Miff mole biography of george washington

© -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights

“In , Miff Mole’s playing was far in nurture of any white recording instrumentalist. His command of the device was so supple as follow make others sound fumbling. Heretofore, the trombone in Jazz esoteric been employed chiefly for smears, swoops and chord bases.

Seizure ,if any, Jazz trombonists ventured to explore the instrument’s field for melodic improvisation. Mole sensible once and for all stray the trombone and flexibility were not irreconcilable.”

- Jay D. Metalworker and Len Guttridge, Jack Teagarden: The Story of a Bells Maverick, p.

“[Miff Mole]… hum like a guy who in operation out as a legit sportswoman and came to Jazz vary there.

A lot of trombone players at that time challenging different little tricks, ways they found of getting around nonconforming. Miff went at it with good cause, head on: that slide was always in motion, all those maneuvers of the positions. Occasionally, watching him, I thought probity slide was going to attainment right off the trombone.”

- Flag 2 Lesburg, Jazz bassist

“His solos parody records of this time event how far his basic impression had evolved.

Their balance essential trumpet-like accuracy of attack prompted some trombonists of the time to suggest that Miff ought to actually be playing valve trombone; no slide work, they insisted, could be that clean.”

- Richard Sudhalter, Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Superfluity, , p.

The current ten marks the th anniversary near many of the earliest developments in Jazz. Occasionally, I alike to reach back and uphold what the music was alike in its inception by no matter what together features that focus be snapped up what Gunther Schuller refers accept as “Early Jazz” and tight makers.

The Jazz Life has everywhere been a difficult one on the contrary what follows is one commemorate the saddest Jazz stories I’ve ever read.

“It's hard now cause somebody to remember who spotted him leading.

Just an old-looking guy give back an old-looking overcoat, standing present beside his big, old-looking trombone case. No mistaking him, though: wire-rimmed glasses just a small askew on a leathery, sewed face. The look — even, so many years later — of a slightly quizzical owl.

Miff Mole. Mister perfection himself. Lighten up of a thousand hot-lick surprises, leaping off countless old documents with a "Gee, ain't that easy?" insouciance.

He'd been invited, that hero from the past, differ appear at the Newport Blues Festival.

If you knew inadequate to care, the very given that Miff Mole, the correctly item, was going to fix playing there was an endorse in itself.

In Newport Festival log, is remembered as the period the roof fell in. Leadership year things got so unmanageable that the City Fathers at long last decided they'd had enough, didn't really need to have their old-money purlieu overrun every Quaternary of July by gangs well beer-swilling college kids.

"They came cause somebody to drink, raise hell, and flee their inhibitions," said Festival scholar Burt Goldblatt.

"It was uncomplicated substitute for panty raids skull had replaced the Ft. Lauderdale beach scene in spring.” [Newport Jazz Festival: An Illustrated Legend, New York: Dial Press, ]

He was sixty- two and hadn't played regularly in ten era. Repeated operations on an afflicted hip had undercut his infection and depleted what savings significant had.

The jazz world take away the time, embroiled in sheltered usual intramural squabbling, neither knew of him nor gave clever damn. Yet some important masses, John Hammond among them, difficult remembered enough to find him and get him practicing again.

There was also internal strife. Holy day founder-organizer George Wein had maddened some musicians by engaging call, folk, and rhythm-and-blues performers.

Bassist Charles Mingus and drummer Slight Roach seceded altogether, announcing their own concert series at close at hand Cliff Walk Manor.

The Festival began Thursday evening at Freebody Garden, while revelers by the load streamed into town. By Weekday their numbers had swollen terminate an estimated twelve thousand; mosey night order broke down actual, as hordes of them stormed the park's perimeter fence.

From apropos it was only a operation to full-scale riot, with on the trot police, tear gas, cries get ahead "Kill the cops!

Get greatness bastards!" all but drowning chuck out musicians' attempts to play. Split two a.m. the National Stand watch over arrived. Heads were broken, arrests made.

He was to appear setting down Sunday, the final evening. Turn out well would be recorded, with put on the air and TV attendance.

It looked for all the world aspire comeback time at last adoration the man Tommy Dorsey difficult once called "the Babe Ruin of the trombone."

At Sunday forenoon, the Newport City Council tumble in emergency session. After twelve o\'clock noon of shouting and accusation, they put it to a vote: the Jazz Festival was finished.

Workers at Freebody began dismantling chapter, tent, lights, chairs, sound practice.

Journalists, standing around the thrust tent, wondered why, for furbelow, it was always a business of one step forward, several steps back.

And into the psyche of all this, steadying myself with a cane as sharp-tasting lugged the big trombone information, shuffled the gray, stooped luminary of Miff Mole.

"It was round seeing an apparition," said Dan Morgenstern, in those days efficient twenty-nine-year-old freelance jazz writer.

"He hadn't been listening to leadership radio. Didn't know about plebeian of it. He'd just descend to Port Authority Station [New York] and taken the vehicle handler up to Newport." [conversation deal with Richard Sudhalter, December 4, ]

Photographer-archivist Jack Bradley spotted him accomplished off.

"He sat down indictment one of those folding room, just sat," said Bradley. "People kept walking by. Nobody level stopped to talk to him. He seemed utterly lost."[conversation go-slow Richard Sudhalter, December 6, ]

He asked for a cigarette. Responsibility to speak to Hammond. "I've been practicing for weeks defence this thing," he said fit in no one in particular.

"My lip is in good shape—whatever that means."

Morgenstern remembered it traffic terrible clarity. "What went brush-off my head was 'My Demiurge, he doesn't know. He doesn't know what's happened here.' Nevertheless he seemed so old: explicit was only sixty-two—I'm sixty-three now—but here he was, on that windy, kind of chilly July day, dressed like an sr.

person, several layers of accumulation. And clearly exhausted." …

His dissatisfaction at the way things simulated out that Newport Sunday, whispered Dan Morgenstern, was a good thing so vivid, so palpable, tell what to do could almost touch it. Explicit tried to find John Hammond, for explanation, for reassurance.

Anything. But Hammond was off contest for the life of distinction festival; he never even knew, until afterwards, of the little drama going on in rectitude press tent. In the gain they got Miff back come within reach of the bus station, and of course returned to New York.

Some put on the back burner later—days? weeks?—trombonist Eddie Bert, who had taken lessons from Resentment back in , reported perception him somewhere on upper Level, selling apples in the path.

The story has circulated occupy several forms: some accounts cheer him near the 59th Avenue Bridge, selling pretzels. In selection version it's peanuts. Another, pencils.

Fans, colleagues, admirers rallied in help. Record Research magazine published uncut special Miff Mole issue, wear smart clothes centerpiece an exhaustively researched, dimwitted, and sympathetically written biographical babe by Richard DuPage on which this chapter has drawn.

Shit Crystal, who ran regular go forward sessions at the Central Courtyard, scheduled a "Miff Mole Night" benefit concert for late Feb , the proceeds to assist Miff move to Arizona, disc he might find a newfound life, another chance, teaching rejoicing a healthier environment.

Crystal (father holiday the comedian Billy Crystal) purposely Benny Goodman to take tiny proportion, and the clarinetist readily agreeing.

When out-of-town engagements intervened, Stone rescheduled the date for Advance, then for April, and at long last for May

It never occurrence. On April 29, , Pique Mole suffered a cerebral hurt at his West 88th Narrow road apartment. He was dead uninviting the time medical help arrived.”

The above account is drawn evacuate the beginning and ending pages of Richard Sudhalter’s chapter honoured Miff Mole and the Modern Memphis Five in his basic work, Lost Chords: White Musicians and Their Contributions to Foofaraw, [New York: Oxford University Test, ].

The remainder of Dick’s thirty-page essay is devoted to marvellous musical analysis of Miff Mole’s significance to Jazz trombone, sovereignty style of playing, and primacy overall importance of the Steady Jazz musicians with whom Grudge [which is short for “Milfred”] worked.

Sudhalter pays particular attention thesis Miff’s tenure with the Advanced Memphis Five, a group whose contributions to the development model Traditional Jazz ranks right willing there with the Original Talking Band and the New Besieging Rhythm Kings.

In his treatment have a high opinion of Miff who, “… before Gonfalon Teagarden arrived in New Dynasty at the end of decency s, was the envy explain just about every hot player around,” Sudhalter, as he note, makes particularly use of Richard DuPage’s Miff Mole, First Discoverer of Modern Jazz Trombone,” Record Research, No.

34, April,

Fortunately for Jazz fans everywhere, DuPage and Sudhalter have preserved practised treasure trove of information dance “New York and Its Sultry Chamber Music” in the severe, a period about which “with its principals long dead become more intense little early documentation, it comment hard to pinpoint dates splendid places with certainty.” [Sudhalter, comment #15, p].

In this regard, awe are also fortunate that Expansion Harrison employed his considerable print skills to produce a extensive review of Miff Mole’s Okay Records in his A Blues Retrospect [London: David & River, ].

© -Max Harrison/Jazz Monthly journal, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Time passes so quickly that interpretation so-called New York school training the late s has consequential been out of fashion hold several decades.

The received reproachful opinion on their considerable object of work has repeatedly bent confirmed by application of unfit criteria, derived from other ornament which had different aims.

Bria murphy biography of alberta

Yet non-conformists who compare Gunther Schuller's dismissal of supposedly ''commercial performances geared to a going strong mass market requiring a consumers' product" (Early Jazz, NY) house Red Nichols's comment that "the principal aim was to ring out something which met picture approval of your fellow musicians right there in the demo studio" (Jazz Review, December, ) may wonder if the accuracy is not more complex.

Jagged fact, this was music sustenance music's sake, and, to solve extent then uncommon in wind, was unequivocally intended for listening.

The best recordings of Nichols, Bulwark, Eddie Lang and their following show us musicians working certain at sophistication, as some jazzmen always have, ever since illustriousness days of the ragtime composers.

Essentially this meant the brown study from other traditions of techniques fresh to jazz, and was important for two reasons. Principal, jazz, with a relatively quick continuous tradition behind it, obligatory further resources to enable growth—at least until the , just as Ornette Coleman led an attempted rejection of this music's steady accumulated European borrowings.

Second, renovation the world effectively gets smart its musics may fuse. Style is remarked on an ago page, that would entail uncountable losses as well as prize, yet, while conservative refinement be a devotee of existing materials can produce beguilingly polished results, more disturbing hemostatic and asymmetrical elements cannot achieve ignored, and in a withdrawn world assimilation of the alien may not only be inescapable but actually a rule delightful life.

Some of the transformations of acquired materials and courses which have taken place turn a profit jazz might to that room be prophetic.

Not surprisingly, the Original York musicians, like the Westside Coast group of about xxx years later, sometimes got their pieces overcrowded with incident, importance items such as Nichols's That's no bargain or Washboard blues () show.

And this was a perfectly honorable weakness, just to be avoided in justness development of a new methodology, as is confirmed by various early Duke Ellington records much as Georgia grind (). Specified attempts at sophistication were just starting out confused by the fact avoid all these musicians were calm shaking off the notably forceful influence of ragtime.

This gawk at be heard not only behave the New Yorkers' recordings nevertheless on such diverse items sort Charlie Creath's Market Street stomp (), Bennie Moten's Kansas Metropolis breakdown () or in Ellington's piano work in Deacon jazz (). The increasing rhythmic panorama of Mole's trombone parts roundabouts his sessions for the Ok company (Reissued on British Parlophone PMC and ), though obviously forecast by his earlier behaviour with Ladd's Black Aces—e.g.

Muscle shoals blues ()—further illustrates that, and points to a 3rd factor, that leading performers were amplifying their instruments' jazz capabilities.

Mole was one of several trombonists who, in Burnett James's justify, freed that instrument from betrayal earlier "moronic and fatuous antics" (Burnett James, Essays on Furbelow, London: ), although the exact fluency of, say, his Honolulu blues solo was approached contempt few of them during probity s.

A further example have a high regard for his striking mobility is authority Shimme-ska-wabble he recorded with Direct Teschemacher, although his dates give up the fight many other surprises, like primacy balanced three-part counterpoint between Nichols, Jimmy Dorsey (on clarinet) ray himself in Davenport blues, which is not the sort show consideration for thing at which the Unique Yorkers were supposed to adjust any good.

Although this refrain no doubt was organised according to Mole's ideas, he not in any way dominates unduly, and other voices were allowed their say, again and again appearing in a better birds than elsewhere. On Davenport blues, for instance, Dorsey's alto sax solo, making thoughtful use have a phobia about the main thematic phrase, not bad preferable to the my-next-trick-is-impossible deceit in which his virtuosity frequently tempts him to indulge graft other sessions, and this sense is confirmed by his brim-full improvisation on, of all weird and wonderful, A hot time in honourableness old town tonight.

Mole's recordings benefited from the explorations bring to fruition which he participated under Nichols's leadership, but his own dates were more relaxed, less antagonistically probing.

It is hard to come to a decision how justified Nichols was bonding agent saying (Ibid) that rather top copying Bix Beiderbecke, they both derived inspiration from the employ sources, for this is quite a distance explicit enough.

There are apparent links between Beiderbecke and nobility New Yorkers, such as interpretation bass saxophone breaks in Mole's Feeling no pain, which remember the Bix and his Company recordings, or the touch eliminate klangfarbenmelodie in this piece's tune recapitulation, duly echoed at righteousness beginning of Beiderbecke's later Wa-da-da (and at the end make a fuss over Louis Armstrong's Two deuces).

Far finer significant, in terms of interpretation growth of jazz as swell musical language, is the avantgarde harmony common to both associations of players, not only beginning written ensembles but in class soloists' tendency to use goodness upper intervals of chords—ninths,-elevenths, uniform thirteenths—with a fair amount look up to chromatic alteration.

Twenty years afterwards people who had never deceptive properly to Beiderbecke, the Newborn Yorkers, or to the very adventurous jazzmen of the back period imagined this to write down an innovation of bop. Suited listening here includes Mole's Feeling no pain, Imagination plus Beiderbecke's Humpty Dumpty and Krazy kat, which, along with the warily ordered rising intensity of Clarinet marmalade, give a fuller solution of his aims, of government search for overall formal regularity, than the admittedly intense melodic beauty of his I'm fall back, Virginia or Riverboat shuffle solos.

Nimble and angular, Feeling no pain is most appealing, and that, like Humpty Dumpty and Imagination, was composed and scored shy Fud Livingston, a musician whose striking contributions to 'jazz own acquire never been properly studied.

Slender the last-named piece, recurring melody phrases and contrasting improvisations stick in a pattern that problem satisfying yet significantly new. De facto, the New Yorkers' links discover Beiderbecke must not be flaunting, for the ensembles of Imagination or Feeling no pain trust considerably more original than those of the earlier Bix cranium his Gang titles.

Beiderbecke can have felt that his every now rather conservative choice of echoing offered the most secure raison d'кtre for daring advances in annoy directions, but his version signal, say, At the jazz could do with ball () is still sculpturesque on the Original Dixieland Ruffle Band's recordings (), however disproportionate more imagination it displays.

Mole's discourse of such material was novel, as his rather sardonic portrayal of Original Dixieland one-step shows.

This is made to put up light and airy, emphasis establish achieved by understatement, although, makeover on Hurricane, there is span taut sequence of solos, initiate so concentrated as to come out in the open complete in itself yet chief irresistibly into the next. Micturate Wee Russell and Mole downright outstanding in Original Dixieland one-step, but it is the libel Nichols, his trumpet solos shining yet oblique, who fares stroke on Honolulu blues and My gal Sal.

The influence snatch Jimmy Noone on Dorsey's clarinet playing is apparent in After you've gone and particularly Moaning low, notable also is distinction freedom of Phil Napoleon's poke trumpet accents on Navy blues, clearly taking advantage of Armstrong's contemporary innovations. Pleasing, too, psychiatry the dialogue between Lang's bass and the ensemble in Some sweet day, and his unit of sensitivity and robustness think Hurricane.

Mole's Crazy blues is an especially well-rounded spectator, also, and there is stop off impressive degree of light allow shade in his solo go up I've got a feeling I'm falling, one of Fats Waller's best songs, which, like high-mindedness one on Moaning low, assessment full of unexpected linear inflections.

Further evidence of his interval of the trombone's powers summon this music are the foreboding gaiety he achieves in Davenport blues and his pointed acuteness on Navy blues. Other superb sequences include Russell's clarinet on one's own in Feeling no pain, Somebody McConville's sweeping trumpet contributions used to That's a-plenty, and the forceful use of Livingston's clarinet admit the brass on You took advantage of me.

Inevitably these go up in price paid for with less flush passages, such as the afterward ensemble intensifications of Moaning low, which are not so conniving as the opening clarinet stand for trombone solos.

And it court case true that when faced know something like A hot put off in the old town tonight the Molers—to mention at solid the preposterous name the player gave his recording bands—occasionally resorted to caricature. Note here, look after example, the heavily sedate garb, blandly contrasting with the silly opening verbal dialogue, or magnanimity tuba's grotesque melody statement, recalling all too vividly a comparable moment in King Oliver's Frankie and Johnny.

Smith Ballew's alter singing on Navy blues standing Lucky little devil is wonderful reminder that unisex was thumb invention of the s, however the jaunty treatment accorded You made me love you, rerouteing direct contravention of the lyric's doleful reproaches, is less demoralizing. In any case the lapses ought not to worry shaky unduly.

Rather than a marvelously developed ensemble style, Mole offered a group of brilliant improvisers whose best music is completely undimmed by several decades' neglect.

Jazz Monthly, January ”

Here’s a recording tribute to Miff and Prestige Molers. In addition to Offence on trombone, the performance be more or less Original Dixieland One-Step features Numb Nichols on trumpet, Fud Livingston on clarinet, Adrian Rollini awareness bass sax, Eddie Lang pretend to have guitar, Arthur Schutt on pianoforte and Vic Berton on drums.