Goon Gardner

An effective and fitting epitaph is something no one ought to be without. “I loaned Charlie Parker my saxophone” may be the very best one because of this musician, delivered Andrew Gardner and nicknamed “Goon” because…well, probably because he loaned Charlie Parker his saxophone. In the end, whoever has examine a biography of Parker, nicknamed “Parrot,” will understand that it wasn’t best if you lend him anything, especially a saxophone, since possibilities were good he’d pawn the thing to get medication money. Gardner had not been the man who loaned Parrot a sax back again before the last mentioned man really understood how exactly to play and finished up obtaining a cymbal tossed at his mind, a crucial Parrot story. No, the Gardner mortgage to Bird occurred later, throughout a gig in Chicago. As reported in Richard Simon’s biography of Parker, “the shabby teen (Parrot) produced his way towards the bandstand and asked to try out altoist Goon Gardner’s horn, reviews are that his playing was spectacular. He was clothed and given, even provided a clarinet, by Gardner, but in a short time he’d pawned the horn (having lengthy since pawned his personal) and captured a bus for NY.” Relating to trumpeter and bandleader Ruler Kolax, with whom Gardner regularly gigged, Parrot also stole Gardner’s sneakers when he remaining town. Gone aswell was Gardner’s rep mainly because the baddest sax participant in town, given that Bird have been heard. Definitely not on a single inspirational level as Parrot, although nobody experienced better comment that “he isn’t actually sufficient to give his sax to Charlie Parker,” Gardner was a well known player around the Chicago picture who worked in a number of golf swing and blues rings. He used the big rings of Earl Hines and Horace Henderson ahead of becoming a member of the Navy in Globe Battle II. In the previous clothing, he was encircled by budding boppers, including both Parrot and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. The armed service itself became a hotbed of musical skill and Gardner produced connection with many good players, like the altoist Gigi Gryce, with whom he distributed initials aswell as instruments, as well as the impact of Charlie Parker. In the past due ’40s, Gardner was component of a residence group on the Ritz Cafe burning the fantastic vocalist Dinah Washington and Baby Lawrence, an excellent touch dancer. In the first ’50s, he used a similar device on the Regal Movie theater, a combo that progressed into perhaps one of the most essential integrated rings in the Windy Town. This group included Roy Give on alto sax, Wesley Landers on drums, the certainly intensifying John Avant on trombone, Murray Watson on trumpet, and finally, the hard-blowing Gene Ammons on tenor sax. Gardner might possibly not have liked dropping his sax to Parrot, but he didn’t appear to experienced any problems coping with the man’s music, as he continued to be beneath the spell of Parker’s bebop innovations throughout his profession. On classes with blues performers such as for example T-Bone Walker, Arbee Stidham, or fellow saxophonist Buster Bennett, it really is invariably Gardner who’s the one pressing at the sides of what may be acceptable for any saxophone participant to blow before it generally does not appear to be a blues record any longer.