PARKER, Charlie (1920-1955).

Handwritten IOU note signed by Charlie Parker, recording the receipt of ‘Five dollars (payment to officer in Forest Ballroom in Detroit)’, signed in blue ballpoint pen ‘Charlie Parker’, and dated 9 October 1950.

The document dates from the time of Parker’s first tour with a strings section in support of his two Charlie Parker with Strings albums. The eleven-piece played a three-day engagement at the Forest Ballroom in Detroit from 6-8 October 1950, indicating that the IOU must have been written in the early hours of 9 October after the final Detroit performance, before the outfit moved on to Philadelphia to open at the Club Harlem that night. There are three similar IOUs from the same period in the Norman Saks collection, one of which was made out to violinist Teddy Blume. Blume was responsible for leading the string section but found himself acting as Parker’s personal manager on the tour, later telling an interviewer that ‘the period had been the most harrowing of his life and that “Charlie Parker was like having a terrible disease.”’ Russell, Bird Lives!, 292.

Single leaf from a small feint-ruled pocket notebook, 76 x 128 mm.