Re; Duke Ellington quotes

[George Thompson]

> "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"
>
> If I recall correctly, Ellington was quoting his early trumpeter,
> Bubber Miley.  Will attempt to verify this, upon request.

Well, the request came from a still, small voice within, when it
learned that Fred might be about to credit this expression to Irving
Mills.  Mills was Ellington's manager, and like most music managers at
the time, had a penchant for putting his name on music, so he would
get a share of the royalties.

Bubber was one of the great men, in fact Bubber was the first man I
heard use the expression, "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that
swing."

>From Duke Ellington, "The Most Essential Instrument," Jazz Journal,
18/12 (December 1965, pp. 14-15, as reprinted in The Duke Ellington
Reader, edited by Mark Tucker, N. Y. & Oxford: Oxford U. Pr., 1993, p.
368-71.  The quotations is on p. 371.

Miley died very young; there is an entry on him in the American
National Biography.  Apr. 3, 1903-May 20, 1932.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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