Jazz listeners who derided the sing-along records and TV shows that made Mitch Miller rich and famous in the 1950s and ’60s tended to forgive him the shallowness of his pop pap because he played with Charlie Parker. Miller died over the weekend at the age of 99. See Matt Schudel’s excellent obituary in The Washington Post.
In addition to his sing-along extravaganzas, Miller produced recordings by singers as various as Johnny Mathis, Hank Williams, Rosemary Clooney, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra—during one of the low points of Sinatra’s career. Before his career as a pop producer and sing-along specialist, Miller was admired as one of classical music’s most accomplished oboists. He appeared in oboe interludes and obbligatos in Parker’s album with strings and in a few live appearances with Parker’s string ensemble. In this photograph from the 1949 recording session we see Miller with Parker, drummer Buddy Rich, bassist Ray Brown and violinists Max Hollander and Milt Lomask. In this case, Miller is playing English horn.
And here he is with Parker in the remarkable “Just Friends,” from the Charlie Parker With Strings album. Miller has the oboe interlude between Bird’s choruses.
Sing along with this.
(A version of this post that was up for a few hours contained factual errors that fellow blogger Alan Kurtz called to my attention. The errors are gone. Thanks, Alan.—DR)