An Analysis on Confirmation by Charlie Parker

A detailed Summary of An Analysis on Confirmation by Charlie Parker

The only child of Charles and Addie Parker, Charlie Parker was one of the most important and influential saxophonists and jazz players of the 1940's. Charlie Parker, also named "Bird", was born on August 29, 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas. He was one of the major forces in the creation of modern jazz known as Be-bop. Bop, known as Be-bop or Re-bop, is a form of jazz that was created as a revolt against the restrictions on creative freedom that were typical of the big bands of the swing era. Charlie's tone and approach on the alto saxophone, as well as his musical ideas have been followed, understood, adopted, and imitated by performers of all jazz instruments. During this time, two other individuals, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk, began following a similar approach to the new form of music as Parker did. Basically, they were following the form of A-A-B-A, or the 12-bar blues pattern in their music.

The piece of music that I chose to analyze is the Confirmation by Charlie Parker, composed in 1953. In addition to Charlie's alto saxophone there are three other instruments which are being played in this piece of music, that of piano, bass, and drums. All these accompaniments play important roles in this piece, since they provide a

Even though the piece can be divided in four sections (A-A'-B-A), there are some relations between these sections, which make all the parts connected as one piece of music. For example, if one focuses on counting the measures in this piece of music, one will notice that the measures are distributed equally on each section. The easiest way to count the measures in this piece is to focus on the bass, which plays on the beat all the way through. As one can observe, the piece is made of thirty two measures, with eight measures in each part.

It is conspicuous throughout the solo that each measure is comprised of the basis of the chord: the root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th. Basically almost all of these notes are included in each measure. However, there are some passing tones, escape tones and appoggiatura around these notes. This actually is what the language of Be-bop is based on, besides this language is close to the language used in the late 19th century in terms of using flat 9, sharp 9, and raised 5th, which can be heard in Ravel and Debussy.

This piece of music is following the pattern of A-A'-B-A from a harmonic analysis. The first theme is played twice with some minor changes, and then it goes to a new theme, and at the end it returns to the first original theme. At the very beginning of the piece, where Parker plays the first theme, the music does not sound very familiar, but as he repeats th

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Approximate Word count = 944
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English