the drive, making it more "felt" than heard; the improvisations were based on tunes and forms used by traditional jazzmen, but refitted with new themes and extended substitute harmony; the soloist, a jazz fixture since Louis Armstrong, was given more room than ever before, an obvious reaction to the tight structure of the big band era. All in all, the music seems to us now a logical extension of mainstream jazz. Furthermore, with his searing emotional qualities, Parker can truly be viewed as the culmination of the "hot" style pioneered by Louis Armstrong."