linguistic:voice_change, information:extraction
1936–1938: Jam sessions and woodshedding

Upon leaving high school, Parker began to play with local bands in jazz clubs around Kansas City and often ambitiously took part in jam sessions with more experienced musicians. In early 1936, at one such jam session with the Count Basie Orchestra, he lost track of the chord changes while improvising. This prompted Jo Jones to contemptuously remove a cymbal from his drum kit and throw it at his feet as a signal to leave the stage.

Rather than becoming discouraged, Parker vowed to practice harder. He mastered improvisation and, according to his comments in an interview with Paul Desmond, spent the next three to four years practicing up to 15 hours a day. Parker proposed to Rebecca Ruffin, his girlfriend four years his senior, and the two were married on July 25, 1936. They had two children together before divorcing in 1939, in large part due to his growing drug addiction.

In late 1936, Parker and a Kansas City band traveled to the Ozarks for the opening of Musser's Resort south of Eldon, Missouri. Along the way, the caravan of musicians had a car accident and Parker broke three ribs and fractured his spine. Despite his near-death experience on the way to the Ozarks in 1936, Parker returned to the area in the summer of 1937, where he spent a great deal of time woodshedding and developing his sound. Working with two musicians on chordal instruments, a pianist and guitarist respectively, he was able to practice improvising over chord changes and began to develop the ability to solo fluently across chords and scales.

In 1938, Parker joined pianist Jay McShann 's territory band. His first gig with the band was during the summer or early fall at the Continental Club in Kansas City, where Parker worked as a substitute alto saxophonist for Edward "Popeye" Hale. In December, he joined Harlan Leonard 's Rockets; the band played at dances including a Christmas dance for which Parker was listed in a local newspaper as one of the Rockets' personnel.