Author Archive
When Charlie Parker met Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky’s music... It was Ziggy Kelly "hipped" Bird to Stravinsky’s The Firebird suite back in 1942, so they said in a Down Beat article "No Bop Roots in Jazz". In a 1953 interview with Nat Hentoff for Down Beat magazine, Parker professed his love for Stravinsky’s music, uttering that “I first began listening seven or eight years ago. First I heard Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. In the vernacular of the streets, I flipped"....
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I chewed on A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J. D. Salinger and A Perfect Day for Kangaroos by Murakami Haruki last night like a squirrel’s last chestnut in the deep winter to prepare for this trip. My dream was about German Augmented Sixth Chord pirouetting with cream-colored acrylic plastic Grafton alto saxophone once played by Charlie Parker. At six, thirty-two minutes earlier than usual, I woke up to Ko-Ko,...
More →Four Lions Fountain | Boys Town, Omaha | 2010 | Photo by Jen-Kuang Chang The Four Lions Fountain, located in the Boys Town in Omaha, was erected by the Variety Clubs International in 1948 in memory of the founder of Boys Town Monsignor Edward J. Flanagan and the recipient of Variety Clubs First Humanitarian Award.
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Charles Parker, Jr. was born on August 29, 1920, at 852 Freeman St., Kansas City, Kansas.1 His father, Charles Parker, Sr., an African-American, was born in Mississippi and raised in Memphis, Tennessee.2 The father of Parker Sr., Peter Parker, was an evangelist preacher.3 Parker Sr. earned his living as a touring entertainer on the vaudeville circuit with skills of singing, dancing, and play the piano.4 He established himself as a...
More →President Gerald R. Ford Birthsite and Garden | 2011 | Photo by Jen-Kuang Chang The President Gerald R. Ford Birthsite & Garden, located in the Field Club Historic District near Hanscom Park in Omaha, marks the birthplace of the 38th President of the United States Gerald R. Ford. The original house, owned by Ford’s grandparents Charles Henry and Martha King, was demolished after a fire in 1971 and the...
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Pioneers of American Industrial Design Stamp Collection / Number 2 in my USPS stamp collection / Number 1 is "American Music Series: Jazz Musicians Issue" (with Bird & Trane and many other jazz greats)
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