[Dixielandjazz] Miff Mole

[dwlit at cpcug.org]

I don't have a copy of the "Tin roof" stock chart, but the sheet music
doesn't have trombone solo--I took my fake book sheet from the sheet
music.

As for the "High Society" clarinet solo, Melrose in the late 20s published
an orchestration by Fud Livingston with clarinet trio by Benny Goodman
(another sax trio was written by Tram). Goodman's trio does ca. half the
Picou solo, then goes off into a variation that doesn't resemble the
Picou. I suspect that Melrose did a version of the chart early in the 20s,
whenever the tune first became popular, but haven't seen it. My fake book
sheet has the Johnny Dodds version of Picou from the King Oliver record.

--Sheik

> Bill Haesler wrote:
> " All the trombone players copied the Brunies' solo, as it was
>> part of the tune.
>> I would be prepared to bet that the Melrose Bros. Music Co. Inc. stock
>> sheet music included it."
>
> Possibly it does Bill, but the original sheet music (BLACK BEAUTY WHITE
> HEAT
> p. 89) shows the NORK as composers, and names the musicians, including Geo
> Brunies. So obviously George originated the trombone solo and Miff Mole
> copied it - and just as likely from the record as from a score, if one
> existed. End of story.
>
> Steve Barbone wrote:
> "The Brunies solo may have written out as part of the tune...similarly to
> the Picou solo on HIGH SOCIETY".
>
> There's more to the clarinet solo than that. Far from being "a traditional
> New Orleans march" HIGH SOCIETY was written by 21 years old Porter Steele
> in
> 1901, when Steele was at Yale University, leader of the University
> Orchestra
> and Band, and active in the mandolin and glee clubs. It was published that
> year by Ruby Brooks and E. J. Denton, a banjo duo, well known in 1890s on
> the vaudeville circuit. They engaged Robert Becker, leader of a pit band
> in
> NY city, to write the orchestration.
>
> Becker transcribed the tune for orchestra and invented the brilliant
> piccolo
> part for the Trio. I can't find the details at the moment but at least two
> recordings were made of the tune in the early years of the twentieth
> century - it would be interesting and no doubt educational to hear them,
> and
> the piccolo part. When the orchestration reached New Orleans John
> Robichaux,
> then playing at Mahogany Hall, bought it, and his clarinetist Alphonse
> Picou
> transposed the piccolo part to his clarinet, and it became a hit. At the
> time HIGH SOCIETY was played as a slow march.
>
> Pops Foster recalled that Bab Frank with his Peerless Band played it on
> the
> piccolo. George Baquet is also credited with transposing the piccolo part
> to
> the clarinet.  Possibly other clarinetists  around the country played the
> piccolo part on clarinet, in bands lacking a piccolo.
>
> Whether an orchestration of HIGH SOCIETY with the clarinet solo in it was
> ever published I do not know.
>
> Most of the above information was published in The JOURNAL OF JAZZ STUDIES
> back in June 1975. Earlier the derivation of HIGH SOCIETY was also
> discussed
> in early copies of RECORD RESEARCH.
>
> Best wishes
> Jack Mitchell
>
>
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