Charlie Parker

On the 100th anniversary of Charlie Parker’s birth – August 29, 2020 – it is impossible to imagine the evolution of jazz and modern music in general without the indelible influence of one of the most important Black American figures in history. Parker’s incomparable life and extraordinary, trailblazing career is being celebrated all year with a centennial celebration lovingly dubbed Bird 100, after the nickname of the preeminent alto saxophonist who was one of the fathers of bebop and progenitors of modern jazz.

The incomparable life and extraordinary, trailblazing career of jazz titan and influential composer Charlie Parker will be honored throughout 2020 with a worldwide celebration commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth (August 29, 1920).

City Parks Foundation is proud to announce the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. The festival is New York City's annual salute to the legendary late saxophonist, featuring storied veteran players as well as young jazz musicians who continue to shape and drive the art form.

City Parks Foundation is proud to announce the 2016 Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. The festival is New York City's annual salute to the legendary saxophonist, featuring contemporaries of Charlie Parker as well as young jazz musicians that continue to shape and drive the art form.

City Parks Foundation is proud to announce the 22nd edition of the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, made possible with the generous support of the Dalio Foundation.

City Parks Foundation proudly announces the 21st edition of the beloved late summer jazz favorite, the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival. In the world of modern music, few figures loom as large or cast as long a shadow as saxophonist Charlie Parker, best known as “Bird” (short for “Yardbird”) to generations of musicians. He was born in 1920, and almost sixty years since his death in 1955, he is universally celebrated for single-handedly inventing bebop and bringing jazz into the modern era. The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival is an annual salute to the legendary saxophonist.

The Lost Jazz Shrines series is dedicated to bringing legendary NYC jazz clubs back into the consciousness of the world with a thorough remembrance and celebration. In celebration of the resonant history of Birdland, we will examine the musical and stylistic legacy of Charlie Parker through three completely different lenses and cultural perspectives. This will be achieved through the efforts of three exceptional alto saxophonists.

The successful Birdland Django Reinhardt Festival will expand this summer  by joining with WORLD YACHT for a cruise around Manhattan to the live musical style of the great Django Reinhardt, performed by one of America's top hot jazz bands, "The Hot Club of Detroit", showcasing some of the music from their new release 'Junction' on Mackavenue Records.  The band is a versatile modern hot jazz group, with a unique acoustic-electric sound.The Festival, produced by Pat Philips and Ettore Stratta, was launched in

A truly groundbreaking landmark recording, Tribute To Bird and Monk, was widely lauded when it was first released in 1978 – credited as one of the best and most unusual albums of that year by Neil Tesser in a Jazz Magazine article that noted the record’s “tough, bright, innovative resiliency” and earning the coveted five star (highest) rating in a Downbeat review by critic Jerry de Muth (who called the two LP set “a brilliant mixture of arranged and free jazz”) and garnering arranger-producer Heiner Stadler a place in the magazine’s Annual Critic’s Poll as