Charlie Parker’s former partner Chan recalls the time he rode a horse to her apartment on 52nd Street in New York City to impress her daughter Kim.
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TRANSCRIPT
- One day, my doorbell on 52nd Street rang.
I was living with Kim and my mother and this woman downstairs said, 'There's a man here on a horse to see you.'
I knew it could only be Bird.
So I went down and there was Bird on a Palomino and he'd come to show the horse to Kim.
But the reason he did that was because he had great respect for my father, whom he never met.
He had a club at one time and he'd have the orchestra come to Westchester afterward to play under my window, 'Why Do I Love You?' And Bird was just emulating my father.
He didn't have a band to bring.
And so he brought the horse.
He wanted to do something that Kim would remember the way I remembered my father, bringing the band.