![]() When he died, he was Crista's vice president for human resources.Ĭrista, in Shoreline, is a nonprofit that includes churches, the relief charity World Concern, radio stations and King's Schools. Parnell, having become a born-again Christian, landed at Crista Ministries in 1986. After a variety of projects, including a business that made chocolate fortune cookies, called Wisecrackers, Mr. Parnell got back into the jazz business briefly in late 1984, when he operated Roxie's, in Bellevue, but the club lasted only seven weeks. Thomas in turn sold the venue two years later to a group of four investors that included Seattle singer Ernestine Anderson, who renamed it Ernestine's. Parnell sold the club to Marv Thomas, a former big-band trumpet player whose son, trumpeter and saxophonist Jay Thomas, is a fixture on the local jazz scene. In 1980, wanting to spend more time with his family, Mr. ![]() ![]() It not only became a really great gig for us all, but it was the driving force for us to get better at playing." "It was where we could essentially go to school together. "It was really influential in the history of the scene," he said. Many name players in the '70s hired local rhythm sections, a boon for Seattle players, said pianist Dave Peck. Parnell, who had a weakness for comedians, often booked Professor Irwin Corey. The long list of musicians who played Parnell's over the years included Bill Evans, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Blue Mitchell, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Anita O'Day, Joe Williams, Harold Land, Milt Jackson, Bob Dorough, Ray Brown, Dave Frishberg, Ernestine Anderson, Phil Woods, Charlie Byrd, Sonny Stitt and Cal Tjader. It was always like a party in Roy's living room." Recalled Seattle's Jim Wilke, radio host of "Jazz After Hours": "I don't know if there ever was a more comfortable jazz club. The musicians said, to a man, 'We've never played in a place that sounds this good.' " The sound would go up through those 2-by-12's and rattle around up above there and come back down, so it was like a big radiator of sound. "Roy accidentally made the place sound really great," recalled Manolides, a hipster raconteur whose stories behind the bar were often as entertaining as the music. The owner created the illusion of a low ceiling by suspending 2-by-12-foot beams, painted flat black, across the room. ![]() Airbrushed portraits of jazz musicians that now hang in Dimitriou's Jazz Alley adorned the walls. Seating 125, the club had brick walls, large cushions and Tiffany-style lamps suspended over the tables. (now occupied by the Davidson Galleries). Inspired by the success - and design - of the Portland club, Jazz de Opus, owned by his wife's cousin, he opened his night spot at 313 Occidental Ave. Parnell started the club because he was bored with his job. "He didn't drink and he was not a night sort of guy."Ī restless entrepreneur, Mr. "He wasn't a 'jazz guy,' " said his brother-in-law, Jimmy Manolides, who tended bar at the club and played keyboards with the classic rock band Junior Cadillac. In the '60s and '70s, he worked as a parole officer for King and Snohomish counties.Ī tall, big-chested, imposing man who wore a trim beard and carried himself with the authority of a ship's captain, the former county employee did not fit the stereotype of a jazz-club owner. Parnell, a lifelong jazz fan, saw it coming.īorn in Seattle, he played football at Renton High School and the College of San Mateo, in California, and later earned a master's degree at Central Washington University. The Bicentennial year would mark the beginning of a national jazz renaissance. When Parnell's opened in November 1976, jazz had been on the back burner for nearly a decade. Monty always said, 'In the jazz business, Roy would be the bass player. "It's really precious to have been married to a man like that," said his wife, Sandy, who worked in the club's kitchen. ![]() Parnell died Saturday of pneumonia, brought on by the chronic disease scleroderma, from which he had suffered 6-½ years. That's how jazz fans still lovingly refer to Parnell's, the Pioneer Square jazz club operated by Roy Parnell from 1976 to 1980. ![]()
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