Roaring Twenties: That's a Plenty - Ray Miller & His Orch., 1929
Ray Miller & His Orchestra – That’s a Plenty, Fox Trot (L.Pollack), Brunswick 1929 (Canada)
NOTE: \"That's a Plenty\" is a 1914 ragtime piano composition by Lew Pollack. Lyrics by Ray Gilbert (born 1912) were added decades later. The Pollack and Gilbert song is not to be confused with a 1909 song of the same name by Henry Creamer and Bert Williams. A number of popular vocal versions have been recorded, but it is more often performed as an instrumental and is considered a jazz standard. The first recording was in 1917 by Prince's Band, and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings recorded their rendition in 1923. The comedian Jackie Gleason used it in his television shows in the 1950s and 1960s. Particularly notable are versions recorded by Freddy Martin and His Orchestra in 1950, Bing Crosby and Connee Boswell vocal version in 1952 for use in Crosby's radio show and the Pointer Sisters' fabulous vocal rendition recorded in 1974.
RAY MILLER (1896–1974) was an American bandleader who was popular during the 1920s. In 1924 his orchestra performed at the White House with Al Jolson at a campaign rally for President Calvin Coolidge, the first jazz band to do so. Ray Miller started his career in 1916 as singing waiter at the Casino Gardens in Chicago, where he met the members of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (ODJB). Miller followed the ODJB to New York City, where he formed his own dance band, the Black and White Melody Boys. His dance orchestra included at different times Ward Archer (drums); Charlie Rocco (trumpet); Miff Mole (trombone); Rube Bloom (piano); Frank Trumbauer, Andy Sannella, (saxophones). In 1923 Ray Miller’s orchestra signed an exclusive contract with Bruswick and held permanent residencies at the New York Hippodrome, Arcadia Ballroom and in Atlantic City. The orchestra's most successful recordings included \"The Sheik of Araby\" (OKeh, 1922), \"I'll See You In My Dreams\" (Brunswick, 1925), and \"When It's Springtime in the Rockies\" (Brunswick, 1930). \"I'll See You In My Dreams\" was written for Ray Miller by Isham Jones, who performed it with the band.
In 1927, after Mole and Trumbauer left, Miller moved his base to the Hotel Gibson in Cincinnati, Ohio, and performed regularly for the powerful radio station WLW. In 1928 he left Cincinnati and formed a new band in Chicago, where a trumpeter Mugsy Spanier joined his band for some time. Miller his orchestra recorded regularly for Brunswick in Chicago until 1930 when he decided to leave the music business. It is believed, Ray Miller went bankrupt after he invested heavily in Stock Maket before 1929 and lost a good deal of money after the markets crashed in October 1929. He never returned to the music scene thereafter.
This Ray Miller’s instrumental rendition seems to be an ultimate version of that awesome hot dance tune and also a farewell to the carelessness and madness of the Roaring Twenties, just before the Great Depression. In my slideshow I made an attempt to evoke that atmosphere.
