Jay McShann

Jay McShann secured a lasting place in jazz history on April 30, 1941, when he became the first bandleader to usher Charlie Parker into a studio for a commercial recording session. For years, that was how McShann was remembered, if at all—as an early benefactor of the most influential figure in modern jazz. Shamefully, it took the jazz literati three decades to recognize Bird's old boss as a dynamic force himself. McShann's advocacy of Parker was hardly his only distinction as a bandleader. A ri…