Ray Miller & His Orchestra – I Wish I Could Shimmy (Like My Sister Kate), Fox-Trot (A.Piron) 1928 (Brunswick) USA
NOTE: Ray MILLER (b. James Raymond Miller in 1896 in Reading, Pennsylvania – d. c. 1974, unknown place of death). American dance bandleader of the Roaring Twenties, who was very popular and prolific during the Roaring Twenties. Ray Miller started his career in 1916 as a singing waiter in the Casino Gardens in Chicago, Ill where he got acquainted with musicians from the Original Dixieland Jazz Band who took him to New York. Around 1918 Ray Miller formed his own dance orchestra, the Black & White Melody Boys, featuring himself on drums. They disbanded a year later and in 1920 Miller formed another dance orchestra with several top notch musicians, including Miff Mole (trombone), Rube Bloom (piano) or Frank Trumbauer and Andy Sannella. The orchestra recorded for various labels, notably Columbia and OKeh, before signing an exclusive contract with Brunswick Records 1923. They played jazz-influenced music — especially after Mole and Trumbauer joined in 1924 and held residencies at the New York Hippodrome, Arcadia Ballroom and in the dance venues in Atlantic City. In October 1924, the orchestra became the first jazz band to play at the White House, where they performed with Al Jolson at a campaign rally for president Coolidge. After Mole and Trumbauer left in 1927, Ray Miller moved his base to the Hotel Gibson in Cincinnati, Ohio, and performed for the powerful radio station WLW. A year later he left Cincinnati and formed a new band in Chicago, which for a few months included trumpeter Muggsy Spanier. Miller left the music business sometime around 1930, having invested heavily into the Stock Market and lost a good deal of money after the crash in 1929. After that date, Ray Miller’s name disappears from the music market in USA forever.
