An enigma is something that is puzzling, ambiguous, or inexplicable, and the life of Charlie Parker is just that. The fantastic stories of appetites and excesses, addictions and superhuman musical abilities present Charlie as a larger than life character who could easily inhabit a work of fiction. Because of the influence of these stories, we may never have a 'definitive biography' or ever understand exactly how he evolved into the most influential and creative musician jazz has ever produced. This is because our collective knowledge of Charlie Parker is sketchy and incomplete, based on interviews with Charlie's family, contemporaries and friends. The accuracy of this information relies on the veracity of the human memory. Some 'facts' are based on hearsay and many are influenced by journalistic license. Stories get enhanced with each retelling, and are written into books and magazines where they become accepted as 'facts'.

There is no point sifting through the stories attempting to verify their accuracy as most of the main protagonists are now dead. However, some of these 'urban myths' surrounding the life of Charlie Parker could perhaps be the work of Parker himself. An example is the quote at the top of this page by his mother, Addie Parker. An assumed middle name of 'Christopher' is often added to Charlie's biographies and can be found in books, magazine articles and more recently on the Internet. Although his mother dismissed this addition, it nevertheless continued to appear and until recently was considered to be another indication of how the history of Charlie Parker had been distorted by unscrupulous writers or mediocre journalism. In fact, it seems that Charlie added this middle name himself, as has been revealed by the discovery of an official document where the middle name of 'Christopher' appears in Charlie's own handwriting.

Recent investigations have revealed that his paternal grandfather was called 'Peter C. Parker' and the middle initial may have been adopted by Charlie. (Of course this assumes the 'C' stands for 'Christopher'?)

We must therefore accept that Charlie himself may have knowingly contributed to his own enigma, and the stories such as those promoted in Ross Russell's book Bird Lives!: The High Life And Hard Times Of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker, could have been influenced by Charlie himself. It is possible that Russell simply re-told stories heard from the same person that played the saxophone with an apparent infinite creativity.