Relaxin’ at Camarillo is a Charlie Parker composition, a 12-bar blues in C major inspired by Parker’s six months in Camarillo State Hospital after legal troubles. It was first recorded in 1946 for Dial Records with a West Coast quartet featuring Howard McGhee, Dodo Marmarosa, Wardell Gray, Barney Kessell, Red Callender, and Don Lamond, and has since become a jazz standard. Parker reportedly preferred the title Past Due, but Ross Russell gave it the name Relaxin’ at Camarillo. The tune has been widely covered, including Joe Pass’s version on Joy Spring (1964), and it lent its name to Joe Henderson’s 1979 album Relaxin’ at Camarillo, with Cedar Walton later recording it as well.
