Irving Mills - Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

One night Mills went down to a little club on West 49th Street between 7th Avenue and Broadway called the Kentucky Club. The owner had brought in a little band from Washington, D.C. and wanted to know what Irving thought of them. Instead of going out and making the rounds he found himself sitting there all night listening to the orchestra. That was Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra, whom he signed the very next day. They made a lot of records together, not only under the name of Duke Ellington, but built groups around Duke's side men who were great instrumentalists in their own right.

Mills was not a composer, but his contract with Ellington was a very favorable one; he owned 50% in Duke Ellington Inc. and thus got his name tag on quite a number of tunes that became popular standards: "Mood Indigo," "(In My) Solitude," "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," "Sophisticated Lady," "Black and Tan Fantasy," and many others now listed on the ASCAP website. In spite of a limited vocabulary, Irving had a poetic sense of beauty and knew how to create a lyric, sometimes using a ghost writer to complete his idea and sometimes building on the idea of the ghost writer. He was instrumental in getting Duke Ellington hired by the Cotton Club.

Mills was one of the first to record black and white musicians together, using twelve white musicians and the Duke Ellington Orchestra on a 12" 78 rpm disc performing "St. Louis Blues" on one side and a medley of songs called "Gems from Blackbirds of 1928" on the other side, himself singing with the Ellington Orchestra. Victor Records -- soon to become RCA Victor—first hedged on releasing the record, but when Mills threatened to take his artists off the roster, he won out.

He also discovered and signed Blanche Calloway and her brother Cab Calloway.

Irving thought that he should ensure that the Ellington Orchestra always had top musicians and protected himself by forming the Mills Blue Rhythm Band, using them as a sort of relief band at the Cotton Club. Calloway and the band went into the Cotton Club with a new song Irving co-wrote with Calloway and Clarence Gaskill called "Minnie the Moocher."