BIRD NOW

Along with Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and a string of others, Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker was one of the prime exponents of the ‘bebop’ style, a progressive movement from the forties which continues to leave its mark on contemporary jazz. Marc Hureaux chooses to build his film around anecdotes, interviews (including moving contributions from Chan Parker, Bird’s wife, Gillespie and the drummer Roy Haynes). The final word goes to the director himself: ‘Charlie Parker is one of the greatest, most wonderful figures which Black America has given to the world’.