Irving Harold Mills (born Isadore Minsky; January 18, 1894 Odessa, Ukraine – April 21, 1985) was an music publisher, musician, lyricist, and jazzpromoter. He often used the pseudonymsGoody Goodwin and Joe Primrose.
Mills was born to a Jewish family[1]inOdessa, Russian Empire, although some biographies state that he was born on the Lower East SideofManhattan[2]inNew York City.[a][3] His father, Hyman Minsky, was a hatmaker who immigrated from Odessa to the United States with his wife Sofia (née Dudis).[4] Hyman died in 1905, and Irving and his brother, Jacob (1891–1979) worked odd jobs including bussing at restaurants, selling wallpaper, and working in the garment industry. By 1910, Mills was a telephone operator.
Mills married Beatrice ("Bessie") Wilensky[5] in 1911, and they subsequently moved to Philadelphia. By 1918, Mills was working for publisher Leo Feist. His brother, [[Jack Mills (music publisher)
|Jack]], was working as a manager for McCarthy and Fisher, the music publishing firm of lyricist Joseph McCarthy and songwriter Fred Fisher.
In July 1919 Irving's older brother Jack Mills founded Jack Mills Music;[6][7] mainly motivated to do so out of a desire to publish his own songs. Soon after, he was joined in the enterprise by Irving Mills[8] who served as vice-president of the company with Jack as president, and Samuel Jesse Buzzell as secretary and counselor. The company was renamed Mills Music, Inc. in 1928.[3][9][10] Mills Music acquired the bankrupt Waterson, Berlin & Snyder, Inc. in 1929. Buzzell's son, Loring Buzzell, briefly worked for the company from March 1949 to October 1950.[11][12]
Irving, Jack, and Samuel sold Mills Music on February 25, 1965, to Utilities and Industries Corporation (a utility company based in New York).[13] In 1969, Utilities and Industries Corporation merged Mills Music with Belwin, another music publisher, to form Belwin-Mills.[14] Educational publisher Esquire Inc. announced its acquisition of Belwin-Mills in 1979.[15]Gulf & Western acquired Esquire Inc. in 1983 and sold the Belwin-Mills print business to Columbia Pictures Publications (CPP) in 1985.[16] CPP was later acquired by Filmtrax and Filmtrax was acquired by EMI Music Publishing in 1990.[17] The Mills Music catalog is now managed by Sony Music Publishing, which acquired EMI Music Publishing in 2012.[18]
By the end of 1963, 114 titles brought in 77 percent of the royalty income for five years. The total number of compositions, at the time of sale, was estimated to be in excess of 25,000, of which 1,500 were still producing royalties. In 1964, Mills had royalties of $1.3 million (equivalent to $13,075,790 in 2023). The company had 20 music publishing subsidiaries as well as publishing concerns in Britain, Brazil, Canada, France, West Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Spain.[19]
The Mills Music Trust traded in units OTC (over-the-counter) under the symbol MMTRS. The trust received payments from EMI Records based on a formula that changed in 2010, when the trust passed almost all its funds to unit holders.
In 1932, Mills founded the Rhythmakers recording group as a vehicle to record and promote jazz singer Billy Banks. The group was a racially integrated ensemble at a time when such groups were legally banned from public theatres, and it included several highly regarded jazz musicians, including Red Allen, Jack Bland, Pee Wee Russell, Fats Waller, Eddie Condon, and Jimmy Lord.[20]
One evening circa 1925, Mills went to a small club on West 49th Street between 7th Avenue and Broadway called the Club Kentucky, often referred to as the Kentucky Club, formerly the Hollywood Club.[21] The owner had brought in a small band of six musicians from Washington, D.C., and wanted to know what Mills thought of them. Mills stayed the rest of the evening listening to the band, Duke Ellington and his Kentucky Club Orchestra. Apparently, Mills signed Ellington the next day. They made numerous records together, not only under the name of Duke Ellington, but also using groups that incorporated Duke's sidemen.
Mills was one of the first to record black and white musicians together, using twelve white musicians and the Duke Ellington Orchestra on a 12-inch 78 rpm record featuring the "St. Louis Blues" on one side and a medley of songs called "Gems from Blackbirds of 1928" on the other, on which Mills sang with the Ellington Orchestra. Victor Records initially hesitated to release the record, but when Mills threatened to take his artists off their roster, he won out.[22]
One of Mills' most significant innovations was the "band within a band" concept, recording small group sides. He started this in 1928 by arranging for members of Ben Pollack's band to make records under an array of pseudonyms on dime store labels — like Banner, Oriole, Cameo, Domino, and Perfect — while Pollack had an exclusive contract with Victor. A number of these records are considered jazz classics by collectors. Mills printed "small orchestrations," transcribed off the record, so that non-professional musicians could see how great solos were constructed. This was later done by Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, and several other bands.
Irving formed the Mills Artists Booking Company. In 1934, he formed an all-female orchestra, headed by Ina Ray. He added Hutton to her name and it became the popular Ina Ray Hutton and her Orchestra.
In 1934, Mills Music also began a publishing subsidiary, Exclusive Publications, Inc., specializing in orchestrations by songwriters like Will Hudson,[b] who co-wrote the song "Mr. Ghost Goes to Town" with Mills and Mitchell Parish in 1936.
By late 1937, multiple problems caused the collapse of these labels. The Brunswick and Vocalion sales also had problems with competition from Victor and Decca. Mills tried to arrange to get his music issued in Europe, but was unsuccessful. After the collapse of the labels, titles that were still selling on Master were reissued on Brunswick and those still selling on Variety were reissued on Vocalion. Mills continued his M-100 recording series after the labels were taken over by ARC, and after cutting back recording to just the better-selling artists, new recordings made from January 1938 by Master were issued on Brunswick (and later Columbia) and Vocalion (later the revived Okeh) until May 7, 1940. Beginning March 8, 1939, in an Ellingtonsession, the prefix "W" was added to matrices(e.g., WM-990 and WM-991). This matrix series was then used until WM-1150, the final being a session by the Adrian Rollini Trio performing "The Girl With the Light Blue Hair," Voc/Okeh 5979, May 7, 1940, New York City. There were 1,055 sessions in the series.[24]
Mills became the head of the American Recording Company, which is now Columbia Records. At one point, Mills was singing at six radio stations seven days a week. Jimmy McHugh, Sammy Fain, and Gene Austin took turns being his pianist.
^U.S. records reflect that Irving Mills was born in Russia, more specifically, Odessa, Ukraine.
^ abcWill Hudson (né Arthur Murray Hainer; 1908–1981) was a composer
^Arnold Brillhardt (né Arnold Ross Brilhart; 1904–1998), saxophonist, married (around 1933) Verlye Mills Davis (maiden; 1911–1983) a harpist; they divorced in 1966
^"Gulf & Western Unit Sells Belwin-Mills Publishing". Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition. New York. March 25, 1985. p. 1. ISSN0099-9660. ProQuest397955995.
