Confirmation

Confirmation is a bebop composition by Charlie Parker, first recorded on March 28, 1946, with The Charlie Parker Quintet for Dial Records, featuring Miles Davis on trumpet. The tune is a contrafact based on the chord changes of Twilight Time, the 1944 popular song by Morty Nevins, Al Nevins, and Artie Dunn, over which Parker composed an entirely new and characteristically angular bebop melody. The composition features an intricate, fast-moving melodic line with chromatic passing tones and dense harmonic motion, including minor ii-V progressions and secondary dominants that create a restless, propulsive energy. Its thirty-two-bar AABA form contains subtle harmonic variations between the A sections, with walk-down ii-V sequences that add cyclical tension and release. Confirmation has become one of the essential bebop standards and a rite of passage for jazz improvisers, widely transcribed in resources like the Charlie Parker Omni Book and regarded as one of the most challenging yet rewarding vehicles in the repertoire. The tune stands alongside Parker's best-known originals as a defining statement of bebop harmonic and melodic language. The AllSolos database features several notable performances of Confirmation, including a 1954 recording from A Night at Birdland Vol 2 by the Art Blakey Quintet with Clifford Brown on trumpet and Lou Donaldson on alto saxophone, a 1957 recording from Cliff Craft with Clifford Jordan on tenor saxophone and Art Farmer on trumpet, and a 2021 Charlie Parker Tribute by the Chad LB Quartet with Chad Lefkowitz-Brown on tenor saxophone.