After hearing Lester Young, Coltrane promptly stopped playing the clarinet and started playing the Alto Saxophone.
After he started playing the Alto Saxophone; Charlie Parker would regularly sneak out of his house at night and walk to downtown Kansas City and sit in the back alleys of clubs and listen to the jazz music coming out of the nightclubs. Parker's favorite hangout was the balcony of Club Reno, where the house band was the Count Basie Orchestra. There he would sit and listen to his idol Lester Young playing with the Basie band.
Both Parker and Coltrane led their lives around music. They both left home at a young age to pursue music. While Charlie Parker dropped out of high school at age 15 to solely study music, John Coltrane attended prestigious music schools before he was called to serve in World War Two. Parker worked mainly around Kansas City, playing nightclubs with local blues and jazz groups. Parker regularly surrounded himself with musicians that were better players than he was so he could study their technique and playing styles. Coltrane followed the same path that Parker did; after he returned from the war, he played in many smaller bands led by Joe Webb and King Kolax. Coltrane also played alto and soprano saxophone with bigger name bands like Dizzy Gillespie and Johnny Hodges. .
Parker and Coltrane both practiced vigorously. In the summer of 1937, after being totally humiliated at a jam session with Jo Jones, which resulted in a cymbal being thrown at him, Parker took an engagement with a band led by Tommy Douglas at a resort in Eldon Missouri. Throughout this trip, Parker practiced the instrument profusely and after the engagement was ended, he returned to Kansas City vowing to never be humiliated again. .
Coltrane kept playing in bands and eventually got his big break with a young trumpet player named Miles Davis. Davis was mentored by Charlie Parker, and like Coltrane, Davis had a unique outlook on jazz music.
