Miff Mole was a trombone player who became famous in the jazz world of the 1920s. And we’ll be hearing radio broadcasts by Miff on this week’s The Phantom Dancer.

The Phantom Dancer is two hours of non-stop swing and jazz mixed from live 1920s – 1960s radio and TV.

Now in its 33rd year, The Phantom Dancer is produced and presented by Greg Poppleton, Australia’s only authentic 1920s-1930s singer.

On this week’s Phantom Dancer you’ll also hear a set of live vintage radio by Nat King Cole, Marion Hutton and Charlie Spivak.

Broadcast 12:04pm Tuesdays 107.3 2SER Sydney then over 22 radio stations and online.

HEAR The Phantom Dancer live-streamed then online on the Radio 2SER website.

MIFF MOLE…

…was the stage name of Irving Milfred Mole (March 11, 1898 – April 29, 1961).

He was a jazz trombonist and band leader. He created ‘the first distinctive and influential solo jazz trombone style.’

Miff Mole’s soloing style had rapid-fire cadenzas, octave-leaps and shakes. He was a big influence on later trombonists Bill Rank, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Jimmy Harrison.

His heyday was the mid-1920s when he recorded popular and critically acclaimed records with such stars as Sophie Tucker (Red Hot Mama (1924)) and Bix Beiderbecke (Davenport Blues (1925)).

Miff Mole studied classical violin and piano as a child. He picked up the trombone age 15. He was playing professionally by 1920 and went on to play in some of the greatest New York City bands in the Jazz Age.

TROMBONE

Miff Mole played in the Original Memphis Five (1922), and with Ross Gorman, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Sam Lanin, Ray Miller and many others. With cornetist Red Nichols, he led Miff Mole and His Little Molers, recording from 1926 – 1930.

Miff Mole waxed sides with a lot of Red Nichols ‘aggregations’: The Red Heads, The Hottentots, The Charleston Chasers, The Six Hottentots, The Cotton Pickers, Red and Miff’s Stompers, and Red Nichols and His Five Pennies.

But Miff’s style became ‘old-hat’ when Jack Teagarden arrived in New York in 1928. Teagarden brought a more legato, blues-oriented approach to jazz.

After the 1920s, Miff Mole took to radio as an NBC studio musician until 1938 when he joined Paul Whiteman’s orchestra. By then, even Mole had been influenced by Teagarden. He was in Benny Goodman’s orchestra from 1942-43 and led various dixieland bands, one of which we hear on today’s Phantom Dancer – his Nixieland Six – from 1942-47. He worked in Chicago in 1947–54 when bad health reduced the amount of playing he did. He died in 1961.

Miff Mole’s records have been used in the soundtracks of two twenty-first century movies.

His 1928 recording of ‘Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble’ with the Little Molers was used in Russell Crowe;s movie, Cinderella Man.

His composition ‘There’ll Come a Time (Wait and See)’, is heard in the Academy Award-nominated movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Your Phantom Dancer Miff Mole Video of the Week – Miff Mole hanging out on a hotel rooftop in 1943. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouO3SNCIMXc