KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Charlie Parker, by consensus the greatest saxophone player who ever lived, was a man of enormous appetites.  "One time I saw him eat three jazz critics in a single sitting," says his friend and former bandmate Red Rodney.  "He washed them down with two bottles of Mexican beer--they were kind of dry and stringy."

Charlie "Yardbird" Parker

The man known as "Yardbird" because of his fondness for chicken liked to put less savory products in his system as well; his death at the age of 34 was hastened, if not caused, by his use of heroin.

Parker's place in the pantheon of jazz immortals is secure, but the American Jazz Museum says it will begin deemphasizing Parker and other drug users in an effort to attract the sort of crowds that keep the coffers of the Baseball Hall of Fame bulging.

"Let's face it," says museum director Charles Fox, "nobody's going to bring their kids down here and blow a couple hundred bucks on t-shirts and souvenir doo-dads unless we clean up our act."

Thelonious Monk

Parker achieved musical greatness despite and not because of his drug use, but other musicians, such as pianist Thelonious Monk, are believed to owe much of their inventiveness to controlled substances they abused.  "Listen to a Monk tune and you are hearing the product of a mind poisoned by marijuana," says former drug czar and compulsive gambler William Bennett. 

Fox has called upon major league baseball commissioner Bud Selig to help transform his museum into a family-oriented tourist destination based on the pro-active approach the Milwaukee car dealer has used in attacking baseball's steroid problem. 

"Bud's been a great help," he says.  "He's pointed us more in the direction of Lawrence Welk and Guy Lombardo, two swingers from the Big Band era that we had completely overlooked."

Welk was the host for many years of a nationally-televised music show that featured wholesome dance routines and virtuoso solos by accordion whiz Myron Floren, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at Selig's suggestion.

"Bud's a polka nut," said Fox, "and the polka is just as hot as Bird's solos on 'Donna Lee' or 'Ornithology'."

Lombardo was the leader of a group known as "The Royal Canadians" that played in Times Square every New Year's Eve.  The highlight of that performance came at midnight when the band would play "Auld Lang Syne", and the song became Lombardo's signature tune

"A lot of people don't realize it," Fox explained, "but 'Auld Lang Syne' is Scottish for 'white people's bedtime'."

Copyright 2006, Con Chapman