{"id":917,"date":"2007-04-20T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2007-04-20T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=917"},"modified":"2007-04-20T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2007-04-20T08:05:00","slug":"birds_plastic_alto_going_going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2007\/04\/birds_plastic_alto_going_going\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird&#8217;s &#8220;Plastic&#8221; Alto: Going, Going&#8230;Long Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Just in case you have lost track of the famous white plastic Grafton alto saxophone that Charlie Parker played for a time, here&#8217;s a reminder. The horn, actually cream-colored and made of acrylic, was among items sold at Christie&#8217;s in London when the Chan Parker Collection was auctioned in 1994. Chan, never legally Parker&#8217;s wife, was the mother of two of his children and inherited most of his possessions when he died in March, 1955.<br \/>\nAs part of the pre-bidding activity, alto saxophonist Peter King played the horn, with the auction tag dangling from it. <em>Rifftides<\/em> reader Don Emanuel sent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ISadfOcJn3A&#038;mode=related&#038;search\"target=\"_blank\">this link<\/a> to a video of King demonstrating the alto with his regular rhythm section of the time, pianist Steve Melling, bassist Alec Dankworth and drummer Steve Keogh. The eight-minute clip has more than curiosity value. King can play.<br \/>\nThe city of Kansas City, the birthplace of Charlie Parker, won the bidding at $144,500. The saxophone is in the collection of the American Jazz Museum in KC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just in case you have lost track of the famous white plastic Grafton alto saxophone that Charlie Parker played for a time, here&#8217;s a reminder. The horn, actually cream-colored and made of acrylic, was among items sold at Christie&#8217;s in London when the Chan Parker Collection was auctioned in 1994. Chan, never legally Parker&#8217;s wife, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}