📍18th and Vine, Kansas City, MO 64108, USA
1927 – 1939“I was born in Kansas City, Kansas, in August 1920, the only child of Charles Parker, a vaudeville dancer and singer who later worked as a Pullman chef, and Addie Bailey, who worked nights at the Western Union office. In 1927 we moved across the river to Kansas City, Missouri, and when I was in high school we lived near 15th and Olive, a few blocks from 18th and Vine, the heart of the city's Black district, where the clubs stayed open all night and jazz was everywhere. My mother bought me an alto saxophone when I was about eleven, and at fourteen I joined the Lincoln High School band under Alonzo Lewis. I learned from older musicians, like the trombonist Robert Simpson, and played dances at Lincoln Hall at 18th and Vine with Lawrence Keyes's band, the Deans of Swing. At night I would sit in the balcony above the bandstand at the Reno Club, listening to Count Basie's band and Lester Young. I left school in 1935 to be a musician. In 1936 I sat in at a jam session at the Reno Club, lost my way in the chord changes, and the drummer Jo Jones threw his cymbal at my feet. Everyone laughed, and I swore I would come back and show them. I went away and practised for hours a day, every day, learning every key and every chord. In 1938 I joined Jay McShann's band and toured to Chicago and New York, where I helped invent bebop with Dizzy Gillespie. They called me Bird. Kansas City remembers me with a great bronze head at 18th and Vine, near the American Jazz Museum, where it all began.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today