Charles Parker Jr. was born in Kansas City, Kansas, to Charles Parker Sr. and Adelaide "Addie" Bailey, who was of mixed Choctaw and African-American background. He was raised in Kansas City, Missouri, near Westport Road. [5] His father, a Pullman waiter and chef on the railways, was often required to travel for work, but provided some musical influence because he was a …

Apr 15, 2025 · Charlie Parker (born August 29, 1920, Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.—died March 12, 1955, New York City, New York) was an American alto saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.He was a lyric artist generally considered the greatest jazz saxophonist. Parker was the principal stimulus of the modern jazz idiom known as bebop, and—together with Louis …

Oct 19, 2003 · Today, Charlie “Yardbird” Parker is considered one of the great musical innovators of the 20th century. A father of bebop, he influenced generations of musicians, and sparked the fire of one ...

Charlie Parker had lived life to its fullest. Robert Reisner, a friend of Parker and author of Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker, observed, “Charlie Parker, in the brief span of his life, crowded more living into it than any other human being. He was a man of tremendous physical appetites.

Oct 25, 2021 · Charlie Parker was known for mythic levels of excess in every area: food, sex, drugs, and alcohol. There are tales of Bird eating 12 hamburgers in one sitting or two or three massive Mexican dinners backstage immediately before …

During his short life, Charlie Parker changed the course of music. Like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, he was a pioneering composer and improviser who ushered in a ...

Sep 6, 2024 · Charlie Parker was born in Kansas City, Kan., in 1920. When he was 7, his family moved to Kansas City, Mo. In fifth grade, Parker began playing the saxophone in school after the city put in force a music-education program. As he progressed, his mother bought him an alto saxophone in a pawn shop for $40. At the time, vice thrived in Kansas City.

Charles "Charlie" Parker, Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer and, with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis, among the most influencial figures in jazz history.Early in his career Parker was dubbed "Yardbird," later shortened to "Bird," which remained his nickname for the rest of his life.

Charlie Parker Charlie Parker, 1949. (more) Charlie Parker, orig. Charles Christopher Parker, Jr., (born Aug. 29, 1920, Kansas City, Kan., U.S.—died March 12, 1955, New York, N.Y.), U.S. saxophonist and composer. He played with Jay McShann’s big band (1940–42) and those of Earl Hines (1942–44) and Billy Eckstine (1944) before leading ...

Charlie walked at eleven months and began speaking complete sentences at two years old. Charlie adored his half-brother John Anthony Parker, who lived up the hill with their grandmother. In 1927, Charlie’s family moved to a spacious apartment at 3527 Wyandotte, located in the heart of a middle class neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri.