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10/05/20. - "Frank Parr wearing one of
the tribute red wigs issued on the night which we all wore
for red head Mike Cotton to celebrate his 60th at the
100 Club. Pictured here with Ken's partner Debbie Wilson,
the event was a surprise for Mike Cotton and arranged by his wife.
"The 100 club was packed and of course jazz all evening by numerous
musicians and naturally Mike joined in in the later stages.
A full house and fun", writes Ken Ames who kindly supplied the
photograph. "I remember when I was booked via Chez
Chesterman’s kind recommendation to "stand in" for the late Ernie
Price at the 100 Club. November 1988. A benefit night for Mrs Price.
It was a reunion of the Acker Bilk band and a unique opportunity to
recreate the Ken Sims John Mortimer Ron Mckay Roy James line up.I
always a fan of that band so it was a special career moment. At the
end of the set Frank Parr approached me on the stand to say “Great
!! Nostalgia rampant”!!!. How the scene misses such wonderful
talented characters.
Frank Parr,
wicket keeper for Lancashire in the early '50s and trombonist with
the Merseysippi Jazz band from 1950 until 1956 (when he joined Mick
Mulligan), died in a London hospice on 8th March. He had suffered
for some time from cancer of the jaw, although fortunately had
little pain. Before he gave up playing in the '60s Frank worked for
Mike Cotton and Monty Sunshine amongst others". -
Steve Voce.
Frank Parr (Francis David
Parr), born in Liverpool, on the 1st of June 1928, who was a member
of one of the first lineups of the Merseysippi Jazz Band, at the
Cavern in their earliest appearances there, died on 8th May 2012,
aged 83.
Taking up the trombone in
1950, he joined the Merseysippi J/B in 1952, as a replacement for
Denis Gracey. Leaving in 1956, he joined Mick Mulligan with whose
band he remained until 1961. John Chilton tells us that Frank "...
During the early 1960s, deputized in various bands, with Mike
Cotton, Monty Sunshine, etc...." Then he gave up playing in 1961 and
took up band agency-work and advertising. Frank would have been 84
on the 1st of June this year.
He had been suffering from
Cancer for several months, receiving Radiotherapy, but sadly he died
at a hospice in Hampstead, London, with no actual family members
present. This news was reported to me yesterday (9th May). The lady
who gave me the news was Liz Lohani, one of just three very close
friends of Frank's. The other two ladies are Jasmine Lawrence (who
many of us know) and Fiona Dunbar. Frank had no family to
speak of, and these three ladies are his only family now They were
all very kind to him, some during decades, carrying out all sorts of
chores that he couldn't manage. So, very deservingly, any intended
sympathy should be directed entirely to these three wonderful
'Angels of Mercy', as well as gratitude, no doubt, to the equally
wonderful McMillan Nurses and the Staff of the Hospice in question
(no details yet on this).
Frank wasn't just a Jazz
trombonist of exceptional expertise in his day, but also a renowned
cricketer, who as early as July 1952, was already wowing the crowds
as Lancashire County Cricket Club's 2nd XI Wicket-Keeper, according
to Alan Stevens (Jack Florin) in one of his early "Jazz Roundabout"
scrap-books, and John Chilton, in his "Who's Who of British Jazz",
adds that he also "represented the MCC in 1953.
I first met Frank at RAF
Henlow, in about 1956 or 57, when he was posted there on a radar
technician's course. I was clerical staff in connection with the
same line of business at RAF Henlow Camp, but we met in a musical
capacity, when he sat in during my jam session, and if I remember
rightly, he was just late of the Merseysippi J/B. We got a king-size
hangar to do some Jazz practice in, with a little group I had formed
when I only played the clarinet. Frank stood out as a true
professional among "us greenies". The other instruments, apart from
Frank and his trombone, consisted of tenor sax, I can't recall the
names of all of these other musicians, except somebody? ... a
trumpet-player Sam Glazin, another clarinettist, Mike Kelly, drummer
Eddy Fenn, and a man on an exceptional electronic "T-chest bass" (an
electronic genius's own invention about the size of the main body of
a metal-detector) from which protruded a real bass-string attached
to a lever - depressed up or down against a metal tube, to produce
the required single note). It sounded exactly like a double bass. I
wonder whether he ever patented it?
Liz, who has taken on the task
of attending document-sifting, the funeral and other arrangements,
said that the ceremony will be held at Golders Green Cemetery.
Details will follow, when I have more news from Liz, for Frank's
friends who might live close enough to attend. My personal sympathy
and thoughts go out to the three ladies mentioned above and to any
relatives Frank might have lost touch with and I am sure his many
friends from the worlds of Jazz and Cricket. I'll be seeing and
playing with you again, Frank, in that great 'practice hangar' in
the sky! - but I hope at least a decade might pass, before doing so!
Joe A A Silmon-Monerri
Frank Parr 1928 –
2012
At a pub in
Castleford in the late seventies I first met Frank Parr, the sublime
but driven trombonist who has recently died and was best known for
his work in the Mick Mulligan band. As George Melly related in his
second volume of autobiography, ‘Owning Up’ - ‘Frank was an extreme
social risk, a complicated rebel whose world swarmed with demons.’
Frank was
born in Wallasey, June 1st 1928 and attended the local Grammar
School; a gifted sportsman who caught the eye of a Lancashire
Cricket Club scout and was subsequently engaged by the club as a
‘player’ (not a Gentleman) He was to keep wicket for Lancashire and
before long was a first team regular, clocking up between 1951 and
1954 90+ dismissals. His name was touted for a potential MCC Test
spot, however it was his louche, exotic lifestyle, which was
ultimately to seal his downfall.
Lancashire
had appointed a new Captain, Cyril Washbrook (i.e. Gentleman) who
immediately demanded Frank address him as ‘Sir’ and insisted he had
to ‘spruce himself up’.
Frank never
informed anyone of the true circumstances of his dismissal from
Lancashire CC, nonetheless he left in deep acrimony. Washbrook
supposedly blackballed Frank, rendering him, as a cricketer,
unemployable.
He had played
trombone with the Merseysippi Jazz Band from the early fifties. At
the time this occupation although tolerated by the Grandees of the
Cricket Club was also viewed with deep suspicion.
During an
appearance at the Cavern in 1956 Mick Mulligan offered him a chair
with his Magnolia Jazz Band. Having little to lose and accompanied
by the enticing promise of a regular income Frank threw in his lot
and moved to London.
He began
drinking heavily, but as George Melly, a fellow scouser was to
inform, ‘He passed through the classic stages of drunkenness in
record time; wild humour, self pity, to unconsciousness.’
Frank once
fittingly observed, ‘All Jazzmen are kicking against something and
it comes out when they blow’.
With the
inception of the sixties ‘pop’ stars and ‘groups’ Trad Jazz’s
lantern began to dim and ultimately was to all but extinguish; in
1961 Mulligan pulled the plug on the Magnolia’s and the band folded.
Briefly he joined the Christy Brothers, but he retired from regular
band work around 1962.
For ten years
he managed Acker Bilk’s Paramount Jazz Band and later worked in
advertising.
He partnered
Christine Dunbar, the late actress.
Selected
Sources
‘Owning Up.’
George Melly. (Penguin Books)
Conversations
with the late Bill (Diz) Disley
Alex Balmforth - May 2012
Courtesy of The Telegraph
Frank
Parr
Frank Parr, who has
died aged 83, played cricket for Lancashire in
the early 1950s and was good enough to be
considered for the English Test team; but his
growing involvement in the jazz scene,
eventually as trombonist with the Mick Mulligan
Band, put paid to his chances of a professional
career.
In Owning Up (1978), the second of
his volumes of autobiography, George
Melly, the band’s frontman,
explained why Parr’s time as a star
wicketkeeper was short-lived. The
professional cricketer, Melly
observed, “is expected to behave
within certain defined limits. He
can be a 'rough diamond’, even 'a
bit of a character’, but he must
know his place. If he smells of
sweat, it must be fresh sweat. He
must dress neatly and acceptably.
His drinking must be under control.
He must know when to say 'sir’.”
Frank Parr, Melly observed, had none
of these attributes: “He was an
extreme social risk, a complicated
rebel whose world swarmed with
demons and Jack O’Lanterns”, and he
“concealed a formidable and
well-read intelligence behind a
stylised oafishness”.
His fellow band members, Melly
recalled, never knew the reason for
Parr’s quarrel with the captain of
Lancashire which ended his
cricketing career, “but after a
month or two in his company we
realised it must have been
inevitable”.
Parr, said Melly, was extremely
limited in what he would eat: “Fried
food, especially bacon and eggs,
headed the list”; but food such as
soup or cheese came under the
heading of “pretentious bollocks”.
Even in the case of food he did
like, Melly wrote, “his attitude was
decidedly odd. He would crouch over
his plate, knife and fork at the
ready in his clenched fists, and
glare down at the harmless egg and
inoffensive bacon, enunciating, as
though it were part of some
barbarous and sadistic ritual, the
words 'I’ll murder it’. What
followed, a mixture of jabbing,
tearing, stuffing, grinding and
gulping, was a distressing
spectacle.”
But it was drink that was Parr’s
real forte: “He passed through the
classic stages of drunkenness in
record time, wild humour, self-pity,
and unconsciousness, all
well-seasoned with the famous Parr
grimaces. His actual fall had a
monumental simplicity. One moment he
was perpendicular, the next
horizontal. The only warning we had
of his collapse was that, just
before it happened, Frank announced
that he was 'only fit for the human
scrap heap’ and this allowed us time
to move any glasses, tables, chairs
or instruments out of the way.”
Melly recalled Parr’s habit, when
performing, of shifting his
cigarette around between his fingers
and playing feet apart, body leaning
stiffly backwards to balance the
weight of his instrument; his music
was “aimed beyond his technique.
Sometimes a very beautiful idea came
off, more often you were aware of a
beautiful idea which existed in
Frank’s head.”
“All jazzmen,” Parr was once quoted
as saying, “are kicking against
something, and it comes out when
they blow.” Yet he insisted that he
was the only “normal” member of the
band. In consequence, any
exceptionally dissipated behaviour
would provoke the bandleader Mick
Mulligan to say: “Hello, Frank.
Feeling normal then?”
Francis David Parr was born at
Wallasey, on the Wirral at the mouth
of the river Mersey, on June 1 1928
and educated at the local grammar
school, where he excelled as an
athlete, was earmarked for the
Lancashire side, and began playing
trombone with a combo called the
Merseysippi Jazz Band, which
performed at The Cavern in
Liverpool.
Parr kept wicket in the Lancashire
first team from 1951 to 1954,
achieving 90 dismissals for the
county . A left-handed batsman, his
highest score was 42, against Sussex
at Hove.
Parr impressed the England
selectors, and after a strong
performance at the Oval in 1952 was
tipped to play for the Test side. In
1953 he came close to being selected
for the winter tour of the West
Indies. The former England keeper
Herbert Strudwick described him as
“the most promising keeper I’ve seen
in years”.
But Parr combined his cricket with a
jazzman’s lifestyle, Lancashire’s
fast bowler Brian Statham recalling
him as “an arty, untidy type who
looked what he was, a spare-time
musician”.
Parr’s scruffy attire and laid-back
manner were tolerated by
Lancashire’s easy-going captain
Nigel Howard, but when Cyril
Washbrook took over in 1954 he
demanded higher standards of dress
and behaviour. Parr was dropped
after just five matches, and
Washbrook even warned Worcestershire
(which offered Parr a job, but then
withdrew the invitation) against
taking him on: “I should inform
you,” Washbrook wrote, “that he can
be a grave social risk.”
Yet as a cricketer Parr was at the
height of his powers. “I thought it
was the end of the world,” he
recalled. “It’s probably why I took
up serious drinking.”
Parr stayed with the Merseysippi
band for six years before joining
the Mick Mulligan Band in 1956 as a
full-time professional and moving to
London.
In the 1950s George Melly and the
Mulligan band became synonymous with
a jazz lifestyle that involved
imbibing copious amounts of alcohol
and frenetic and varied sexual
activity at all hours of the day and
night. Inevitably the band’s
performances were often affected,
and the attendant disasters were
sometimes spectacular (on one
occasion, when playing solo trumpet,
Mulligan was so drunk that all he
could do was blow hard and very
loudly, producing 32 bars of
ear-shattering cacophony); yet as
CDs of the period show, by the late
1950s Parr had become a gifted
performer.
By then, however, the band’s brand
of revivalist “trad” jazz was going
out of fashion. “[We] knew something
was up when we did a concert with
Tommy Steele,” George Melly recalled
later. “We did our set and the
audience was quieter than usual.
Then Tommy Steele came on and these
small girls exploded into shrieks.
Our trombonist, Frank Parr —
famously depressive — said we would
all be on the breadline.”
The band shut up shop in 1961, and
Parr soon gave up playing for good.
For 10 years he was Acker Bilk’s
manager, then worked selling
advertising space. Later he had
walk-on parts on television shows
such as Psychoville (2009) and in
films, including The King’s Speech
(2010).
Despite the trauma of his sacking
from Lancashire, Parr remained an
ardent cricket fan, captaining a
team of jazzmen called “The Ravers”,
regularly attending Old Trafford
with the Lancashire Players’
Association and making occasional
forays to Lord’s.
He lived for some years in the 1970s
with Christine Dunbar, an actress,
who predeceased him, but eventually
returned to life on his own in a
council flat near Lord’s.
Frank Parr, born June 1 1928, died
May 8 2012
Courtesy of
The Telegraph
the Independent Obituary
Guardian
Obituary
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