Gussie Mueller

Gustave "Gussie" Mueller (New Orleans, Louisiana April 17, 1890 – Hollywood, California December 16, 1965) was an early jazz clarinetist.

Mueller was one of the top clarinetists with Papa Jack Laine's bands in New Orleans before going to Chicago, Illinois with Tom Brown's band in early 1915. After serving in the Army in World War I he moved to California and joined the early Paul Whiteman Orchestra, with which he moved to New York City. He helped give Whiteman an idea of the Dixieland jazz style.

One of the Whiteman Orchestra's early hit records, as well as one of the unfortunately few recordings where Mueller can be heard prominently, is The Wang Wang Blues which Mueller dominates in a style similar to Larry Shields while somewhat foreshadowing the early work of Sidney Bechet. While Mueller shares composer credit on "Wang Wang", some of his New Orleans contemporaries said the number was all his and he had featured it before joining Whiteman.

As Paul Whiteman started taking himself more seriously and began demanding arrangements with little room for improvisation, Mueller left the band in November 1920, saying "You call yourselves a jazz band, but you can't play the blues worth a damn".

Mueller returned to California to join his old friend (and fellow Tom Brown Band alumnus) Ray Lopez in the Abe Lyman Orchestra. Mueller stayed in the Los Angeles area, playing with dance bands, novelty and "Hillbilly" bands, and working on motion picture soundtracks before retiring after World War II.

Clarinet

Clarinet family	Piccolo clarinet E♭ clarinet Soprano clarinet Saxonette Quarter tone clarinet Basset clarinet Clarinette d'amour Basset horn Alto clarinet Bass clarinet Contrabass clarinets

Fingering systems	Albert Boehm Mazzeo Müller Öhler

Clarinetists	Heinrich Baermann Acker Bilk Walter Boeykens Jack Brymer James Campbell Eddie Daniels Buddy DeFranco Eric Dolphy Stanley Drucker Pete Fountain Martin Fröst Benny Goodman Woody Herman Reginald Kell Thea King Henry Lazarus Karl Leister Sabine Meyer Alcide Nunez Pee Wee Russell Artie Shaw David Shifrin Anton Stadler Milenko Stefanović Richard Stoltzman

Clarinet makers	List of clarinet makers Amati-Denak E. K. Blessing Buffet Crampon Johann Christoph Denner Benedikt Eppelsheim Stephen Fox Heinrich Grenser Howarth of London Jupiter Band Instruments Leblanc Iwan Müller Adolphe Sax Selmer Yamaha Corporation

Related	Clarinet choir Clarinet concerto Clarinet sonata Clarinet-violin-piano trio

Persondata
Name	Mueller, Gussie
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	April 17, 1890
Place of birth
Date of death	December 16, 1965
Place of death

Famous quotes containing the word mueller:

“I want to celebrate these elms which have been spared by the plague, these survivors of a once flourishing tribe commemorated by all the Elm Streets in America. But to celebrate them is to be silent about the people who sit and sleep underneath them, the homeless poor who are hauled away by the city like trash, except it has no place to dump them. To speak of one thing is to suppress another.”
—Lisel Mueller (b. 1924)