Miff Mole

During the 1920s, before Jack Teagarden surfaced, Miff Mole ranked as the most forward-thinking trombonist in jazz. He built a solid reputation through his work with the Original Memphis Five, an affiliation that began in 1922, and his extensive 1926-1927 recordings with Red Nichols highlighted his penchant for striking interval leaps and crisp staccato phrasing that aligned precisely with Nichols' approach. From 1927 onward, however, he turned to studio work and devoted far less energy to jazz over the following two decades. He performed with Paul Whiteman between 1938 and 1940 and joined Benny Goodman in 1943. When he reentered the small-group scene in the mid-'40s, playing alongside Eddie Condon and leading a band at Nick's, his style had come to echo that of Teagarden disciples, so it no longer stood apart, though his version of "Peg of My Heart" enjoyed popularity. Health problems surfaced intermittently in the 1950s, and the wider jazz audience had largely lost track of him by the time of his death in 1961. His strongest sessions as a leader occurred while heading the Molers from 1927 to 1930, with one additional four-song date in 1937 and later releases on Jazzology, Commodore, Storyville, and Argo.