SAN DIEGO (TNA) – It is quite possible that Charlie Parker has influenced more people to engage in naughty behavior than anyone else in the 20th century.

Parker is considered by many jazz experts as the greatest saxophonist of all time, but his influence as a Naughty American goes beyond that. Not only did he inspire millions of music fans to take up the sax, but he inspired almost as many to try heroin.

Certainly, many of his jazz contemporaries such as Miles Davis started shooting up because they thought the big H was the secret to the Yardbird’s virtuosity. But while horse looms large in “Bird’s” legend, it wasn’t what made him truly a Naughty American of distinction. He was just a stone cold genius, according to jazz drumming legend Max Roach, who said that Bird would have been great no matter what he did – even plumbing.

Bird is the guy who started the whole jazz myth that the best  musician were  tortured addicts. And while those photos of him holding a sax surrounded by smoke support that image, his naughtiness was so much more than just having a monkey on his back.

His fellow musicians were alternately impressed by his groundbreaking music – which they tried to emulate – but, some, like Miles Davis were also repulsed by his lack of impulse control.

Davis once spoke with disgust about the time he shared a cab ride with Bird, who was busy chowing down on greasy fried chicken while a hooker gobbled up his dick in her mouth.

Despite the disgust, most musicians would rather follow Bird’s path, rather than heed his example. Not only did jazz musicians who played with Parker take up drugs in hopes of unlocking Bird’s secret, but so did other artists such as writer Jack Kerouac, who incorrectly attributed the drugs and lack of impulse control, not dedication and practice, as the key component.

Parker’s understanding of jazz harmonies and ability to play fast tempos caused a cultural shift in the genre that moved it away from being dance music to being America’s classical music.

But he didn’t just arrive on the scene ready to revolutionize. Early in his career, he was thrown out of many bands because he was unschooled in theory. It was only after three to four years of practicing 15 hours a day that he reached the beginnings of greatness.
 
Even then, his by-now instinctive understanding of chords and harmony were more than his bandmates could handle. Some found his fast improvisations so intense that he was accused of playing more like a machine than a musician.

The breakthrough for Bird came one night in 1939, when he was playing “Cherokee” in a jam session and figured out a way to play the music he heard in his head; a music filled with fast tempos and soaring musical bits of improvisation that went far and beyond anything in American music before.

Like all great ideas, Bird’s discovery was disdained by older musicians, in part, because only a few guys could play it. Luckily, he found a kindred spirit in trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie, among others.

But while Bird was forging a new language of music, “bebop,” he was also in the throes of a drug addiction that started in his teens after he was given morphine following a heroin addiction. He subsequently got hooked to heroin and, despite his genius, was often fired by bandleaders for missing gigs.

He also played in the streets for drug money and pawned his sax on many occasions in order to pay for a fix. One time, his bandmates were forced to scour Montreal looking for a sax he could play. Other times, he relied on a cheap plastic sax (and still sounded brilliant).

Bird died in 1950 at the age of 34 from pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer. However, his death was hastened by his drug and alcohol abuse. In fact, the coroner mistakenly estimated Parker’s body to be between 50 and 60 years old.

It’s been 58 years since he left the planet, but his music continues to inspire people to stretch beyond the accepted norm. His myth also lives on as well. Although popular music is riddled with great artists who became drug casualties, such as Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain, they were all inspired by Bird, who might be the Naughtiest musician of all.

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