When I first started to buy 78's as a kid searching through my local Salvation Army stores I bought records by the Harlem black bands and learned about them in the book entitled Jazz A History of the New York Scene a few years after I had bought the 78's. The best of the black bands I had heard was Charlie Johnson Paradise Orchestra. Of all the bands I had these records of mentioned in the book I thought Duke Ellington's band was the absolute bottom, the lowest musically of what I had heard. Then I started reading in jazz books all this praise of Ellington and he was one of the 2 most important figures in jazz. I thought what a joke, why are these writers saying what to me was obviously not true. SO I started doing some research and found out a guy named Irving Mills was responsible for making Duke Ellington famous.He made Duke Ellington. Without Mills you would never have heard of Duke Ellington because his mediocre music on its own sure would not make him famous. He was a white manager who got him a job in the Cotton Club, the most prestigious club in Harlem that catered to rich white people. He got him a national radio show from the Cotton Club getting him a National reputation and got him in a short film everyone could see, Black and Tan Fantasy. None of the other bands in Harlem who were all infinitely better than Ellington had this advantage. Then this rich white guy, John Hammond, starts promoting him. Next I wanted to find Irving Mills and possibly talk with him. He wasn't hard to find. I lived in Los Angeles California and he lived in Palm Springs California and I got his phone number. When I called him he was very surprised a young man like me even knew who he was. I asked him with all the great bands in Harlem why did he choose the most mediocre lowest musically one? Why Duke Ellington who only had one really good recording and composition in his life. A guy whose whole music is nothing more than a cheap gimmick, Jungle Music, and whose flashy suits and nauseating phony stately elegantly exterior (The Duke, give me a break) is a facade for a very limited musically bandleader and composer. I told Irving Mills that I knew that he was solely responsible with his savy promotion for all the recognization Ellington has gotten. Couldn't he have picked ANY other band in Harlem all of which were better than Ellington? Mills only said the others would not accept my financial conditions and Duke did. And I said are you the guy who came up with the Jungle Music gimmick aren't you! You and John Hammond might have fooled everyone else into believing a nothing bandleader and mediocre musican and composer is the 2nd most important figure in jazz but I listen to the music and make me own judgements not based on your or anyone else's hype. If only Irving Mills and John Hammond had picked a bandleader who really deserved his promotion like Charlie Johnson, Fletcher Henderson, Fess Williams, Cliff Jackson, Cecil Scott jazz history would be different and Ellington would be only the minor footnote he deserves.

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