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The enigma of Charlie Parker may also be influenced by the multiple inconsistencies regarding his life and the
memories people have of him. The nickname 'Yardbird' or 'Bird' is no exception.....
Teddy Blume says he got the name Yardbird, because he was always found in the yard outside clubs listening to the
bands inside. He was too young to go into the club, so he used to 'practice' outside with the sax. He says sometimes
they found him asleep in the alley?
The Jay McShann band was on its way to play a job at the University of Nebraska. As they passed a farm, the car
Charlie Parker was riding in hit a chicken that ran across the road. McShann said: Charlie told the driver, "Man, go
back, you hit that yardbird." They went back, and Charlie jumped out and got the chicken. When they got to
Lincoln, he asked the lady who ran the boarding house where we were staying to cook it for dinner.
Parker once mentioned that his little cousin could not pronounce 'Charlie' but could only say 'Yarlie' and this
gradually transfigured into Yarl, Yard, Yardbird, Bird.

There is also his famous fondness for chicken, confirmed by Clyde E. B. Berhardt in his autobiography, I Remember.
"Told me he got the name Yardbird because he was crazy about eating chciken: fried, baked, boiled, stewed,
anything. He liked it. Down there in the South, all chickens are called yardbirds. Every house has some".
There is the 'free as a bird' theory, which found a home with those who believed his playing was free or not
constrained or confined. However, Bob Wallace remembers this anecdote:
Customer to Bird: "I hear you are Charlie Parker and in town."
Bird to customer: "That's right, man."
Customer: "Well, play me some of those good ole down-home-in-the-alley blues. And you know what I mean -
Memphis Slim style."
Parker looked back at the piano player. "White Christmas', Ted." The tempo was one of Parker's best, and you can
imagine the groove. Bird played bar after bar, everyone different. At the end:
Customer to Parker:"Say, here now....Don't they called you Yardbird? I see why now - man, you really fly."
Bird, with darts in his eye, packed up his horn and cut out, cursing.
Carmen McRae says, "The nickname 'Bird' comes from yardbird. He did
a short stint in the army, and yardbird is what they call a recruit". No
disrespect to Ms McRae, but nowhere is there mention of Parker being
in the army.
Buddy Collette says: "His nickname, he said went back to when he was
fourteen or fifteen years old in Kansas City - not later on when he was
with the McShann band - and nothing to do with the stories that were
being passed around about him eating chicken or picking up a chicken
and the road that had been hit by a car. He hated those stories. He
told us that he used to get up about four or five in the morning to
practice in a nearby park, and would always take at least one friend
with him, a drummer or a bassist, or whoever would get up that early.
Often they'd get high out there. The cops would drive by and wave at
them. They allowed them to practice, as long as it was far enough
away from the residential area. That's when the nickname came. The
people heard that little alto of his so often in the park that the
started calling him 'Bird'". Jazz Generations: A Life in American Music
and Society. Buddy Collette with Steven Isoardi. Continuum Books.
2000
Buster Smith, combining two other suggestions of how the name
'yardbird' came about recalled, "When he'd get off work at night, he
said, "I'm goin' home and knock over me one of them yardbirds." So
the boys would ask him, I even asked him, "What do you mean,
yardbird?" "I'm going to get me one of them chickens." [] He'd go
catch one of these chickens and kill 'em. I guess he was staying with
his parents, and he'd have them cook him a chicken. Middle of the
night, didn't make no difference to him. And so them boys got to
callin' him Yardbird, and that's the way he [unintelligible]. [] They
couldn't call him "Charlie." "Yardbird!" He'd look out, "Yeah!"
In Dizzy Glillespie's autobiography, Dizzy, whilst talking about first meeting Charlie, there is a footnote saying:
"Charlie Parker's bluesy, syncopated style is often attributed to the influence of 'Old Yardbird', Buster Smith, a
saxophonist out of Kansas City. I never heard 'Old Yardbird' play, but I've heard about him." This suggests that Charlie
Yardbird | Birdlives http://www.birdlives.co.uk/article/yardbird
1 de 2 05/06/14 10:47 a.m.
inheritied the name Yardbird from Buster Smith? That Charlie was once possibly 'Young Yardbird'?
Here's another concept from Earl Wilson...


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Yardbird | Birdlives http://www.birdlives.co.uk/article/yardbird
2 de 2 05/06/14 10:47 a.m.