Chan Parker


Chan Woods, well known as Chan Parker, was a common-law wife of jazz musician Charlie Parker; she later married musician Phil Woods.
She was born in New York City. She was a dancer and jazz enthusiast who in the 1940s and early 1950s was romantically connected with jazz musicians Johnny Bothwell and later Don Lanphere.
She met Parker in the 1940s, but their friendship did not become romantic until years later. As it developed, their relationship had to surmount several obstacles, including Charlie's drug and alcohol abuse as well as the interracial nature of their relationship at a time when American society was still largely segregated.

Later years and death

Their relationship was dealt a severe blow with the death of their daughter, Pree, a year and a week before Charlie Parker's own death.
Two years after Parker's death in 1955, Chan married saxophonist Phil Woods and moved to France, where she spent much of the rest of her life. From this marriage, they had a daughter, Aimée Francesca Woods. In her later years, she wrote the memoir My Life in E-Flat, which discusses her life with Charlie Parker. It was published in 1999, the year of her death, which occurred in Étampes, France.
Just before her death, Chan was interviewed by Ken Burns, and she was seen posthumously in Burns' 2001 documentary Jazz.
She is the mother of jazz vocalist Kim Parker.