CHASIN' THE BIRD'S HORN:

In August of 1955, Chan Parker, the widow of legendary saxophonist Charlie Parker, was in a rowboat in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, trying to save the legacy of the love of her life.

Roiling flood waters were rising in the wake of Hurricane Diane, and Parker, just months after the death of one of the fathers of bebop, was determined to get the important things out as water threatened their house located on a peninsula in Lumberville.

"She couldn't save him in life, but she could save his remains," says Chan Parker's daughter Kim, who was 9 at the time. The now 73-year-old is Charlie Parker's stepdaughter, and the two were fierce guardians of the memory of the man known by many as "Bird."

"All the water came up overnight . . . and we had to escape. But my mother kept going back," Kim Parker recalls. "At every opportunity, she went back because she had to get things out of that house and what she got out of the house belonged to Bird . . . which was two horns, the contracts, the paperwork, the history and the memories."

The memories were of her life with a man described as brilliant, seminal, an innovative musician who helped change the shape of jazz as the world knew it, whose soaring, intricate improvisations continue to influence musicians today. One of those horns, the last saxophone he owned, recently went on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. The King Super 20 Alto sax is as beautiful, and unique, as the man who made it sing.

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