Summary

“Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova” begins with an excerpt from a review of a jazz album with the same title as the story. The review explains that the album was released in 1963 and that prior to this, no one had heard from saxophonist Charlie Parker since 1955 when he was suffering from a heroin addiction and a number of other ailments and staying with a benefactor.

The narrator explains that he wrote the review in college for the university's literary journal and that the editor published it without realizing that the narrator had invented a fictitious Charlie Parker record. The record could not have existed because Charlie Parker died in 1955 and bossa nova emerged as a popular musical style in 1963.

The review for the imagined record continues, with the narrator writing about the other musicians that play on it and even...