[Dixielandjazz] Jack Parnell (London Guardian)

[Robert Ringwald]

Jack Parnell
Drummer, bandleader and musical director of popular TV shows
by Peter Vacher
London Guardian, August 9, 2010

Tall, lithe, impeccably turned out, the drummer Jack Parnell, who has died aged 87,
always carried the aura of the matinee idol he had once been. Like the American drummer
Gene Krupa, a star player with Benny Goodman's band, the personable Parnell was often
mobbed at the stage door after a Ted Heath concert in the 1950s. An outstanding big
band drummer himself, Parnell liked to vocalise in the style of Phil Harris and later
became a busy bandleader before branching out as a conductor and musical director
for popular television shows. In his latter years, he returned to the jazz circuit
and showed his mettle with visiting US stars such as cornettist Ruby Braff and as
leader of his own quartet.
Parnell was a Londoner, born in Paddington and raised in Wembley, the only son of
vaudevillians and the grandson of a celebrated ventriloquist, Fred Russell. His father,
whose stage name was Russ Carr, was also a ventriloquist (and later Parnell's manager)
and his mother, a gifted classical pianist, worked as her husband's accompanist.
His uncles included the prominent impresario Val Parnell, who ran the Moss Empires
theatre circuit, and Arch Parnell, a theatrical agent who managed comedian Sid Field.
Jack remembered touring with his parents as a very young child and standing in the
wings enthralled by the big bands that were often top of the bill in the late 1920s.
He started piano lessons as a four-year-old and could pick up tunes easily. "I knew
I had music in me," he said. Sent away to boarding school from the age of six, he
began to take an interest in drums, and this soon became a consuming passion.
Not much interested in academic study, he bought all the jazz records he could, starting
with Duke Ellington (he saw Duke at the London Palladium in 1933) and moving on to
the more informal Chicago school epitomised by trumpeter Muggsy Spanier. Armed with
a Premier drum kit purchased by his mother from the window-cleaner for £15 and following
six lessons from Max Abrams, young Parnell ventured north to Scarborough to start
his professional career playing for the summer season at the town's theatre. He was
15. After a year with the Sammy Ash band at Cambridge's Rex Ballroom, Parnell volunteered
for the RAF, hoping to become a military musician.
His audition was overseen by jazz saxophonist Buddy Featherstonehaugh, who immediately
grabbed Parnell for his own service band. Based at RAF Uxbridge, north-west London,
initially, the group was posted to Bomber Command HQ at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire,
after Featherstonehaugh had bribed the movements officer and played in swing style
for mess dances and social functions. Their proximity to London also allowed Parnell
and company ample opportunity to spend their nights in the capital, enabling them
to record and play for broadcasts as the Radio Rhythm Club Sextet.
These were heady days for Parnell -- a friendly flight sergeant turned a blind eye
to their outings but raked in 10% of their freelance earnings as his price for co-operation.
The later addition of guitarist Vic Lewis to the Featherstonehaugh group led ultimately
to the formation of the Parnell-Lewis Jazzmen, initially as a service band and then
a highly successful postwar ensemble.
Invalided out in 1944 (he had a duodenal ulcer) Parnell played concerts and sat in
at the Feldman Swing Club at 100 Oxford Street in central London with visiting US
service musicians: "They had an authority we didn't seem to have," he said. Hired
by trombonist Ted Heath, then about to start his own orchestra, he stayed with Heath
from summer 1945 until spring 1951, playing, singing and leading a small band within
the band, and becoming quite a star in his own right. Prompted by the agent Leslie
Grade to front a band for a show that eventually foundered, Parnell then formed his
Music Makers, one of the great British big bands, full of jazz players, including
saxophonists Ronnie Scott and Pete King, trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar and the mercurial
drummer Phil Seamen. With Parnell's own kit on stage, the band's shows featured the
two drummers battling each other, captured on a recording of The Champ. Parnell's
band toured Europe with Lena Horne to considerable acclaim in 1952, and backed Billie
Holiday in a 1954 Royal Albert Hall concert.
When the "beat groups" took over popular music, Parnell came off the road in 1956
to take on the role of musical director for Associated Television (ATV). Now needing
to conduct, he studied with the brilliant harpsichordist and conductor George Malcolm,
so that he was able to cope with every genre of music. His television job lasted
for a quarter of a century and covered some 2,500 shows, ranging from Sunday Night
at the London Palladium to specials with Sammy Davis Jr, Barbra Streisand and Horne.
His crack studio orchestra -- which from 1976 provided the "real" band for The Muppet
Show -- included many colleagues from the Heath band.
In 1982, Central succeeded ATV, and Parnell returned to active jazz performance,
fronting his own small groups and playing clubs with Braff and clarinettist Bob Wilber,
touring with the Best of British Jazz alongside trumpeter Kenny Baker, his lifelong
friend and collaborator, and appearing with the Ted Heath Tribute big band. He continued
to conduct when asked, notably with the Laurie Johnson Orchestra, and put together
occasional all-star big bands for special concerts.
Parnell relished the chance to play again, the dynamism of his drumming, influenced
by modernists such as the US star Max Roach, still apparent in the many gigs he organised
in the area near his new home in Southwold, Suffolk, where he divided his time happily
between music and golfing with his third wife, Veronica. A generous and agreeable
man, Parnell's last years were marred by chronic emphysema brought on by heavy smoking.
He is survived by Veronica, two daughters and three sons, two of whom are drummers.


--Bob Ringwald
www.ringwald.com
Fulton Street Jazz Band
916/806-9551
Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV

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