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<\/a>There are many ways to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Charlie Parker, who largely invented modern jazz, on Saturday, August 29, 2020. Just google \u201ccharlie parker 100th birthday.\u201d And eg \u201cJoin Jazz at Lincoln Center for the virtual Bird Lives! Charlie Parker at 100 Festival! \u2026 Aug 25\u2013Sep 4<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or : \u201cJazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker, whose nickname was \u2018Bird,\u2019 was born in Kansas City on August 29th, 1920. For the past month, his hometown has been celebrating his 100th birthday, culminating in a series of public parties on Saturday<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Or yet again, for a view from New York City \u2014 where Charles Parker Jr. from Kansas City spent the arguably most creative and happiest years of his all-too-short life (1920\u20131955) \u2014 you can : \u201cCommemorate Bird\u2019s legacy with a digital celebration featuring a historic walk through Tompkins Square Park<\/a> and a visit to Parker\u2019s house \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, back in the old hometown(s) : \u201cJazz great Charlie \u2018Bird\u2019 Parker was born in Kansas City, Kansas, on Aug. 29, 1920, and grew up across the state line [in Kansas City, Missouri], establishing his reputation here before moving to New York City to become a legend \u2026 The 100th anniversary of his birth will be celebrated in Kansas City and beyond \u2026 A sunrise ceremony will kick off the daylong activities of \u201cSpotlight: Charlie Parker\u201d at 6:15 a.m. Aug. 29<\/a> at the Charlie Parker Memorial Sculpture on the north side of the American Jazz Museum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n The Friday, August 28, 2020 edition of \u201cReal Time with Bill Maher\u201d on HBO TV also offered an accidental but impressive and moving tribute to the great day on Saturday, August 29, 2020. Freshly re-installed in his old TV studio (though still without a real audience), Mr. Maher deftly and respectfully interviewed trumpeter and contemporary jazz giant Wynton Marsalis (in New York since 1979, but born and raised in New Orleans).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The underlying commercial rationale of the interview was the promotion of Marsalis\u2019s just-released latest album, The Ever Fonky Lowdown<\/em> \u2014 \u201ca sprawling, 53-track jazz odyssey,\u201d which the \u201cinternationally renowned trumpeter and composer describes \u2026 as a \u2018groundbreaking, satirical look at democratic freedom, abuse of power, racism and cultural corruption<\/a>.\u2019\u201d The album is \u201cPerformed with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra,\u201d and \u201cfeatures vocalists Christie Dashiell, Ashley Pezzotti, Camille Thurman and Doug Wamble.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n I have quickly listened to a few preview tracks on The Ever Fonky Lowdown<\/em><\/a> and they are almost as interesting as Bill Maher promised. I was even more impressed by what can only be described as Wynton Marsalis\u2019s passionately reasonable American democratic political philosophy, as expressed in his interview with Bill Maher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (And the political comic Mr. Maher\u2019s talents shone brightly in the way he drew out and let Wynton Marsalis express a point of view that is especially interesting in the USA today. The interview is in the last part of what struck me as a very strong Bill Maher Friday night show \u2014 which may have already found its way onto YouTube<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n Neither Wynton Marsalis nor Bill Maher mentioned the August 29 100th birthday of Charlie Parker in their interview broadcast to the USA (and Canada, and perhaps a few other places too?) on August 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Parker\u2019s great advantage growing up in Kansas City was his remarkable mother. But he was also a child of the streets who started doing heroin seriously when he was 15 and died 20 years later. He had unsurpassed discipline in some ways (as in his astonishing alto saxophone technique, honed by rigorous youthful mastery of standard exercise books<\/a>). But modern jazz in his hands is ultimately a spontaneous, improvised art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marsalis grew up in a New Orleans musical family with a noted piano player as a father. He is a sober, meticulously dressed man who has won Grammy Awards in both \u201cjazz and classical music.\u201d He is now in his late 50s, and both artistic director of the Jazz at Lincoln Center organization in New York and musical director of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. He has had a much more disciplined and professionally successful career than Charlie Parker managed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One can similarly guess that Wynton Marsalis is not Charlie Parker\u2019s greatest admirer. \u201cBird\u201d (who was at one point banned from the Birdland bar in New York named after him) does not offer a helpful model of the professional jazz musician\u2019s career that others should try to emulate.<\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/birdhop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/VCP10001.jpg\")
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