Charlie Parker vs David Bowie
Two child prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Charlie Parker | David Bowie | |
| Field | Music | Film |
| Sub-field | Jazz | Actor |
| Born | 1920 | 1947 |
| Died | 1955 | 2016 |
| Country of birth | United States | United Kingdom |
| Star sign | Virgo | Capricorn |
Who they are
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. was born on August 29, 1920, in Kansas City, Kansas, and grew up across the river in Kansas City, Missouri, in a city that pulsed with jazz at every hour of the day and night. The Kansas City of Parker's youth was a wide-open town, operating under the corrupt but musically fertile patronage of political boss Tom Pendergast, and the music that thrived there — hard-swinging, blues-drenched, built for all-night cutting sessions — formed the soil in which Parker's genius took root. He began playing alto saxophone at age eleven and joined…
Full biography of Charlie Parker →
David Bowie
On June 6, 1972, a twenty-four-year-old Brixton-born musician named David Robert Jones — performing under the name David Bowie, inhabiting a character he had named Ziggy Stardust — appeared on the BBC television programme Top of the Pops to perform "Starman," draped his arm around his guitarist Mick Ronson's shoulders in a gesture that was, for British television in 1972, practically avant-garde, and stared directly into the camera. The performance reached approximately fifteen million viewers. Within a week, the Ziggy Stardust album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was…
Full biography of David Bowie →
What they share
- Their lifetimes overlap.
Where they part
- Different fields: Music for Charlie Parker, Film for David Bowie.
- Born in different countries: United States and United Kingdom.
- 27 years separate their births (1920 and 1947).
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Charlie Parker or David Bowie?
- Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker was born in 1920, David Bowie in 1947.
- What field is each of them in?
- Charlie Parker is filed under Music (Jazz). David Bowie is filed under Film (Actor).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.