Kenneth Grayson Mills
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Kenneth Grayson Mills | |
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| Born | 1937 |
| Died | 2004 |
| Nationality | American |
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Kenneth Grayson Harold Mills (1937–2004) was a U.S. journalist and jazz music promoter whose recording work in 1960s New Orleans is credited with preserving a period of jazz that might otherwise have been lost.[1][2]
The son of a professional musician, Mills developed an interest in jazz at an early age and while in college became concerned about what he called a "famine" of recordings of New Orleans jazz in the 1950s. He feared the art and style of these aging musicians was in danger of being lost.
Having received an inheritance from a great-aunt, Mills moved in 1960 to New Orleans to record and promote old-style jazz musicians. With Barbara Reid,[3] formerly of American Music Records, Mills co-founded Preservation Hall, a French Quarter jazz venue that is still in operation. After a falling out with the property's owner, he left and opened Icon Hall, later renamed Perseverance Hall. From June 1960 to October 1962, he recorded old-style New Orleans jazz musicians for his Icon Records label.
Mills' involvement in Preservation Hall's founding is detailed in journalist William Carter's exhaustive history, "Preservation Hall: Music from the Heart" (1991, W.W. Norton & Co.).[4]
Among the artists Mills recorded: Steve Angrum's New Orleans Footwarmers, featuring Kid Sheik and Punch Miller; Emile Barnes and Charlie Love's Cado Band; and Israel Gorman and His Ponchartrain Pals, featuring Jim Holmes. Angrum died two months after his last recording with Mills.
Having spent his inheritance on his music project and in need of money, Mills returned to California where he worked as a newspaper reporter and editor and played saxophone for his own band, The Low Riders. He sold his issued recordings in 1967 to George Buck of Jazzology Records and faded as a figure in New Orleans jazz.
By the 1990s, however, jazz historians became familiar with Mills' role in founding Preservation Hall and in the historical importance of his recordings, and set out to collect his early writings and catalog all released and unreleased recordings Mills made for the Icon label.
La Croix Records later launched the Ken Grayson Mills Project and documented his work with Icon Records and Preservation Hall in a 22-part series, "The Hidden History of Ken Grayson Mills, Icon Records, Preservation Hall and Preservation Hall in Exile".[5] In 2018, 504 Records released 23 recordings as "Ken Grayson Mills – An Epilogue."[6]
Today, Mills is recognized by New Orleans jazz historians as the "Father of Second Wave New Orleans Jazz Revivalism."[7]
Journalism career
Mills was born on June 9, 1937 in Huntington Park, California. He contracted polio at the age of 18, ending his hopes of swimming or playing baseball on the college level. He wore a brace on his right leg for the rest of his life.
He attended Santa Ana College; transferred to University of North Carolina in 1957, where he wrote about jazz and R&B for The Daily Tar Heel; then returned in 1958 to Santa Ana College and later studied at the University of San Francisco.
During his journalism career, he owned and edited a literary magazine, The Iconoclast (not related to a New York-based literary magazine of the same name); worked as an editor at the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, California; edited the Lakewood Clarion, a southeast Los Angeles-suburb newspaper; and from 1979 to 1981 owned and edited the Signal Hill Tribune, which served a 5,700-population city surrounded entirely by the City of Long Beach.Ken Grayson Mills (1937–2004) is a name
Former Signal Hill Tribune reporter Richard Walker recalled in 2023: "Mills was clearly in his element at the Tribune, which provided a forum for his descriptive prose, his no-holds-barred editorials and his investigative reporting. A visitor to the small news office might find Mills at his typewriter, a ring of Mixture No. 79 tobacco smoke rising from his pipe, and R&B playing on a tape deck. He was assisted by Pat Phillips, a freelance feature writer; Gretchen Duket, an advertising salesperson; and Ken Doyle Jr., an assistant who Mills listed in the staff box as 'chess editor'."
Mills had a sense of humor that could be playful or caustic, Walker recalled. In the Tribune's staff box, readers were advised to call the news office for "advertising rates, classified ad information or a good time." A City Council member who had a reputation for being long-winded felt Mills had insulted him in a news story and repeatedly asked for an apology in print; Mills finally gave him one, writing "what I meant to call you was a loquacious asshole, a bore without peer."
Mills' reporting on corruption in Signal Hill city government led to the recall in 1980 of two city officials: Mayor Maron "Buzz" McCallen, for building code violations on properties he owned; and City Council member Reginald G. Balchin, for voting on development projects in which he had a financial interest. McCallen and Balchin's supporters responded by organizing a boycott of the Tribune. Mounting debt ultimately compelled Mills to sell the newspaper to its previous owner.[8]
Mills produced an LP under the Icon label in 1984. He sold his unissued Icon material in the 1990s. He was the subject of several interviews about Second Wave New Orleans Jazz Revivalism until his death in Fullerton on Oct. 10, 2004 at the age of 67. He was survived by his daughter and three grandchildren. [9]
References
- ↑ "Ken Grayson Mills- An Epilogue - The Syncopated Times". February 21, 2019.
- ↑ "Ken Grayson Mills – An Epilogue - The Syncopated Times". April 26, 2020.
- ↑ "The Music Men". National Review. 19 September 2005.
- ↑ https://books.google.com.jm/books?id=PcjA-dOl8KIC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=mILLS&f=false
- ↑ "The Ken Grayson Mills Project
The Hidden History of Ken Grayson Mills, Icon Records,
Preservation Hall
and Preservation Hall in Exile
by Richard Ekins". www.lacroixrecords.com. - ↑ "Various Artists – Ken Grayson Mills: An Epilogue | Louisiana Music Factory". www.louisianamusicfactory.com.
- ↑ "Ken Grayson Mills, Icon Records and the origins of Second Wave New Orleans Revivalism". Just Jazz. No. 224. December 2016. pp. 28–31.
- ↑ Historian, Claudine Burnett, Local (October 8, 2020). "Column | Newspaper Wars".
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ https://www.genealogybank.com/doc/obituaries/obit/1062963AB7103310-1062963AB7103310?h=1&lname=Mills&rgfromDate=&rgtoDate=&formDate=&formDateFlex=exact&dateType=range&kwinc=&kwexc=&sid=ygpltdwrwtvmawaohymeekeerpeslgvm_wma-gateway010_1695847243722
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