2020 wasn’t just Beethoven’s year, it was also the centenary of Charlie Parker’s birth. And if it hadn’t been for the pandemic, the world would have seen notices of all kinds of major concerts to celebrate the legacy of Bird (as Charlie Parker was known), one of the giants of jazz; one of the great musical innovators of the 20th century; the co-inventor of bebop; and probably the most important and influential saxophonist in jazz. Magnus Lindgren was voted Sweden’s Best Jazz Musician in 2001, he has gone on to win many important prizes internationally. He says: “When I started playing the saxophone at 13, Charlie Parker was my ultimate hero, so this project really does bring me full circle.” Lindgren has been Artist In Residence with the SWR Big Band since 2018, a post which has been renewed for him for another three years. He has overseen an ongoing development in the band’s sound both through reinforcing its engagement as a specialist ensemble in orchestral jazz, and also by exploring various projects involving modern reinterpretations and makeovers of works from the jazz / big band canon. John Beasley’s work as composer-arranger and pianist extends beyond jazz into film and television, notably alongside Thomas Newman working on ‘1917’, James Bond ‘Skyfall’ and ‘Spectre’. Beasley has nine GRAMMY nominations and won Best Arrangement for Charlie Parker’s ‘Donna Lee’ in 2021. Beasley is Music Director for International Jazz Day global gala concerts hosted by the Herbie Hancock Jazz Institute. His 2016 ‘Jazz in the White House’ earned Beasley an Emmy nomination for Best Musical Direction. ‘Bird Lives’ feels like a soundtrack for an imaginary film co-written by Lindgren and Beasley. The SWR Big Band performs with a string section of 10 players, but this recording is not a recreation of Par-ker’s ‘Bird With Strings’ albums. “We wanted to introduce new generations to Bird’s music, but we also wanted Bird fans to hear his music in a fresh and new approach,” Beasley explains, noting that near the end of his life, Parker idolised Edgard Varese and was longing to bring more structure, depth and variety into the way he wrote for orchestra. “We didn’t want to repeat what that has been done before, but rather create something different,” adds Lindgren. The choice of compositions is true to the duo’s aim: there are Parker originals such as ‘Scrapple from the Apple’, bursting with bebop, and there are also some of his favourite standards, such as the opening ‘Cherokee/Koko’ mash-up and the grand finale, ‘Overture to Bird’. But above all the great arrangements suit the context: they not only play to the strengths of the classic big band and of Parker’s endlessly inventive music, but also enhance them with newer stylistic elements, such as a joyous celebratory funk reading of ‘Confirmation’. Charlie Parker was still in the early stages of working with orchestras when he died at the tragically early age of 34. ‘Bird Lives’ may chart the territory of fulfilled dreams that Parker was not able to explore in his short lifetime. This recording has nothing of the ‘museum piece’ about it: this is music both of and for our time.