Bird Lives: the music of Charlie Parker

A little more than 100 years after his birth and 70 years after his death, saxophonist Gabriele Comeglio has staged with actor Cochi Ponzoni the show Bird Lives, which tells the story of the vagabond and chaotic life of Charlie Parker: the inventor of bebop, along with Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk.An atypical figure on the jazz scene, Bird managed to revolutionise it with the new language of bebop, which would make him immortal. Shortly after his untimely death in 1955, the words “Bird lives”, Charlie Parker è alive would appear on several walls in New York's Greenwich Village, a tribute to the great saxophonist and a sign to preserve his memory. The programme proposed for the Music Centre is the soundtrack of the show, with famous compositions that made the Kansas City saxophonist famous such as Scrapple from the apple, A Night in Tunisia, Lover Man, My Little Suede Shoes, Now’s the time.

Saxophonist, arranger and conductor, Gabriele Comeglio è was first alto saxophone in the Orchestra della Rai di Milano for thirteen years, as well as conductor of the Jazz Class Orchestra dei Pomeriggi Musicali. With his big band, the Jazz Company, he has participated in numerous concert seasons playing in theatres such as the Regio di Parma and the Auditorium dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome and has collaborated with the likes of Bob Mintzer, Jerry Bergonzi, Randy Brecker and Franco Ambrosetti among others. He has composed music for successful television programmes, written scores for theatre, musicals and ballet and has also conducted the Sanremo Festival Orchestra and the Swiss Radio Orchestra, collaborating on records by Zucchero and Francesco De Gregori. He has created the TV theme song for “Che tempo che fa” and written arrangements for Mina, Antonacci, Ron and Battiato.