Saving Charlie Parker: A Novel

In the midst of a world-wide pandemic, retired music professor, Michael Newman, falls down the stairs in the historic home he and his wife Jean are restoring in McAlester, Oklahoma. He is transported back to 1953 and awakens in a bar in Toronto on the night of what is billed as “The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever.” There he meets his hero, Charlie Parker, the revolutionary saxophonist who is credited as one of the great pioneers of modern jazz. Parker’s artistic life was brilliant but cut short at the age of 34 by his addiction to drugs and alcohol. With the help of astrophysicists from Oklahoma and Switzerland, it is determined that the Professor’s home has an Einstein-Rosen Bridge (a time wormhole). Using drugs, hypnosis, and meditation he attempts to travel back to various important moments in Charlie Parker’s life. Driven by the desire to save his hero, Michael’s transtemporal travel has mixed results.

About the Author

Mike Steinel is a jazz trumpeter, composer, and novelist who for forty years taught jazz style, theory and improvisation to students of all ages. In 2019, he retired from the University of North Texas, one of the pioneering programs in jazz studies.

Mike is the author of numerous instructional books on music, and over one-hundred musical compositions in various styles. He has performed throughout the United States and Canada as well as in Europe, Africa, and Asia. This is his first published novel.