1. Slippin' Around
2. Alexander's Ragtime Band
3. Some Sweet Day
4. Hurricane
5. Davenport Blues
6. Darktown Strutters Ball
7. Imagination
8. Feelin' No Pain
9. Original Dixieland One Step
10. My Gal Sal
11. Shim Me Sha Wobble
12. Crazy Rhythm
13. You Took Advantage Of Me
14. You're The Cream In My Coffee
15. Wild Oat Joe
16. I've Got A Feeling I'm Falling
17. Moanin' Low
18. Navy Blues
19. Good Man Is Hard To Find - Mole, Miff
20. Ballin' The Jack
21. St. Louis Blues
22. Peg O' My Heart
23. Three Little Words
24. Miff's Blues
Red and Miff’s Stompers, Miff Mole and his
Molers. Jam Session at Commodore, Miff Mole
and his World Jam Session Band, Miff Mole
and his Nicksielanders. Nick’s Dixieland Band
I’d not heard Miff’s
Blues for ages and did a double-take
when I heard it in this fine compilation
from Living Era. Who did that "wounded
moose" trombone tone remind me of,
that churchy-gospelly piano underpinning?
None other than Gary Valente, Carla Bley’s
awe-inspiring cavalier of the trombone,
and his tour de force preaching on The
Lord Is Listening To Ya, Hallelujah! in
a live 1980s Bley album. The thought that
the lineage might, even tangentially, run
from Mole to Valente would have struck me
as improbable, so ingrained has it become
to think of Mole as a Nicksielander but
the ways of jazz influence are always cloudier
than is imagined.
Mole’s earliest tracks
here, when he was aurally influenced by
Jimmy Harrison and Jack Teagarden, are however
hamstrung by his flatly on the beat phrasing.
The earlier 1927 tracks are obviously based
on Beiderbecke’s small groups and there’s
still just a touch of the Bill Ranks about
Mole’s playing, yet to imbibe the rhythmic
flexibilities that some of his contemporaries
had already embraced. Arthur Schutt, always
elegant, shared these rather stiff tendencies
and allied to some mercurial (and to me
always tiresome) drumming by Vic Berton
this makes the earlier tracks musically
constrained.
But as things move on we
become confronted with some surprising evidence
of modernity. Fud Livingston’s Imagination
is notable for his expert marshalling of
lower voice counter themes – in places this
sounds like West Coast modernism of the
early fifties with its cool lines supporting
main melodic voicings. Then there are the
great colourists and tonalists who pepper
these performances, Pee Wee Russell to the
fore, and his hero Frank Teschmacher as
well (on one track). Red Nichols was a long
time colleague but Phil Napoleon is equally
Bix-ish and Bobby Hackett’s later appearances
are suitably elevated. More than can be
said for Krupa’s bass drum disasters. But
many of the titans of white Chicago are
here and the piano stools in particular
are teeming with talent – Joe Sullivan,
Gene Schroeder, and Jess Stacy would fill
anyone’s star team.
Tracing Mole from his rather
squarely phrased 1927 sides to his mature
1940s sessions has been an unexpectedly
revealing experience. The transfers are
full, with some shellac crackle retained
to give us those important higher frequencies.
Good notes. Most enjoyably done – and thought-provoking
too.
Jonathan Woolf
CD Reviews
LIVING ERA CD AJA 5632 [76.07] 
