[Dixielandjazz] The Birdhouse

[Stephen G Barbone]

May not be OKOM, but surely is MKOM and a neat story.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

NY Times - November 23, 2010 - By Corey Kilgannon
Where a Bird Played Sax, Now Others Find Refuge


There are two signs in front of 151 Avenue B, a row house in the East  
Village facing Tompkins Square Park. One is a bronze plaque  
identifying the building as a former home of the jazz legend Charlie  
Parker, who lived in the ground-floor apartment from 1950 to 1954.

The other is a handwritten slip of paper taped to the window of that  
same apartment, warning, “Please Don’t Knock Before 2 P.M.”

Both signs were put up by the building’s owner, Judy Rhodes, who  
worked hard to get the building declared a city landmark in 1999.

As for the “Don’t Knock” sign, Ms. Rhodes said she still favored the  
“jazz hours” she kept when she was a jazz producer, photographer and  
hard-core fan.

“Nighttime is still the only time I can settle in and take care of my  
projects,” said Ms. Rhodes, 74, who since 1979 has lived in the  
apartment Parker inhabited with Chan Richardson and their children.

In the life of the saxophonist nicknamed Bird, it was an atypically  
stable period. Here in this cozy apartment, Parker became a family  
man. He ate regular meals with the children, pushed them in swings out  
back and walked them to school. It was Bird’s sanctuary — he once  
practiced in the large walk-in closet. There is still plenty of bird  
song in the apartment. Ms. Rhodes has two pet parrots and she takes in  
injured pigeons she finds nearby and nurses them back to health. She  
releases the recuperated ones in Central Park or at a bird sanctuary  
upstate.

“This guy here I found floating in my fish pond out back,” she said  
recently, sitting at her kitchen table and holding a young pigeon she  
was nursing back to health, no small thanks to $1,500 that Ms. Rhodes  
spent on a veterinarian who makes house calls.

Sitting below a poster-size photograph of Parker, she stroked a  
recuperating pigeon, while a parrot roosted on her shoulder. Was it  
too corny to conclude that perhaps there was something subconscious  
that motivated Ms. Rhodes to create a bird sanctuary, in the literal  
sense, in what was once Bird’s sanctuary?

“I’ve had people say that to me,” she said, with a laugh. “I used to  
tell them, ‘That’s ridiculous,’ but you know, it’s probably true.”

After all, she does have a history of nurturing jazz and its artists.  
Her love for the music dates to her teenage years in South Carolina.  
She moved to New York City, married and divorced and raised four  
children in the East Village in the 1970s.

She took an interest in the jazz loft scene, befriending avant-garde  
musicians like Butch Morris, Mal Waldron and Bill Dixon, and producing  
concerts and booking musicians for jazz festivals and gigs at clubs  
like the Village Vanguard and Sweet Basil’s. At one point, she brought  
a Steinway piano into her front room and opened it as a rehearsal  
space, attracting artists like Art Blakey, Dewey Redman and Don Cherry.

“They all thought it was hip to be in Bird’s house. Dewey used to  
stand in the closet, praying or something. Once when Don was here, he  
said he had a vision of Bird heading out in a tuxedo.”

There are constant visits from fans of Parker, a pioneer of the bebop  
style who died in 1955, his body ravaged by drug abuse and alcoholism.

“One time,” she said, “a group of Japanese people came in and one of  
them fell to his knees, crying and kissing the floor.”

She recalled learning in 1979 that the building was on the market, and  
the real estate agent who showed her the place pointed out Parker’s  
“practice closet.”

“I went into the closet and closed the door and I said to myself, ‘I  
have to have this house,’ ” she said. “I just really liked the idea of  
living in the place where Bird lived.”

She paid $90,000 for the four-story row house, she said, and over the  
years invested much more in improvements to the Gothic Revival  
building, which is between Ninth and 10th Streets and was built in 1849.

The place has a Bohemian, jazzy feel, with plenty of African art, and  
walls covered with jazz photographs taken by Ms. Rhodes. There is  
still the faded birdcage-themed wallpaper Parker selected as a  
humorous nod to his nickname, and the same heavy cast-iron tub where  
Parker — and then Ms. Rhodes — bathed their children.

These days, Bird’s tub belongs to her birds; they drink their water  
out of the soap dish.