Baker Millian

Baker Millian emerged, just like a damp crawfish, through the swampy environs of Crowley, LA. A simile plucked through the bestiary is too suitable, because as Millian progressed into a good saxophonist in the romping Tx tenor custom, he shifted through some territory rings whose titles could arouse the eye of Noah, the ASPCA, a zoologist, and a Sioux hunting party, although definitely not in that purchase. First it had been the Yelping Hound Music group in Crowley, where Millian got honed his instrumental skills on piano and saxophones in the alto and C-melody range before getting his accurate bark place in the tenor. From 1927 through 1929, Millian soared with Evan Thomas’ Dark Eagle Band. Another addition to the menagerie of the réamounté was an organization referred to as the Buffalo Tempo Stompers. The tenor guy was along the way of heading western, herding with this Texas device until shifting to an unfamiliar work in New Mexico and a posting back Houston with an ensemble beneath the assistance of Giles Mitchell, finally creating a rest in the zoological string. A synopsis of Millian’s profession not really reeking of feather, hair, or hoof would obviously mention his start with bandleader Chris Kelly in New Orleans, an element from the tenor man’s moving presence on different music scenes. A person with a Crowley connection is definitely of course regarded as area of the Cajun music picture, no real matter what genre of music winds up getting included. Recordings Millian manufactured in the ’30s being a sideman with Shoes or boots & His Buddies led one appreciative critic to comment, nevertheless, that Millian “. . .performed in the Tx tenor design not in contrast to Herschel Evans.” In the ’40s onward, over the various other coastline, Millian was from the jazz picture in California before actually fading in to the fog somewhere within SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA and Oakland. During this time period he was occasionally connected with famed traditional jazz bandleader Bunk Johnson; he also backed himself employed in the postoffice and became even more of a part-time participant. He will not seem to possess performed on any jazz recordings after 1947; actually, the quantity of Millian obtainable in general can be viewed as a little wanting set alongside the discographies of Evans, Booker Ervin, or various other tenor players within this style. A couple of mainly the Shoes or boots & His Buddies series, at least three of these obtainable, documenting the profession of an enjoyable combo led by drummer Clifford “Shoes or boots” Douglas. Millian also blows on some recordings by tempo & blues vocalist Ivory Joe Hunter.