Frank Bunch

Pianist Frank Bunch began his career in Birmingham, AL, as a member of Fred Longshaw's Birmingham Dance Orchestra in 1922 and 1923, along with trombonist Joseph Britton, saxophonist Teddy Hill, and Frank's brother, banjoist Carl Bunch. After Longshaw headed for New York City, Britton and the brothers Bunch joined a band led by Alabama-born trumpeter John "Fess" Whatley. Legend has it they carved the Black Birds of Paradise at a band competition in Montgomery around 1925. During the hottest days of the summer of 1927, Frank Bunch & His Fuzzy Wuzzies made three gritty, blues-drenched recordings for the Gennett label at a portable studio that existed briefly above the Starr Piano Store on Third Avenue South in Birmingham. The Fuzzy Wuzzies consisted of Britton, both Bunches, two unidentified reedmen, an unknown percussionist, a tuba player by the name of Ivory Johnson, and gutbucket cornetist Hunch Vines. After working with the Alabama Stompers and the Miss Broadway company, Frank Bunch changed his base of operations to Dayton, OH, in 1929. Although he did assemble and lead a ten-piece jazz band, nothing is known regarding the rest of his career as a professional musician. Although he is known to have still been a citizen of Ohio in 1963, the indeterminate details surrounding the end of Frank Bunch's life are as fuzzy, so to speak, as his origins. ~ arwulf arwulf, All Music Guide