Galleries

A selection of Charlie Parker photographs that are sadly lacking acknowledgements and descriptions. Please feel free to make contact or add missing details and I will apply them as necessary.

As a young art student, Bo Tak shot the only known European sequence of Charlie Parker on a 16mm movie camera. Tak photographed and shot footage of many famous jazz artists in his home country of Sweden and went on to work for over 40 years in Swedish Television. Prints of his collection including Lester Young, Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Tyree Glenn, Lee Konitz and Roy Eldridge are available on his website. Bo's work is included in an exhibition titled "The Music of the Harbor" in Gothenburg at the Maritme Museum,Sjöfartsmuseet, where his films of Charlie Parker, Benny Goodman, Roy Eldridge, Zoot Sims, Stan Getz, will be shown. The exhibition will last till the end of the year.

Please visit Bo's website. The Bo Tak Photogallery

A selection of Charlie Parker photographs that were recently offered for auction on ebay. So many familiar pictures....

Esther Bubley was the photographer at the Norman Granz, Jam Session recording in 1952. What is really remarkable about this series of photographs is that they show Charlie in a variety of moods: attentive, jovial, exhausted, nervous, and most of all, respectful towards Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter, both of whom were Charlie's idols. Barney Kessel said, "The odd thing, I felt more warmth and receptivity from Charlie Parker towards the others than they did to him. [...] He was younger and he learned from them. They didn't learn from him, they'd already left him a legacy; they were already established people before he'd even picked up a horn. He openly admired them". Esther Bubley's document of this session is genuinely unique for the photographs not only capture Charlie in the creative process, but are linked to one moment in time.

These photographs are available in her book Charlie Parker, published in France by Editions Fillipacci, 1995.

Permission to display these pictures has been generously granted by Jean Bubley (c)2005

http://www.estherbubley.com/

Ester Bubley in the news - May 6 2011

Esther Bubley: Superior's Unknown Daughter

A selection of scans from the collection of the world's foremost Charlie Parker memorabilia collector. Bird Lives is extremely grateful for permission to display these images.

A selection of photographs by William P. Gottlieb. from two shoots in 1947; Carnegie Hall and The Three Deuces. These famous pictures are some of the most popular pictures of Charlie. Please visit the wonderful exhibition at the Library of Congress.

Permission granted

An incomplete selection of LP and CD covers and labels, (mostly lifted from ebay!!) of the many Charlie Parker issues. This collection highlights the massive quantity of issues of Charlie's work. This is not a complete set, and there are many, many more issues but this only indicates the financial potential record companies have realised in Charlie Parker. A far more impressive collection of images is found here or here.

A selection of printed materials bearing Charlie's image or related to his life and work. Also a sub-section of images from newspapers and magazines of the time, covering jazz and bebop, called ZEITGEIST.

The Chuck Halter Gallery