I have been digging in to the discography of James Wesley 'Bubber' Miley recently, trying to sort out the various takes on various labels of classics with the Ellington Orchestra such as Black and Tan Fantasy and The Mooche.
Bubber was the 'big bang' of Ellington's music as we know it and while the universe of Ellingtonia continued to expand for another forty five years following the cornetist/ trumpet player's summary dismissal in 1929, its genesis was in those remarkable recording sessions some two years earlier which produced suddenly as if out of nowhere, the Orchestra's first essay on East St Louis Toodle-oo.
Almost a century later and courtesy of the Cathode Ray U-Tube, it's an easy job to assemble a collection of Bubber's recordings for and aft his tenure with Ellington. I'll publish the sets tomorrow but for now, to begin at the ending, his final recording session which took place with the Leo Reisman Orchestra on 30 August, 1931. The vocalist is Ben Gordon, the sides rather on sweet than hot but then the scientists tell us that the universe is cooling down from its initial explosion.
Before that Victor 78 as an hors d'oeuvre and from about twelve months previously, Bubber with Leo Reisman on The Mooche, the only fragment from a Vitaphone medley currently available on line...
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