[Dixielandjazz] Mills Calacade Orcchestra (was Now A Black Female Orchestra? 'not really)

[Bill Haesler]

I wrote earlier:
> Other than that Irving Mills managed, toured and recorded the orch (as with the Ira May Hutton aggregation) I have found nothing to link Brunies, Haymer, Carlson (and the other males) with the Cavalcade Orch. Perhaps they were added for the record date.
> Yet Brunies has leader status in discographies.

Dear Friends,
I found some of the answer to my question in Linda Dahl's 'Stormy Weather. The music and lives of a century of jazzmen', a book mentioned by me later in this particular thread.
"Around 1934 Irving Mills formed a theater [sic] band that was one of the very few examples of a large jazz-flavoured unit truly integrated by sex. The Mills Cavalcade Orchestra was made up of free-lancers, many of the women players later went on to work with all-woman swing units such as the Mills-backed Melodears. [The female members are then listed.] Though interest in this unique conglomeration was substantial, Mills inexplicably dropped the project after about six months."
Kind regards,
Bill.