Fri. March 12

It's been 55 years since jazz great Charlie "Bird" Parker left this mortal coil. To the day. Has his groundbreaking reputation diminished? We'd say not. What wouldn't we give for a chance to see him live? Jeff Robinson - playwrite, actor and saxophonist - no doubt thought about these things when he wrote "Live Bird," a one-man play about Parker. It's at The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, one night only, Friday March 12 at 8.

The play is set in a bar in Harlem where Bird reminisces about his life and music and plays some of his own tunes.  Robinson researched the play in Parker's old neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri. In Jazzis magazine Ed Hazell wrote: "Everyone's agreed on what Charlie Parker did for jazz.  The arguments start when anyone talks about who he was.  But there's a remarkable consensus - even among people who knew the alto saxophonist - that Live Bird, Boston-based Jeff Robinson's one man play about Parker gets him right."

Well, OK. How about Charlie's widow, Doris? "I knew Charlie as a man and not simply as a musical genius. Jeff portrays the Charlie I knew." David Yaffe, in the Village Voice wrote, "Robinson has Bird down cold... Robinson does it so convincingly you'll forgive Parker for his flaws just to be in his presence." So, we're guessing Robinson doesn't sugarcoat Bird's drug addiction and personal problems.

Robinson is a Berklee College of Music alumnus where he studied sax with Bill Pierce and George Garzone. He fronts a band, the Jeff Robinson Trio, which will sometimes accompany poets and has had a longtime weekly residency at the Lizard Lounge. The Robinson trio made a concept CD about heroin addiction with lyrics by poet and former drug addict Marc Goldfinger. As an actor, Robinson's career began in 1985 when he played "Zachariah" in Athol Fugard's "Bloodknot" at the Mass Bay Theater. He has performed at the Wheelock Theatre, Black Folks, Theatre, The Nora Theatre,

Merrimack Repertory Theatre and the New Federal Theatre in New York City to name a few. He's toured the U.S in a Grimes Theatre Group production of Jeff Stetson's award winning play "The Meeting" playing the role of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
Tickets for "Live Bird" are $17.

41 Second St., Cambridge, 617-577-1400 www.cmacusa.org http://livebird.com