Obituary: Jack Parnell

• Jack Parnell, drummer, bandleader and musical director. • Born: 6 August, 1923, in London. • Died: 8 August, 2010, in Southwold, Suffolk, aged 87.

HE was a world-class drummer, big band-leader and longtime TV musical director, but Jack Parnell became perhaps best-known as the real orchestra conductor on TV's The Muppet Show. For 26 years, he was musical director of Associated Television (ATV), which meant he was in charge of the orchestras on such shows as Sunday Night at the London Palladium, the Benny Hill Show and The Muppets.

While he arranged the Muppets' scores and conducted the orchestra off-camera, viewers had little difficulty believing the band was being conducted by the cheerful Muppet Nigel who, in turn, was usually being manipulated by Jim Henson, creator of the show. Parnell famously got one of his drummer heroes, the legendary Buddy Rich, on to the show for a no-holds-barred drum duel with the Muppets' own regular drummer, Animal (in reality Parnell's fellow-drummer Ronnie Verrell).

Parnell's role on The Muppets might never have come about had the head of ATV, Lew Grade, not snatched the fledgling show from under the noses of the big American TV networks in the 1970s.

First inspired by Duke Ellington as a child, Parnell started off in an RAF band, found himself something of a pop idol in the 1950s with the Ted Heath band and was voted best drummer in Britain seven years in a row during that decade.

John Russell Parnell was born in Paddington, London, but raised in Wembley, the only son of a professional entertainment family. His father was a vaudeville performer and gifted ventriloquist who used the stage name Russ Carr and was accompanied on stage by Jack's mother, a classically trained pianist.

One of Jack's uncles was the nationally-known impresario Val Parnell, who ran the Moss Empires chain of theatres. His grandfather Fred Parnell, who called himself Fred Russell, was often described as "the father of modern ventriloquism," the first artist to perch a dummy - the popular "Cockney Coster Joe" - on his knee.

Since Jack's parents were almost always on the road, he recalled from a very early age standing in the wings watching them and other acts, notably the swinging big bands of the late 1920s. His mother taught him piano from the age of four but, freed of obligatory lessons after he was sent to boarding school, he became obsessed with drums and persuaded his mother to buy him a second-hand drum kit for 15.

After his parents took him to the London Palladium when he was ten to see Duke Ellington's band, with Sonny Greer on drums, Parnell was smitten. He decided there and then to be a professional musician, and particularly a drummer. "I was overwhelmed. From then on, I bought every Ellington record as it came out," he said. When he was 15, he got his professional job as a drummer in a seafront concert in Scarborough, just before the outbreak of war.

Parnell volunteered for the Royal Air Force, where his musical skills won him a slot in Buddy Featherstonhaugh's RAF band, which toured and recorded extensively during the war and became host band of BBC's Radio Rhythm Club. After Parnell and guitarist Vic Lewis had impressed EMI recording manager Oscar Preuss, he helped them set up their own band, the Vic Lewis-Jack Parnell Jazzmen, and they made several Chicago-style jazz records during and after the war.

In February 1944, popular trombonist Ted Heath hired Parnell and trumpeter Kenny Baker for his band, Ted Heath and his Music. Until then, Heath's music had been known as smooth and sweet, but Parnell and Baker turned the band upside down with their enthusiasm. The band's 1946 Decca recording of Bakerloo Non-Stop, featuring Baker, Parnell and a tenor sax solo from Johnny Gray, was a tour de force still sought after by jazz lovers. With his matinee idol good looks, Parnell was often given the microphone as vocalist, notably on up-tempo numbers such as Route 66.

By now married and with a baby, Parnell left the Heath band in 1951 to set up his own - Jack Parnell and his Band - which came out with a single of Dizzy Gillespie's The Champ on Parlophone the following year, with Phil Seamen duetting with Parnell on drums as a new gimmick that proved sensational. Among the great musicians who passed through the band were tenor saxophonists Ronnie Scott and Tubby Hayes.

The band were playing Green's Playhouse in Glasgow when they realised they had become something of a cult band in the United States. Legendary American recording engineer Wally Heider flew to London, traced them to Glasgow and handed them dozens of arrangements American composers wanted them to record - for nothing, just because they admired the band's sound.

By the mid to late 1950s, big bands were in decline and small groups - beat, skiffle and rock 'n' roll - were taking over, but Parnell got both lucky and smart. Independent Television had just been launched and his uncle, Val Parnell, had taken charge of ATV. Jack saw where the future of his band lay. Their first TV gig was as orchestra on a Max Bygraves special. Soon they were the house band on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, which they did for seven years, always "live". Jack Parnell became a household name.

After years of conducting on ATV, Parnell found himself rusty on the drums, having lost strength in his finger muscles from lack of practice. "I was a good player at one time, but it had all gone," he said.

He retired in 1982 to the Suffolk seaside but could not "kick the habit". He bought himself a new drum kit and found himself performing again, sometimes with his own bands but notably with the touring Best of British Jazz ensemble alongside his lifelong friend the trumpeter Kenny Baker.

Until three years ago, aged 84, he played drums regularly at jazz nights near his home, notably in the Red Lion in Thorpe St Andrew and the Green Man in Rackheath. Latterly, he played piano and harpsichord at home, and golf at his local nine-hole course, Southwold Golf Club.

Jack Parnell, who died at home of cancer two days after celebrating his 87th birthday with champagne, is survived by his third wife Veronica, two daughters and three sons, the eldest of whom, Ric, played the drummer Mick Shrimpton on the renowned spoof documentary This Is Spinal Tap.

PHIL DAVISON