Ernest “Punch” Miller

Ernest Punch Miller (1894 – 1971) was known as “King of the Blues”. His father Silas died when Ernest was young and his mother, a singer in a Baptist Church, later married William Ivey who played in the Raceland Brass Band. This was Ernest’s first connection to the world of music. Ernest learned various instruments, worked on a sugarcane farm half the year, and then joined the military before going to play trumpet professionally. He played with Jack Carrey’s Band in New Orleans, and toured vaudeville with his sister, together then known as “Punch and Judy”.

Punch moved to Chicago in 1926 and worked with Jelly Roll Morton’s Red Hot Peppers and Freddy Keppard.

He was part of the 1950s New Orleans jazz revival in the formation of Preservation Hall with Kid Thomas Valentine. Punch also played with the Zulu and Tulane brass bands, toured and recorded in Japan with George Lewis in 1963. He was the star of ‘Til the Butcher Cuts Him Down: New Orleans Jazzman Punch Miller’.