Garvin Bushell (September 25, 1902 – October 31, 1991) was an American woodwind multi-instrumentalist.
Garvin Lamont Payne was born in Springfield, Ohio to a musical family and was playing piano by the age of six. After his father's death, his mother married Rev. Joseph Davenport Bushell in 1910. Garvin adopted the surname of his stepfather. By the age of 13 he was playing the clarinet. Later he also learned bassoon, oboe and flute. Bushell, who was always a technically skilled player and in a more enlightened era would probably have become a classical musician, studied at Wilberforce University and after moving to new York in 1919 he worked in vaudeville. In 1921 he joined Mamie Smith’s Jazz Hounds and made his earliest recordings with that group and with singer Daisy Morris.
On July 24, 1923, in Manhattan, Bushell married Marie Roberts (1902–1971), who, among other things, had been a member of the Chocolate Kiddies chorus for the 1925 European tour. Garvin was a member of the band for that tour.
He played and recorded with Ethel Waters and toured Europe, the eastern USA and South America with Sam Wooding during 1925 – 1927. He also worked with the Keep Shufflin' revue and Johnny Dunn. The four sides he recorded in 1928 with James P. Johnson, Fats Waller and Jabbo Smith as the Louisiana Sugar Babes include improvised bassoon solos by him, which are among the earliest examples of jazz bassoon on record.
During the 1930’s Bushel worked with Otto Hardwick (1931), Fess Williams (1933), Bessie Smith and Fletcher Henderson (1934-1936), Cab Calloway (1936-1937), and Chick Webb (1938 – 1939). In the 1940s Bushell worked with Eddie Mallory and Edgar Hayes, led his own bands, and recorded with Bunk Johnson (in 1947), He toured internationally with Wilbur De Paris’s band from 1959 until 1964, when he went to Africa with Paul Taubman’s orchestra. He also recorded on double bassoon with John Coltrane in 1961.
Here’s “I want To Be Happy” from CD One Steady Roll
He played bassoon with the Chicago Civic Orchestra, was part of the Fletcher Henderson Reunion Band in 1958, and worked with Wilbur DeParis' New New Orleans Jazz Band (as the replacement for the late Omer Simeon) during 1959-1964. In 1965 Bushell married Louise Olivari (1925–1994), to whom he remained married until his death in 1991. Garvin and Louise had two sons, Garvin P. Bushell and Philip Bushell.
After playing again with Calloway in 1966, he moved to Puerto Rico, and then settled in Las Vegas, where he worked as a music teacher into the 1980s. One of his students was King Curtis. Although Bushell recorded in a wide variety of settings, he only led one record date in his career, which resulted in four titles in 1944. He died on October 31, 1991 in Las Vegas., Nevada.
(Edited from The new Grove Dictionary of Jazz, All Music & Wikipedia)