Hey, guess who just turned 100. Jazz saxophone superstar Charlie Parker was born on this day in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1920. His addiction to heroin led to his premature death at age 34 in 1955, but the legacy of the bebop virtuoso known as “Bird” burns as brightly as ever. Here he is playing alongside trumpet king Dizzy Gillespie in 1951. This 1976 article from The New Yorker helps explain the eternal “brilliance of Charlie Parker.”
