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Irving Harold Mills was born Isadore Minsky on January 16, 1894 in Odessa, Ukraine and emigrated with his parents and brother to the lower east side of New York City. After his father died in 1905, he worked a number of odd jobs until relocating with his wife to Philadelphia. By 1918 he was working for publisher Leo Feist and his brother Jack was working for music publishing firm McCarthy & Fisher.
In 1919 the brothers founded Jack Mills Music, later renamed Mills Music in 1928. Together the brothers discovered a number of great songwriters, including Sammy Fain, Harry Barris, Gene Austin, Hoagy Carmichael, Jimmy McHugh and Dorothy Fields. He was responsible for greatly advancing and even starting a few of the careers of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ben Pollack, Jack Teagarden, Benny Goodman, Will Hudson, Raymond Scott and many others. He was instrumental in getting Duke Ellington hired by the Cotton Club.
Although he only sang a little, Irving put together his own studio-recording group, Irving Mills and His Hotsy Totsy Gang. The group was comprised of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Arnold Brillhardt, Arthur Schutt and Manny Klein. Over the years Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Red Nichols would also be members.
Mills was one of the first to record black and white musicians together, using twelve white musicians and the Duke Ellington Orchestra on a recording of St. Louis Blues on one side and a medly of songs called Gems from Blackbird of 1928 with Mills singing with Ellington’s orchestra. One of his most significant innovations was the “band within a band” concept, recording small groups to record hot small group sides for the various dime store labels.
He also started an artist booking company, a publishing subsidiary, record labels that recorded Cab Calloway, Hudson-DeLange Orchestra, Raymond Scott, Adrian Rollini, Barney Bigard, Cootie Williams, Rex Stewart,, Johnny Hodges, Noble Sissle, Frankie Newton, Johnny Hodges, Chu Berry, The Three Peppers, Billy Kyle and other minor jazz and pop acts in New York.
He produced one picture, Stormy Weather for 20th Century Fox in 1943 with Calloway, Lena Horne, Zutty Singleton, the Nicholas Brothers, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Fats Waller. Though Hollywood wanted him to produce more film he chose to return to publishing and recording.
Music publisher Irving Mills, who put his name on the compositions of numerous Black musicians including Duke Ellington and Barney Bigard, and whose estate to this day reaps the financial benefit of all the musicians whose music he stole, passed away on April 21, 1985 in Palm Springs, California.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Thelma Carpenter was born January 15, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York. As a child performer she had her own radio show on WNYC in New York and won an amateur night at the Apollo Theatre in 1938. She would go on to play such 52nd Street clubs as Kell’s Stables and the Famous Door and was discovered by John Hammond.
Carpenter subsequently made her debut as a band vocalist with Teddy Wilson’s short-lived orchestra in 1939, recording Love Grows On the White Oak Tree and This Is The Moment on the Brunswick label. She joined Coleman Hawkins’ orchestra in 1940 and recorded the RCA/Bluebird Records classic album He’s Funny That Way. She followed Helen Humes as Count Basie’s vocalist and over two years recorded several sessions with the band such as More Than You Know, Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me and My Ideal.
Thelma replaced Dinah Shore as vocalist on Eddie Cantor’s radio show for the 1945-46 season, marking the first time that a black artist had become a permanent member of an all-white show without playing a character. She would also sing with Duke Ellington in concerts and on television. She was a top nightclub and major theater attraction for most of her career, performing regularly at such chic clubs as Chez Bricktop in Paris and Rome and the Capitol and Palace Theater on Broadway among others.
As a Broadway performer she appeared with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, replaced Pearl Bailey in Hello Dolly!, performed along with Avon Long in Shuffle Along, co-starred in Barefoot In The Park and created the role of Irene Paige in Bubbling Brown Sugar. She toured nationally in Bob fosse’s Pippin and was the Good Witch of The North in Sidney Lumet’s film The Wiz. So in demand was she that Fosse and Lumet arranged their schedules so she could do both projects simultaneously. She was the mother of Maurice and Gregory Hines in the film The Cotton Club.
She also had a critically acclaimed album Thinking of You Tonight and Sepia Records posthumously released a 26-song compilation title Seems Like Old Times. Carpenter performed on television with Jackie Gleason, Eddie Condon, Duke Ellington, Diana Ross, Sammy Davis Jr. and Eric Clapton, as well as appearing on the Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffin, Paul Lynde and Cosby shows. Jazz vocalist and actress Thelma Carpenter passed away of cardiac arrest on May 14, 1997 in New York City.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Roger Guérin was born on January 9, 1926 in Saarbrücken, Germany and initially studied violin, followed by cornet and trumpetat the Paris Conservatory. It was there as a teenager that he won first prize.
Roger began working professionally in 1947, playing with Aime Barelli, Django Reinhardt, Don Byas, Hubert Fol, James Moody, Benny Golson, Bernard Peiffer, Fats Sadi, Lucky Thompson, Kenny Clarke, Blossom Dearie, Martial Solal, Michel Legrand and Andre Hodeir.
Playing at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival l with a youth ensemble, Guérin also played in Les Double Six in 1959, later returning to this group. He replaced Clark Terry in Quincy Jones’s Big Band in 1960. He worked on the soundtrack to the film Paris Blues in 1961 with Duke Ellington and went on to work extensively as a vocalist for Michel Legrand.
He has over 150 album credits to his name including recording with the Kenny Clarke/Francy Boland Big Band, and has won the Prix Django Reinhardt in 1959. Trumpeter and vocalist Roger Guérin passed away on February 6, 2010 in Nimes, France.
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Paolo Conte was born January 6, 1937 in Asti, Piedmont, Italy. He began performing as a vibraphonist in local jazz bands and started songwriting with his brother, guitarist Giorgio, eventually writing songs of his own. As a poet, painter and lawyer as well as a musician, he first earned attention during the late ’60s and early ’70s as the creative force behind hits from Adriano Celentano and Patty Pravo.
Beginning his solo career with a 1974 self-titled LP, with subsequent efforts enjoyed considerable success throughout Europe. His 1998’s Paolo Conte, a greatest-hits collection, was his first U.S. release. He had hits used in movies like I Am David, Mickey Blue Eyes, French Kiss and No Reservations, as well as the Fritz Coca Cola commercial.
Paolo has recorded and released fifteen studio, five live and seven compilation albums, has been honored with handprints on the Rotterdam Walk of Fame, and awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic for Outstanding Cultural Achievements. He has been given the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and has received honorary doctorates from several universities. Singer, pianist, and composer Paolo Conte continues to perform, composer, record and tour.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Una Mae Carlisle was born on December 26, 1915 in Zanesville, Ohio and was trained to play the piano by her mother. Performing in public by age three, still a child, she performed regularly on radio station WHIO AM in Dayton, Ohio.
In 1932, while a teenager, Fats Waller discovered Carlisle while she worked as a live local Cincinnati performer live and on radio. Her piano style was much influenced by Waller’s, playing in a boogie-woogie stride style that incorporated humor into her sets. Una Mae played solo from 1937, repeatedly touring Europe and recording with Waller in the late 1930s.
By the 1940s Carlisle recorded as a leader for Bluebird Records with Lester Young, Benny Carter and John Kirby. She had a longtime partnership with producer/publisher/manager Joe Davis, which began after her contract with Bluebird expired. Her records during this period enlisted the talents of Ray Nance, Budd Johnson and Shadow Wilson.
As a songwriter she also found success as Cab Calloway and Peggy Lee were just two among those who covered her tunes. She had her own radio and television programs in the late 1940s Una Mae recorded her last session for Columbia Records with Don Redman early in the 1950s.
With her suffering from chronic mastoiditis that required repeated surgeries and hospitalizations, the vocalist was forced her to retire in 1952. Pianist and songwriter Una Mae Carlisle passed away of pneumonia in a Harlem hospital on November 7, 1956.
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