Only the best die young -to how many musicians does this actually apply? To way too many: in Rock and Pop, Classical Music, and of course also in Jazz. Charlie Bird Parker is one of them: He was born in Kansas in 1920 and died in New York City in March 1955. He was not even 35 years old. It was a short but highly productive life as a musician: At the age of fourteen Parker started to play the alto saxophone. Only one year later, he already had to earn his living with this instrument. He used the less than 20 years that followed to inscribe his name in the Hall of Fame of Jazz. End of August of 2020 the international world of jazz was celebrating 100 Years Charlie Parker. Even those who had not noticed it before now realized that a great musician was being commemorated. Despite the COVID 19 pandemic his work and life were honoured with several projects: these included exclusive LP-editions, books and - obviously - concerts. Already in autumn of 2019, it was clear that the WDR Big Band would contribute to the Parker-Jubilee. Quickly our former long-time chief conductor Michael Abene agreed to take on the project as arranger. Two alto saxophonists were put at the centre: our lead-alto Johan Hörlén and his terrific colleague from the NDR Bigband, Luigi Grasso. Exactly one week after Charlie Parker's birthday, we were able to perform our concert at the Philharmonic Hall in Cologne in front of an audience - a very special privilege in the Corona-season of 2020/21. One concession to the pandemic was that the band members were sitting further apart than usually, with the saxophones even placed at the stage edge, with their back turned towards Jörg Achim Keller, our conductor. However, the current album is a studio production of the concert programme and not affected by these adversities.
