Charlie Parker's childhood homes found

[brownie]

From the Kansas City Star today.

SCHOLAR DISCOVERS MISSING LINKS IN PARKER'S PAST

Two of Jazz legend’s former KC homes still stand

By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH

The Kansas City Star

Every decade millions of families fill out census forms.

Mundane stuff. Names and ages. Do you own or rent your home? And, in the 1930 questionnaire: Do you own a radio?

Like millions of others, the Parker family — Charles Sr., Addie and 9-year-old Charlie — are listed on the 1930 survey.

They didn’t own a radio. But someday, Charlie’s music would be heard on the radio. And someday, the legend of Charlie “Bird” Parker, one of the world’s greatest jazz musicians, would be known around the world. But facts of Parker’s childhood remained a mystery because no one found the paper trail.

Now, new details have emerged from these mundane sources. Details that have uncovered two rare jewels: Parker’s boyhood homes still exist.

The 1930 U.S. Census forms, which the government released 72 years after people filled them out, recently became available in area public libraries. Kansas City author and jazz scholar Chuck Haddix took a peek.

“It was like finding a diamond,” he says.

Parker biographies state that when he was a boy his family moved from Kansas City, Kan., to a house in the 1500 block of Olive Street, just a few blocks from 18th and Vine.

But census and school records show a move in between. The Parkers lived in Westport for seven years in a mostly white, wealthy neighborhood, where his father worked as a janitor.

Unlike the homes in Kansas City, Kan., and on Olive Street — both long torn down — their Westport apartment still stands. Plus, when Haddix shared his news with a British jazz scholar, Llew Walker, he learned there was yet another Parker apartment just around the corner from the first. Both are in the old Hyde Park historic neighborhood.

“This is so much different than the story told before,” Haddix said. “… I drove over to the house and stood there with my mouth open, knowing that this was where Charlie Parker had lived.”

The address the Parkers listed in 1930 is 109 W. 34th St. The red brick two-story building is vacant. Its door is cracked open. Trash blows around. The building is owned by a bank in Illinois that took over the deed in April 2001.

“I don’t want it to be torn down,” Haddix said.

“The world needs to know about this.”

The other residence where the family lived is at 3527 Wyandotte St., according to school records. The apartment building is a Greek-revival fourplex that was months away from demolition when a family bought the property in 2000.

The only other known residence of Charlie Parker still standing is “Bird’s House” in New York City, his last residence before his death in 1955. That home is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

“We just think it’s wonderful!” said Paul Lerner, director of development at the American Jazz Museum at 18th and Vine, when he heard the news.

Kansas City historian Jane Flynn’s reaction echoed Lerner’s. She said she thought there was a very good chance that both apartment buildings would easily qualify for the National Register of Historic Places with the evidence of census and school record documents.

Haddix uncovered the new information when he was double-checking facts for the book he co-wrote with Frank Driggs, Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop, published in May. Haddix was in the final edit and was frustrated by the lack of information about Parker’s formative years.

“I did the usual thing that everybody always had when writing about Bird: I wrote that the father left and that Addie brought her boy to Missouri,” he says. But when he checked other documents, Haddix learned about the 1930 census information from Johnson County librarian Stuart Hines.

The records showed that Parker’s father was still with the family when they lived in Missouri.

Haddix shared his findings with Walker, who also had found the census records. Walker created a Web site about Charlie Parker after the much publicized auction in New York of Charlie Parker’s King saxophone earlier this year. His Web site is at .html.

“Contradictory stories get rolled out every 10 years or so, and I was so sick of hearing them,” Walker said in a phone call from London. So Walker began his own sleuthing to find records that would cement facts into lore.

Both Haddix and Walker learned through Kansas City, Kan., school records that Charlie attended Douglass Elementary for kindergarten and first grade. According to Kansas City district records, he went to Penn School from second through sixth grade, Sumner School for seventh grade, and then Lincoln High School until Dec. 10, 1935. He finished the ninth grade at Lincoln, where records show he played in the band but do not specify which instrument.

But Parker never attended Crispus Attucks school, as so many articles and books have said.

Knowing that Charlie Parker grew up with white children changes much of what was thought about him, Haddix said.

“He played in integrated bands and was very comfortable in the white world,” Haddix said. “I think it’s because of growing up where he did. So much of what has been written about Parker has been sensationalized and turned into myth. … I think this really changes my perspective on Bird.”

At the building on Wyandotte Street, Brad Menger and his relatives have been painting its colonnade, installing a brick walkway and refinishing its woodwork.

“That’s really great!” said Menger, when he learned his home’s history as he was painting the building Wednesday. But his face still showed a question. “Now, who was he again?”

Menger said that he recognized the name Charlie Parker, but that he does not listen to much music, let alone jazz.

That quickly changed. Friday afternoon, Haddix took a Parker album to the house so Menger could christen the air inside with the music of the boy who once lived there.

Menger also may rename the building “Yardbird Suites.”

[Dan Gould]

Thanks for posting this, Brownie!

[Rooster_Ties]

There was a pic of one of the Westport apartments from this article in today's paper. I'll see if I can find it on-line, and post it. No good -- the pic wasn't on-line. A good friend of mine has a digital camera, and practically drives right past both buildings on her way to and from work. I'll have her snap both of them this week (if she can), and I'll post pics of them within the next week or hopefully less.

By the way, both of the newly discovered past Parker residences are less than a mile from where I live.

[Free For All]

BTW, the writer is also a bass trombonist (she played with the band Diva a while back). She has written several excellent articles for the KC Star.

[catesta]

Very cool.

[Rooster_Ties]

Here's a good pic of one of them...

[Guest]

Hi there,

I wonder if you mind me using the picture 109 W34th street on my website? http://www.birdlives.co.uk

I would also like any pictures you may have of the other addresses that Charlie lived at?

3527 Wyandotte St

1516 and 1535 Olive. I know these are demolished, but I have no idea what is there now.

In Kansas there are also three homes:

852 Freeman Ave which is a vacant lot

844 Washington which I believe has a house on it, but not the one Charlie's grandmother lived in

and there's one more on 9th and Splitlog but I have no number for that.

Any pictures of these sites would be marvellous, if anyone has the time and the inclination.

Please contact me via Birdlives.co.uk

Best regards

Llew Walker

[bluesoul]

You can buy Charlie Parker's East Village home:

https://www.halstead.com/sale/ny/manhattan/east-village/151-avenue-b/townhouse/13259197

 

 

[JSngry]

Not for $9,250,000, I can't.