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Max Roach was buried yesterday, and this weekend is host to the Charlie Parker festival here in New York City (Saturday in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem and Sunday in Thompkins Square Park in the East Village).

"Charlie Parker became a New Yorker," said the jazz historian Phil Schaap, whose Parker-fixated weekday radio program, "Bird Flight," has been heard in its current form on WKCR (89.9 FM) since 1981. "That was important to him, and he felt great about it, and he enjoyed New York nightlife as well as he dominated it for a while."

The origin of be-bop has been famously captured in this interview:

Parker recalled that he had tired of the stereotypical chord voicings then in use. "I kept thinking there's bound to be something else," he said. "I could hear it sometimes, but I couldn't play it." One night in 1939, improvising over the Ray Noble tune "Cherokee," he brought his idea to life. "And bop was born," Down Beat added.

Finally, with the passing of Max Roach, there is only one last living-legend from that era, 82 year-old Roy Haynes (who's playing is still amazingly powerful):

"We opened Birdland together," Mr. Haynes added, referring to the defunct nightclub on Broadway near 52nd Street, rather than the current club of the same name on West 44th Street. "Bird was very excited about that. I remember on opening night there were lines of people outside, waiting in bad weather."

Don't miss the Charlie Parker Festival, both uptown and downtown.

Tompkins Square Park is located here...

Remember: Bird Lives!

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