Charlie Parker Jazz Festival returns for 32nd year: 'No better place than Harlem for jazz and art'

HARLEM, Manhattan (PIX11) -- What do you get when you combine art and music festivals in Harlem? You get a fabulous day in Marcus Garvey Park.

It was the 32nd annual Charlie Parker Jazz Festival, a three-day tradition for jazz lovers to pay tribute to one of the greatest saxophonists of all time.

Charlie Parker may have been born in Kansas City, but he lived most of his life here in New York City, playing in jazz clubs here and dying at 34.

People from all over the country come to this jazz festival, like Don Hyman, who came down from Albany.

“This is the best festival,” Don Hyman, a jazz lover, told PIX11 News.

“There’s no better place to hear jazz than in Harlem,” Kathy Jackson, another jazz lover, told PIX11 News.

Near the SummerStage amphitheater was a pop art exhibit where Wilhelmina Grant-Cooper displayed a sculpture she created of a trombone with gloved manikin hands playing the instrument.

“It’s an homage to Melba Liston, a female trombonist born in 1926 when there weren’t many women playing the trombone or composing music, which she also did,” Grant-Cooper told PIX11 News.

Grant-Copper’s tribute to trombonist Melba Liston was just one of the many pieces of art on display in this exhibit, We’re Outside, at Marcus Garvey Park.

Fifteen Harlem-based artists, from the emerging to the well-established, have a wide range of techniques and textures on display.

Laura Gadson, a quilt artist; Debbie Taylor-Kerman; and Thomas Heath, both painters, were three of the many participants.

The Charlie Parker Jazz Festival continues in Tompkins Square Park on Sunday.