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For the 34 short years he walked this planet, Charlie Parker (a.k.a. Yardbird or, more often, just Bird) lived, loved and played large. So large, in fact, that every jazz musician who’s come along since owes him big time. Not just one of history’s supreme saxophone virtuosos, Parker helped create the musical vocabulary of what would eventually be called bebop. As you can hear on these 12 tracks, that revolutionary language—darting, rapid-fire, harmonically expansive, rhythmically freewheeling—has rarely had a speaker more gifted or fearless. Aspiring jazzers, take heed: Live not as Bird lived but as he played—free and easy. — Mac Randall