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Jazz spotlight shines  on Springfield’s legacy

Gammon House fundraiser showcases talk on Bushell, Sir Charles

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer 10:57 PM Saturday, March 6, 2010

Jazz musicians are kind of like street names — most people only know the big ones.

You’ve got Main, High and Bechtle, or their respective jazz equivalents Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Kenny G.

So it was fitting that a banquet Saturday night, March 6, to raise money for the restoration of a landmark on quite possibly Springfield’s most obscure street would feature a talk on cats with names like Garvin and Sir Charles.

But the fact that you’ve never heard of sax man Garvin Bushell or pianist Sir Charles Thompson, or maybe never driven down the local street called Piqua Place, doesn’t lessen their importance.

At 620 Piqua Place stands the Gammon House, a stop on the Underground Railroad that’s been the subject of a 12-year restoration project.

On Saturday night, March 6, in a Holiday Inn banquet room, local musician Bill Wilson name-checked a handful of jazz musicians from Springfield who should be remembered but mostly aren’t.

“Most of these musicians are no longer with us in a physical, earthly form,” Wilson said, “but they still remain with us in spirit.”

Speaking without notes, the 69-year-old organ player spoke like a true jazz musician, improvising the whole thing.

He spoke briefly of Bushell — no, not Bushnell — a Springfield native whose woodwinds were employed by everyone from Fats Waller and Cab Calloway to Coltrane and Eric Dolphy.

He talked of getting to play with Earle Warren, a local who led the Count Basie sax section in its prime, and about how McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, a group that formed here and went on to record on Victor in the ’20s, started out playing area clubs for $1.50.

“They were so bad,” Wilson said, “they took the $1.50 back. But they went on to be famous.”

And he played some songs — cuts by Sir Charles and Springfield vibes legend Johnny Lytle — that proved that, like George Gammon’s brick cottage, some things are worth seeking out.

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