Mills Blue Rhythm Band

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Eyeball · #16 Post by **Eyeball** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 5:51 am

Trev-

More than 2 years later - do you still like those Lucky Millinder Decca sides or are they starting to sound kind of thudding to you?

trev · #17 Post by **trev** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 7:16 pm

Admittedly I don't play as much Lucky Millinder as I used to, but I wouldn't say I like them any less because they are sounding 'thudding'. Most tracks were originally intended to be songs for dancing and they still are excellent for that (in my opinion).

Eyeball · #18 Post by **Eyeball** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 11:13 pm

I was asking b/c I remembered being very partial to loud, 'heavy duty' black bands of the mid and latter 40s - Lucky Millinder ws one of them - and then growing disenchanted with them as too lumpy and obvious. Buddy Johnson was another one not to mention some of them Hampton sides from that era, too.

trev · #19 Post by **trev** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 11:27 am

I still love those artists you mentioned, but I know what you mean. As I've developed a greater knowledge of jazz I've started to lean more towards Teddy Wilson, Ellington, the Goodman small groups and that type of thing for general listening.

Eyeball · #20 Post by **Eyeball** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 11:31 am

Yeah - those black 'atom bomb bands' of the mid and late forties offer some good listening that far surpasses 98% of what we hear today, but I am with you on your other choices. It's just better stuff.

CafeSavoy · #21 Post by **CafeSavoy** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 4:35 pm

Is it a case of the bands, or is it the music of the era?

Eyeball · #22 Post by **Eyeball** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 5:16 pm

CafeSavoy wrote:Is it a case of the bands, or is it the music of the era?

Good question. In this case it is the specific bands, but the era is right on the dividing line of the "doomed year" of 1946 where the bands and the music changes. After that, many of the bands I like are playing music I don't like with even Ellington have a bunch of curious sides which I want to hear again; Basie stuff, too. Powerful, but 'heavy'.

OTOH - you have Cab Calloway in "Sensations of 1945" playing some of the most high density, yet totally swinging stuff that he ever cranked out. I would kill to hear the pre-recordings of his performances in that film w/o the dialog getting in the way.

OTOOH - You have Tommy Dorsey who was kicking major ass up until 1946, at which point he seems to loose focus and energy and the band is absolute top quality from a musical standpoint, but the arrangements have become so homogenized that you almost fall alseep - even with the Swing stuff. I mean the ballads are supposed to be smooth, but not the Hot stuff.

***And at this juncture I will again mention that the cream of TD stuff has largely not made it out onto CD in any intelligent reissue form. The band of 1940 through 1942 on record is tremendous. Evn the ballads have a kick to them much of the time. A near flawless band.

Haydn · #23 Post by **Haydn** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 4:17 am

Eyeball wrote:In this case it is the specific bands, but the era is right on the dividing line of the "doomed year" of 1946 where the bands and the music changes. After that, many of the bands I like are playing music I don't like with even Ellington have a bunch of curious sides which I want to hear again; Basie stuff, too. Powerful, but 'heavy' ...

Yeah, I've noticed the music changed around this time. But why did this happen?

kitkat · #24 Post by **kitkat** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:36 am

Eyeball wrote:***And at this juncture I will again mention that the cream of TD stuff has largely not made it out onto CD in any intelligent reissue form. The band of 1940 through 1942 on record is tremendous. Evn the ballads have a kick to them much of the time. A near flawless band.

Thanks for the warning. We do like songs with kick. I'm sure many of us will look forward to such releases...we do have several TD songs we like to spin, and more tracks that will move a floor of lindy hoppers would always be welcome.

Eyeball · #25 Post by **Eyeball** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 10:45 am

Haydn wrote:
Eyeball wrote:In this case it is the specific bands, but the era is right on the dividing line of the "doomed year" of 1946 where the bands and the music changes. After that, many of the bands I like are playing music I don't like with even Ellington have a bunch of curious sides which I want to hear again; Basie stuff, too. Powerful, but 'heavy' ...
Yeah, I've noticed the music changed around this time. But why did this happen?

People have been analyzing that for years b/c there are so many factors involved.

Leaving out the factors of music evolving, tastes changing and other things not directly related to the music (like changing economics)....

I have come to believe that the energy level for most big bands simply dropped like a stone once WW2 was over. That was a big time war with home front people involved in a major way. It affected the way people thought and acted and lived on a day to day basis. Once that "rush" ended, so did much of the "rush" of the big bands that played Swing.

Tommy Dorsey is the perfect example - sensational band always, but after about 1946 (and it begins to happen that year) the Swing is not as passionate and many of the pop ballads seem to lose the emotion that had driven them.

Lots of bands were killer during the war - Goodman has all these older guys and young unknowns, yet he is blowing people away during the war. Get him to 1947 and it's a bore. He gets into Bop for a couple years.

1946 was he year that 8 or 10 major bands broke up in one month; most for a short time, but 10 bands at once??? Energy level dropped.

Attendance dropped at dance venues. People were staying home. All the men were coming back from the war either starting families or resuming home life. The mood changed and pop vocalists came on big time.

The bands were 'feeling' it. Maybe a lot of them got the same vibe at once, b/c a lot of the bands that hung in there got very either modern or 'milky'

It was like everyone took a break and while they took a break and maybe even expected things to return to 'normal', they didn't.

The purpose seemed to go out of the music and when your audience leaves you, like Dorsey's did, you have no reason to play with the spirit and verve you previously had.

I don't think that anyone saw it coming or happening b/c they were right in the middle of the game.

There's still lots of good big band music after 1946, but most of it is not Swing. Lots of more modern bands like Herman and Krupa and Kenton, plus lots of bands playing pleasant dance and pop stuff like Les Brown.....

and ow is where the rambling begins b/c the topic has so many doorways that open up.

So - my short assessment - energy and purpose ; the energy vanished and the purpose vanished, too. Result - Swing died (pretty much).

RIP Swing.

lipi · #26 Post by **lipi** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 12:31 pm

i got the 1933-1936 mills blue rhythm band cd from etunes yesterday, and it's awesome. "mr ghost goes to town", "algiers stomp", and "showboat shuffle", ... great stuff.

unfortunately, it doesn't have years listed for the individual tracks. could someone who has the liner notes please help me out? i assume the thing is chronological? where are the year breaks?

trev · #27 Post by **trev** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:05 pm

lipi wrote:i got the 1933-1936 mills blue rhythm band cd from etunes yesterday, and it's awesome. "mr ghost goes to town", "algiers stomp", and "showboat shuffle", ... great stuff.

unfortunately, it doesn't have years listed for the individual tracks. could someone who has the liner notes please help me out? i assume the thing is chronological? where are the year breaks?

1933 Drop Me Off In Harlem - Love Is The Thing
1934 The Stuff Is Here (And It's Mellow) - Like A Bolt From The Blue
1935 Back Beats - Yes! Yes!
1936 Shoe Shine Boy - Algiers Stomp

lipi · #28 Post by **lipi** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:16 pm

thanks, trev!

dogpossum · #29 Post by **dogpossum** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:53 pm

lipi wrote:i got the 1933-1936 mills blue rhythm band cd from etunes yesterday, and it's awesome. "mr ghost goes to town", "algiers stomp", and "showboat shuffle", ... great stuff.

unfortunately, it doesn't have years listed for the individual tracks. could someone who has the liner notes please help me out? i assume the thing is chronological? where are the year breaks?

I was just about to buy that very album from emusic!

...and I've been having a look at that Tom Lords Jazz Discography (courtesy of the library) - it's amazing.

trev · #30 Post by **trev** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 6:29 pm

dogpossum wrote: ...and I've been having a look at that Tom Lords Jazz Discography (courtesy of the library) - it's amazing.

How many MBRB recordings does it list? I currently have 90, but I'm thinking I want to go complete. I noticed a CD labelled as "live from the Cotton Club" but it's not actually live recordings - although I do believe there are a couple of "live" MBRB tracks out there. Also, I recently found out there was a new Mills Blue Rhythm Band formed by Irving Mills for a recording session in the 1947. They recorded 8 new tracks but the group only featured one original MBRB member.