Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 4,10 Mar 2009,30 mins

SeriesSeries 7

Charlie Parker

Ken Clarke's Jazz Greats

Available for over a year

Ken Clarke MP profiles great jazz musicians of the 20th Century. Ken talks to British jazz musician Soweto Kinch about saxophonist Charlie Parker, one of the founding fathers of the bebop movement. After moving to New York in 1939, he worked with Dizzy Gillespie and helped to push the boundaries of the form. However, his life and career were blighted by a heroin addiction which killed him at the age of just 34.

Programme Website
More episodes