Chan Parker obituary
Steve Voce
Chan Parker
Charlie Parker was probably the most awkward genius since Vincent Van Gogh.
Anyone stricken by the tornado of his life could be sure of suffering
misfortune ranging from desperate unhappiness to death. Some were lucky to
escape with a glancing blow. Chan Parker got one right between the eyes.
The writer Alun Morgan was once offered a large fee by a magazine for men
to write an essay on Charlie Parker. As a devotee of the alto saxophonist's
music, Morgan was delighted. "We want the emphasis to be on the sex and
drugs bit," said the man from the magazine. Morgan backed hastily away.
"Gargantuan" might have been invented to describe Parker's appetites. He
took everything in his life to the extreme, whether it were music, drug
addiction, eating or his sex life. He had a wife, Rebecca, and son Leon back
in Kansas City when, in 1945, he began dating Chan Richardson in New York.
At the same time Charlie, who had been sharing Miles Davis's apartment,
moved in to live with Doris Sydnor, a hat check girl at the Spotlite, one of
the many jazz clubs on 52nd Street where Parker played. The excesses took
their toll. "Charlie was always old," said Rebecca. "I couldn't believe that
he was just 26," said Chan.
Chan Parker grew up on 52nd Street, known to musicians simply as "The
Street". She lived with her mother who had come there during the depression
with the Ziegfeld Follies show. Following the death of her husband, a
successful night club owner, Chan's mother survived financial ruin to
acquire the hat check concession at The Cotton Club. The two women lived in
an ageing brownstone house at 7, West 52nd Street.
Chan helped her mother out at The Cotton Club or worked at the nearby Three
Deuces. After graduating from the local high school, Chan took professional
dancing lessons and became a night club dancer. Naturally she heard a lot of
the new music, Bebop, in the clubs, and was a devoted jazz fan before she
met Charlie Parker. An outstandingly beautiful woman, she gravitated
naturally to the company of jazz musicians and used the "hip" language of
the time. Her mother tried to warn her off. "Mother, you're so square," said
Chan. "I don't have to sleep with these cats. They're my buddies."
Under her influence 7 West 52nd Street became an open house for musicians.
Chan worked hard as an unpaid press agent for the music. Charlie Parker met
her when he began visiting the house. He was 23 and she was 18, already
married to and divorced from another musician, Bill Heyer. When, in 1950,
she and her daughter Kim moved in with Parker, he was at the height of his
fame and also at the height of his spectacular excesses that were to lead to
his early death five years later. He soon broke off his relationship with
Doris Sydnor and moved in with Chan.
Parker and Chan had two children, a daughter, Pree, and their son Baird.
Chan took the name Parker, although she was never legally married to him. He
was eventually divorced from Rebecca, but there was another wife, Geraldine,
and some common law wives, too. Chan was the only one of them who called
Parker by his nickname "Bird".
Despite a horrifying series of drug-related incidents, Chan was devoted.
'His life was a joyous thing. He lived it fully, loved his kids, music,
movies. Simple things. Bird liked simple things. He was the strongest man I
ever met in my life." Parker's giant status as a jazz creator was now
universally recognised. In 1950 the largest of the jazz clubs, on 52nd
Street and Broadway was renamed "Birdland" in his honour. He had no
financial interest in it and indeed because of his behaviour he was soon
banned from the club.
He was featured in the black magazine Ebony where he was shown as the father
of a happy, integrated family (Chan was white), dining with Chan and Kim as
they ate a meal which had in reality been prepared as a photographer's prop.
When Rebecca saw the photograph she and her second husband filed charges
against Charlie Parker for failing to support his son Leon. Parker admitted
that he hadn't paid any money for 14 years and was sent to gaol. Later,
shortly before he broke with Chan, the two visited Rebecca in Detroit and
were reconciled.
During 1954 Parker's life was totally disrupted by his addiction to drugs.
Gerry Mulligan went to hear him for the last time in the middle of 1954. "He
was faltering. I cried. His playing had exuberance at best, at worst a manic
velocity, but always a musical control. What was missing was the kind of
gentleness he could project."
Parker's behaviour became impossibly erratic and he battled constantly with
Chan. After one of their rows he swallowed iodine, and he was twice detained
in Bellevue, a "hospital" that specialised in the treatment of addiction.
Towards the end of the year the two broke up and Parker died a few months
later in controversial circumstances in the apartment of Baroness Pannonica
de Koenigswarter. The Baroness kept the death secret for two days,
explaining that she had decided not to report the event until she could find
Chan. But Doris Parker found out from another musician, and there was a
farcical battle between Doris and Chan over who should have the body. The
unfortunate saxophonist was moved from one funeral parlour to another before
finally being buried in Kansas City ("Don't let them bury me in Kansas
City," he had told Chan) with the wrong date engraved on his tombstone.
That was not the end of the affair, for years of litigation followed over
Charlie Parker's estate between the various women with whom he had been
involved. Eventually a settlement was reached out of court, but its terms
were never disclosed. Chan Parker kept two of his alto saxophones and one of
them, made of acrylic plastic, was sold at Christie's in London in September
1994 as one of 83 items in "The Chan Parker Collection". The mayor of Kansas
City flew over for the occasion and bought the horn for the city, paying
more than £80,000 for it.
After Parker's death, Chan Parker, herself an accomplished pianist, turned
to song writing and made a brief return to dancing. Eve
She went into the restaurant business before she married the altoist Phil
Woods in 1957. Woods remains Parker's most devoted musical disciple, but the
marriage ended in divorce.
In 1971 Chan Parker bought a house in Champmotteux, south of Paris. She
lived there for the rest of her life, emerging in 1988 to work with Clint
Eastwood on "Bird", a film based on Charlie Parker's life. Her memoirs, "My
Life In E Flat" were published in 1993.
Steve Voce
Beverley Dolores Berg (Chan Richardson/Chan Parker), born New York, 1925:
married first Bill Heyer (one daughter; marriage dissolved) (one son and one
daughter deceased, by Charlie Parker qhi died 1955), secondly Phil Woods
(one son and one daughter deceased, marriage dissolved); died Etampes,
france, 9 September 1999.
midtown neon
material such as this. And this one, especially good for me as it
revives old memories, old feelings. Bird, 45 years gone, still alive.
Because ... he has a power over me.
A story such as this, purportedly a Chan obit., and Bird, Bird's
presence takes over. Of course, I did not know her. But Bird I knew and
my memories of him are rather deeper, richer, than almost anyone I knew
from that era. Maybe no "almost"about it.
I remember seeing Bird one night at the Open Door. If Bob Reisner
hadn't an admissions charge, one could walk in and buy a 15 cents beer
and sit. I don't recall what the admissions prices were those days.
They weren't much.
It was a damp, cavernous place. On summer nights there'd be mosquitos.
And, on one of those summer nights, Bird was scheduled to appear. The
openng act was a sort of barnyard rock. No relation to what's called
rock in and after the 60's. More Elvis, more Chuck Berry, related. Was
it Blue Suede Shoes time?
And Bird was sitting, I have no recall as to who else would have been
with him, at a table near the bandstand. And the group wouldn't finish
up and get off! They had no fans there, only Bird's followers being in
attendence, but they did get to see an audience.
And, no, I don't think that they heard the muttering. But Bird, hearing
all, finally in exasperation, but exceptionally good-humored, got up on
the stand with them -- and blew
"Shake, Rattle and Roll"!
Fine and stirring moments.
Oh, yeah. Sonny Rollins and crew walked in, took one look, and walked
out!
neon, m.
penillault gerard
I met Chan in Champmoteux a lot of time ten years ago when i was working in
a local radio. She was a very nice person always listening music and
speaking about thes great years. I saw that acrylic alto and it was like
discovering a hugec treasure. Just to tell my sadness to Kim if she read
these lines. Bye Chan. See you...
thir...@imap2.asu.edu
compilation cd/magazine.
It's on eBay, bidding started at $14.00 with no reserve, at:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=168588264
Jill Goodwin
Just one caveat: Phil Woods and Chan (with Kim, Baird, Gar & Aimee) moved to
France in 1968 and bought the house in Champmotteux together. Phil paid the
mortgage off, even after they had split up. Their marriage, BTW, lasted 17
years.
Jill Goodwin
Steve Voce <st...@jazmusic.demon.uk> wrote in message
news:937918293.29832.0...@news.demon.co.uk...
> This piece appeared in The Independent today.
>
>
snipped
Larry Koenigsberg
biographer and supporter Francis Paudras, of TO BIRD WITH LOVE, a large and
marvelous collection of photographs of Parker and some Parker memoribilia
(e.g. a letter from Kenny Clarke urging him to come to Paris).
--
To respond by email, omit the underscore "_" from my email address,
inserted as an anti-spam tactic.
Richard Tabnik
Check out the review of Francis Paudras'
"DANCE OF THE INFIDELS,
A Portrait of Bud Powell"
in the latest issue [Sept. Oct.] of
Against the Current .
The reiview is written by Connie Crothers and is really amazing!
If you cannot find the issue, the web site is at
<http:// www.labornet.org/solidarity>
**** **** ****
Richard Tabnik, Jazz Alto Saxophonist
e-mail: <rcta...@inch.com>
WWW: <http://www.inch.com/~rctabnik>