Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker

Notes

Notes Chapter 1. Kansas City Blues 1. Stanley Dance, TheWorldofCountBasie (New York: Da Capo, 1985), 265. 2. Westbrook Pegler described the differences between the state of Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri, in his syndicated column published on February 21, 1938: Kansas City has been described as an overgrown trading post on the frontier, but that figure does justice to neither the facts nor the town. She is not a post at all, but a great city whose reputation has suffered from the inclusion in her name of the word “Kansas,” a word signifying thin-lipped social bleakness, prohibition and an aversion to the pleasures of others. Kansas City is more like Paris. The stuff is there,thegamblingjointsandthebrothels,includingamongthelatterarestaurant conductedinimitationofthatoneinParis,morehauntedbyAmericantouriststhan the Louvre, where the waitresses wear nothing on before and a little less than half behind. But, like the Parisians, the people of Kansas City obviously believe that suchthingsmustbeand,alsoliketheParisians,areproudoftheirownindifference. Subsequently, Kansas City, Missouri, became known as the “Paris of the Plains.” 3.MaryLouWilliams,quotedbyMaxJonesinTalkin’Jazz(NewYork:Norton,1988), 187. 4. See Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix, Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop–A History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 166 • Notes to Pages 7–12 5. “Mrs. Nation Ordered Away,” KansasCity Star, April 25, 1901. 6. Born Addie Brower Boxley, August 21, 1891. 7. See Llew Walker, “Bird Lives–Childhood,” available at http://www.birdlives .co.uk/index.php/childhood.html (accessed February 20, 2013). The information is taken from the 1910 U.S. census. 8. See Walker, “Bird Lives–Childhood.” The family is listed at 814 Freeman in the 1910 KansasCity KansasCity Directoryand at 1613 North Ninth in the 1912 directory. 9. John Wesley Howard, John Parker’s nephew, interview by Chuck Haddix, April 19, 2006, Kansas City, Missouri. 10. City of Kansas City, Kansas, Clerk’s Office, Birth Record Registry, p. 72, Birth Record Book D, Index #18034. 11. Robert Reisner, Bird:TheLegendofCharlieParker (New York: Da Capo, 1977), 163. 12. Phone interview with John Parker’s niece Juanita Howard Cherry, January 9, 2010. 13. Reisner, Bird, 159. 14. Addie is listed as a cook living at 852 Freeman Avenue; Charles is listed as a porter living at 844 Washington Boulevard in the 1925 KansasCity,Kansas,Directory. 15. Oliver Todd, interview by Chuck Haddix, July 17, 1997, Kansas City, Missouri. 16. In the 1930 census, the family is listed as living in a duplex at 109 West ThirtyFourth Street, located two blocks north and one-half block east from the Wyandotte address.AccordingtoBrentMenger,whorenovatedtheresidenceat3527Wyandotte, along-timeresidentwholivednextdoorrecalledtheblockbeingconvertedintocondos in 1930. 17. Arthur Saunders, phone interview by Chuck Haddix, June 28, 2005, Cleveland, Ohio. 18.PennSchoolfolder,verticalfile,SpecialCollections,MainBranch,KansasCity, Missouri Public Library. 19.JeremiahCameron,“Let’sConsider:AboutCharlieParker,”KansasCityCall,December 11, 1998. 20. Saunders, phone interview, June 28, 2005. 21. Charlie Parker, interview by Marshall Stearns and John Maher, May 1950, New York. 22.FrankDouglas,interviewbyChuckHaddix,January4,2006,KansasCity,Missouri . 23. According to Charlie’s union record and his cousin Myra Brown, Addie moved up the street in the early 1940s to 1535 Olive Street to a two-story house, where she lived for the rest of her life. 24. Students attended first through seventh grades at Penn, Garrison, Sumner, or Crispus Attucks grade schools before enrolling in Lincoln High School as freshmen. There was no eighth grade in the Kansas City, Missouri, school district until World War II. Notes to Pages 12–22 • 167 25. Sterling Bryant, interview by Chuck Haddix, Kansas City, November 19, 2008. 26. Thomas Miller, “We the Senior Class,” Lincolnite, 1937. 27. “New Lincoln High School Realization of Many Years of Dreaming and Fighting ,” KansasCityCall, September 11, 1936. 28.CharlieParker,interviewbyMarshallStearnsandJohnMaher,May1950,New York. 29. Reisner, Bird, 129. 30. Charlie Parker, interview by John McLellan and Paul Desmond at radio station WHDH. 31. Reisner, Bird, 75. 32. Dance, WorldofCountBasie, 265–66. 33. Reisner, Bird, 129–30. 34.SeeGaryGiddins,CelebratingBird:TheTriumphofCharlieParker(NewYork:Beech Tree, 1987), 34. 35. Giddins, CelebratingBird, 34. 36. Giddins, CelebratingBird, 36–37. 37. Robert Morris, “Kansas City Man on Bass,” MississippiRag, August 1976, 2. 38. Mike Belt, “‘Bird’ Had a Lasting Effect on Those Who Knew Him,” Kansas City Kansas, April 13, 1997. 39. Belt, “‘Bird’ Had a Lasting Effect.” 40. Arthur Saunders, phone interview by Chuck Haddix, June 28, 2005, Cleveland, Ohio. 41. Lincolnite, June 1, 1935, vol. 7, no. 5, p. 11. 42. Advertisement for the Ten Chords of Rhythm, KansasCityCall, August 2, 1935. 43.ErnestDaniels,interviewbyHowardLitwakandNathanPearson...