The first four novels in the Charlie Parker series, available together as a digital-only package. Former NYPD Charlie Parker first appears in EVERY DEAD THING on a quest for the killer of his wife and daughter. He is a man consumed by violence, guilt and the desire for revenge. When his ex-partner asks him to track down a missing girl, Parker embarks on a grim odyssey through the bowels of organised crime to a unique serial killer: The Travelling Man. In DARK HOLLOW, Private detective Charlie Parker embarks on a nerve-shredding manhunt and closes in on his prime suspect. But someone else is tracking them both. Parker's empathy with the powerless victims of crime is growing ever stronger. It makes him a natural choice to investigate the death of Grace Peltier in THE KILLING KIND - a death that appears to be a suicide. Genial killers Angel and Louis join Parker again as he descends into a honeycomb world populated by dark angels and lost souls. In THE WHITE ROAD, a black youth faces the death penalty for rape and murder; his victim, the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in South Carolina. It is a case with its roots in old evil, and old evil is Charlie Parker's speciality. Evil men from his past unite to exact a terrible revenge on the private detective.

Dial Records catered to jazz musicians and record collectors. Charlie Parker was one of the major jazz artists to record with Dial. His Dial sessions occurred at the personal depths and artistic peaks of his career during which he introduced a number of such jazz staples as Ornithology and Scrapple from the Apple. His ten sessions associated with Dial are presented in detail and include the repertory, original issues and reissues, titles and notated transcriptions, and analyses of performances. Commentary explains many of the titles to Parker's pieces and collates the various recordings in which he performed his Dial repertory outside the confines of the Dial studios; these celebrated performances helped to shape modern jazz. In addition to the catalogue of Parker's Dial recordings, jazz historians and scholars alike will appreciate the historical narrative detailing the evolution of Dial Records, its owner Ross Russell, and its business relations with Charlie Parker. This examination of the 1940's jazz record business sheds light on the dissemination of jazz via records. Five appendices complete this well organized and thorough study of Charlie Parker and his legendary Dial recordings.

Saxophonist Charlie Parker (1920-1955) was one of the most innovative and influential jazz musicians of any era. As one of the architects of modern jazz (often called "bebop"), Charlie Parker has had a profound effect on American music. His music reached such a high level of melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic sophistication that saxophonists and other instrumentalists continue to study it as both a technical challenge and an aesthetic inspiration. This revised edition of Charlie Parker: His Music and Life has been revised throughout to account for new Charlie Parker scholarship and previously unknown Parker recordings that have emerged since the book’s initial publication. The volume opens by considering current research on Parker’s biography, laying out some of the contradictory accounts of his life, and setting the chronology straight where possible. It then focuses on Parker’s music, tracing his artistic evolution and major achievements as a jazz improviser. The musical discussions and transcribed musical examples include timecodes for easy location in recordings—a unique feature to this book.

"Charlie Parker, Composer is the first assessment of a major jazz composer's oeuvre in its entirety. Providing analytical discussion of each of Parker's works, this study combines music-theoretical, historical, and philosophical perspectives. A variety of analytical techniques are brought to bear on Parker's compositions, including application of a revised Schenkerian approach to the music that was developed through the author's prior publications. After a review of Parker's life emphasizing his musical training and involvement in composition, the book proceeds by considering the types of Parker pieces as categorized by overall form and harmony and the amount of preplanned music they contain. The historical circumstances of each piece are reviewed, and, in some cases, sources of the ideas of the most important tunes are explored. The introduction includes a discussion of the ontology of a jazz composition. The view is advanced that the Western concept of a music composition needs to be expanded to embrace practices typical of jazz composition and forming a significant part of Parker's work. While focusing on Parker's more conventional tunes, the book also considers his large-scale melodic formulas. Two formulas in particular are arguably compositional, since they are repeated in subsequent performances of the same piece. As part of the research for this book, all of Parker's copyright submissions to the Library of Congress were examined and photographed. The book reproduces the four of them that were copied by Parker himself"--

Bundled set of the first four titles in the Charlie Parker cozy mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Connie Shelton. Praise for the Charlie Parker mysteries: “Charlie is just what readers want.” –Booklist “Charlie is a fabulous amateur sleuth.” –Midwest Book Review "Connie Shelton gets better with every book she writes." --The Midwest Book Review "Down to earth and very readable." Library Journal BOOK 1 - Deadly Gamble Charlie Parker really doesn’t want to track down killers. She’s an accountant, a dog lover and a partner with her brother in a private investigation business. But when her old friend Stacy North comes looking for help, Charlie gives in and agrees to help. Stacy’s Rolex watch is missing and she’s afraid her husband Brad will find out. The truth is that she was seeing another man, and she’s terrified of Brad’s legendary temper. Charlie and her sidekick pooch find the missing watch--no problem--but when the “other man” suddenly turns up dead, Stacy is desperate. Can Charlie find out who the real killer is before the police connect Stacy to the victim? It turns out to be the challenge of Charlie’s life. BOOK 2 - Vacations Can Be Murder Charlie is riding front seat on a Hawaiian helicopter tour when she and the pilot spot a lifeless body lying on the rugged rocks of Kauai’s NaPali coast. Drake Langston is the pilot flying the tour. When the flight is over, Charlie assumes her acquaintance with Drake is, too. Within twenty-four hours, though, Drake’s friend and employer, Mack Garvey, is arrested for murdering Gilbert Page. Drake persuades Charlie to help clear Mack. It isn’t easy. The investigating officer has an old grudge against Mack, and it doesn’t help that Mack knew the victim and owed him a half million dollars. Charlie roots out the suspects one by one, never guessing that her own life will be in danger before her vacation is over. BOOK 3 - Partnerships Can Be Murder Charlie returns from her Hawaiian vacation to find her older brother Ron involved with a much younger woman. The more Charlie sees of cute Vicky, the more she realizes how deceitful Ron’s new love is. Is it simply a case of male mid-life crisis, or is there something more devious going on? Meanwhile, Charlie doesn’t have much time to ponder Ron’s problems. Her friend Sharon Ortega is a partner in a restaurant business with David Ruiz. When David turns up dead, an apparent suicide, Sharon comes to Charlie for help. Sharon’s problem is a double-edged sword. If he did kill himself, David’s life insurance won’t pay and Sharon will probably lose the restaurant because she can’t afford to hire a replacement. But if he didn’t kill himself, then it was murder, and Sharon could very well find herself a suspect. Charlie and her dog, Rusty, put their lives on the line to discover the truth. BOOK 4 - Small Towns Can Be Murder Tucked into the mountains and valleys of northern New Mexico are the hidden towns, little enclaves of history and tradition–and secrets. Charlie and her office assistant Sally Bertrand visit one such place over the July 4th weekend, and when they drop in on a friend they learn that Cynthia Martinez suddenly suffered a miscarriage and died. Privately, friends wonder if spousal abuse caused her death. Charlie agrees to ask a few questions and see what she can find out. Meanwhile, Charlie and her brother Ron have an ongoing dispute over gun control. And Drake Langston, the helicopter pilot she met in Hawaii, is visiting and the romance is heating up. “... superbly crafted story...” – Gothic Journal “Another delicious read for the beach.” –The Pilot, Southern Pines, NC “Three plot strands are capably and grippingly entwined, and Shelton doesn’t shirk from confronting big issues” – Crime Time, Birmingham, England

Martin provides a new overall assessment of the importance of Charlie Parker through an analysis of his improvisations in a variety of genres. Earlier studies of Parker argue that his style is based on an extensive network of melodic formulas that are combined to create solos. Because the same formulas appear throughout his improvisations regardless of the theme, these studies concluded that the solos do not usually relate to the original melodies. Charlie Parker and Thematic Improvisation provides a much-needed reassessment by showing that Parker's solos are often related to the original themes in unexpected and sometimes ingenious ways. The conclusion sums up features of Parker's style and discusses his contribution in the context of Western music history. Numerous transcriptions are provided. This groundbreaking technical study will be of interest to musicologists and serious students of jazz.

Originally published: New York: Doubleday, 1979.