[Dixielandjazz] booker and coarse trombonist

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

Quite apart from what G. Miller was famous for, 
and got rich from, 
and indeed before all that 
he did play some nicely unpolished trombone on record 

and according to memoirs I read years ago 
he was mostly an organiser of other men's bands for gigs. 
Or gigs for other men's bands. 
No notion of the progressive cultivation of a musical vision 

Comparable with Allan Greenspan or maybe Miles Copeland? 
Of course there is the Tuxedo Junction connection:
Copeland as a young white man was friendly with Erskine Hawkins' musicians
and when he was interviewed as the former head of the CIA who'd been 
a jazz trumpeter he said that as a lad he would drop in on the band's gigs up north 
and all the trumpeters were sick of the opening figure in that number 
and when Copeland turned up they were glad to let him play it...  

Give me Erskine Hawkins any day

Robert R. Calder