Mixed Media : In Brief : “Yardbird Suite: A Compendium of the Music and Life of Charlie Parker,” Lawrence O. Koch, Bowling Green State University Press ($18.95).

This scholarly work, which contains about 200 musical illustrations of Bird’s improvised solos or compositions, is aimed primarily at those sufficiently versed in music reading to follow Koch’s intricate analyses. The narrative portions add little to what has appeared in other Parker books.

Rating: * *