 The following is an excerpt from the book: “Jumptown, The Golden Years of Portland Jazz, 1942-1957”: In 1951 Portland Jazz musician Bill McClendon heard Nova Polk from Spokane, Washington. He hired her and business tripled. “I don’t mind telling you they came from all over, and not to see me or Warren either,” says McClendon. “She was as good as she was pretty. Stan Kenton came up one night and wanted to hire her right off the stage. But she was involved with some guy.” Chuck Phillips was taking guitar lessons with her when she was living in Spokane and remembers that Jack Teagarden wanted to audition her in 1948. “She couldn’t even afford to go to the audition.” Recalls Phillips. “She was married to her guitar teacher, Melvin Mills, who was about thirty years older than she was. All the musicians in Spokane knew about her: Joe Kloess, Jimmy Rowles. She picked up the nickname Scotty from Nova Scotia. An then she became Scotty Mills. I heard later that they were not getting along and that is why she moved to Portland. That must have been have been around 1950.  She was featured in DownBeat magazine in December of 1951, with the inscription, “Portland, Ore.- A really coming young musician, and Portland's only girl guitarist is Miss Scotty Mills, above. Scotty plays with tremendous swing and zest, and sparked the recent "Jazz in the Afternoon" concert at the Playhouse theater here.” “She was fantastic,” remembers Dick Bogle. “I think everybody was in love with her. At midnight on New Year’s Eve in ’52, she gave me a kiss on the cheek and I was still shaking about a minute later.  Scotty Mills had a way of sitting when she played the guitar that made her appear matronly. The white stockings and the way she wore her hair enhanced this impression. Then with a flick of her pick she’d rip into the solo with the speed of a female Joe Pass. Her sister-in-law, Velma French, thinks the speed and the execution comes from her freaky fingers, “stubby little things with hardly any bones in them. My brother Mel could think up ideas fast as Scotty, but he couldn’t execute like Scotty. Maybe that was one of the reasons for the divorce.” Scotty Mills was getting flattering reviews on the Westside of Portland accompanying Gene Confer at the Indo-China on Barbur Boulevard. Not since the arrival of Dan Faehnle, has a guitar player so flabbergasted the local fans. Then, just as suddenly as she had appeared, she vanished. Gone. Eight years later, in Spokane, her former student Chuck Phillips saw her standing on a corner downtown. “She was waiting for a bus. I think it was about 1961. I asked if she was Scotty Mills, and she said she didn’t use that name anymore. She seemed spaced out. I don’t even think she recognized me. She hadn’t changed much physically, still had an attractive face, a little overweight the way she always was. I suggested that for old times sake we get together and exchange a few guitar licks. She wasn’t interested. ‘I don’t play anymore,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I have to catch a bus,’ and she was gone.’”  |
To find out more about Bob Dietsche's book “Jumptown, The Golden Years of Portland Jazz”, visit OSU Press or to order locally visit Powell's Books.
