Ten more, relatively obscure musicians who flew briefly into Charlie Parker’s orbit….

Part Two.

Jimmy Bunn.                                                                                                                       What a stressful day it must have been for young Jimmy Bunn (20) as the Howard McGhee Quintet including Charlie Parker arrived at the C.P. McGregor Studios in Hollywood in June 1946. Ross Russell, Charlie’s manager at the time, was desperate to record some tracks even though Bird was desperately ill on the verge of a mental and physical breakdown. Although the recordings themselves (the Lover Man session) were catastrophic in many ways, Jimmy came out of it with credit playing some fleet fingered solos and comping strongly for Bird’s feeble and Howard’s strong solo attempts. The fact that anything decent could be salvaged from this record date was partly due to Jimmy who kept his head amid total chaos around him.

Bunn enjoyed a good career in the bebop years working with some big names on the scene – Dexter Gordon, Lucky Thompson, Gerald Wilson, Russell Jacquet and Helen Humes although he did spend time in San Quentin jail between 1959 and 1963. 

“Little” Jimmy Scott.                                                                                                      Little Jimmy Scott, the man of low stature but high of voice, was keen to get to the Birdland club on the 15^th May 1950 to hear the Monday night jam session especially as Fats Navarro, Bud Powell and Charlie Parker were rumoured to be playing. He had a great shock when Bird recognised him and invited him to the stand to ‘sit-in’ on Embraceable You one of his specialities. In the event, the performance was somewhat embarrassing due to the late, late, chaotic situation on the bandstand. By this time, Bud Powell had gone to be replaced by Walter Bishop Jr; the latter was very unsure of the chords for whatever reason, but the group pressed on - as you do in these situations! Jimmy gave it his all in his emotive style but his pitch faltered and his delivery was ‘sharp’.

Jimmy Scott had a tough struggle early in his career but was “rediscovered” in 1991 experiencing something of a renaissance which gave him the respect and attention he deserved.

Teddy Blume.                                                                                                                        Teddy Blume was the violinist who led the string section of the ‘Bird With Strings’ band and who acted as Bird’s manager from 1950-54. This must have been one of the most difficult jobs ever due to Charlie’s complex lifestyle, his mental and physical health, his unreliability and irascible character. Blume was on hand to deal with the many difficult situations around Parker involving the Police, the Law, club owners, fellow musicians, family and former wives and girlfriends. He had the unenviable task of persuading the classical string players to stay with the group through the tours, the record dates, the intermittent work and the difficulty of playing the same fairly ordinary arrangements of the repertoire over and over again. Despite all of this, Teddy was a loyal employee and is quoted as saying “if Charlie were alive, I’d work with him again if he asked me” (Bird: The legend of Charlie Parker by Robert Reisner)

George Handy.                                                                                                                    In 1946, Ross Russell, owner of Dial Records wished to broaden his company’s traditional style to include some of the “new music”. He chose George Handy - a pianist/arranger/composer to form a group which turned out to be the Dizzy Gillespie Band of the day comprising Diz, Bird, Lester Young, Milt Jackson, Al Haig, Ray Brown and Stan Levey. On the day itself, neither Young nor Jackson could be found and were replaced by Lucky Thompson and Arvin Garrison while Handy himself replaced Haig at the piano. The theme of his original, Diggin’ Diz proved to be difficult for the assembled musicians to rehearse and play and only one satisfactory ‘take’ could be achieved during the session which exhausted the group - not what Russell was hoping for……George Handy was a skilled musician who subsequently had a long, successful career in jazz, the studios, and classical music. His jazz writing was thought at the time to be “more advanced” than Stan Kenton’s/ 

Argonne Thornton (a.k.a. Sadik Hakim).                                                            Argonne Thornton was a pianist who had a career in the bebop era. It is known that he attended the famous “Now’s The Time” 1945 record session with Charlie Parker when Bud Powell (allegedly) failed to turn up on the day. In fact, Dizzy Gillespie played most of the piano on these recordings and Argonne performed only on Thrivin’ From A Riff. His intros and solos were curiously ‘wild’ where he played frantic, jagged, oblique, chromatic runs in a far from conventional style even for the bop era. His later work with Dexter Gordon and Lester Young on record shows a similar style, but not quite so awkward.

He never worked with Charlie Parker again.

Dave Brownlow