“A book about a jazz hero written in a heroic style. . . a bebop Beowulf,” now in paperback.

Winner of the Prose Award for Humanities
Finalist for the NAACP Image Award
Finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

No musician has lived a more transformational, or tragic, life than Charlie Parker, one of the most talented and influential figures of the twentieth century. Drawing on decades of original interviews with peers, collaborators, and family members, Stanley Crouch reveals Parker as he was: from the dance clubs of late-night Kansas City, where he learned his craft, to the ballrooms of wartime Harlem, it offers an unprecedented window into the world—and intimate life—of the young genius.