‘The Passion of Charlie Parker’ celebrated with new all-star album

Madeleine Peyroux, Melody Gardot, Kandace Springs, Gregory Porter and Kurt Elling are among the stars who pay tribute on a new album celebrating ‘Bird’ – the great jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker.

Following the 60th anniversary of Parker’s death in 2015, producer Larry Klein was inspired to creatively honour this iconic and influential musician. Instead of reimagining Parker’s tracks in a traditional bebop setting, Klein, along with a host of musicians and actors, has created a “musical play” that follows the narrative arc of Charlie Parker’s life through music and original lyrics.

Klein has described how he has brought together some of the most “prescient and forward-looking musicians on the jazz scene today” to create The Passion of Charlie Parker and a “musical language” akin to what Charlie Parker “might be doing in our time”. He’s worked with lyricist David Baerwald to not only celebrate the immense contributions Parker made to jazz as a genre music, but also to reflect  on his turbulent personal life, and his death at the age of just 34 in 1955.

The album is released on Impulse! records on 30th June.