Mulgrew Miller

Mulgrew Miller

Date Posted: September 09 2008

Written By: Ben Dockery

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Mulgrew Miller—Stressing Conceptual Clarity

BY BEN DOCKERY

If you have listened to many jazz recordings of the last thirty years you are bound to have heard pianist Mulgrew Miller. Some have estimated that Miller is the most recorded jazz pianist of his generation. And a 1995 New York Times poll of jazz musicians ranked Miller the most in-demand pianist. His marquee status has only grown in the last decade as he is most commonly heard fronting his trio or his sextet, Wingspan.

Miller was born in 1955 in Greenwood, Mississippi. Remarkably, the Miller home was not an especially musical one. There was a piano in the house, but no one knew how to play it. One day six-year-old Mulgrew picked out by ear the hymn "Come Thy Fount of Every Blessing." He remembers being able to get most of it with only the black keys. As soon as his father came home, Miller, as so many middle-children do, wanted to show him what he could do. It was not long before Mulgrew was taking piano lessons, using the John Thompson method. So what kind of student was this "one-day" virtuoso? Miller says, "I admit I wasn’t a very good classical student, although I did study classical music." He attributes his less-than-stellar studies to lack of interest and appreciation. He felt like so many young musicians do. "It was all drudgery to me—just sit at the piano and try to play something over and over until you got all the notes right." In addition to what he was learning in lessons Miller continued to play gospel, R&B, and pop music by ear.
Around 1970 Miller's older brother, a military man, suggested that he listen to someone named Oscar Peterson. Greenwood, Mississippi had no jazz clubs, no radio stations that would play Oscar Peterson, and no record store that would sell an Oscar Peterson record. Miller recalls, "I remember thinking and sort of debating with (my brother) that, Well, he can't be all that, because if I've never heard of him he can't be that good." His opinion was soon to change. One evening Miller learned that Peterson would be a guest performer on The Joey Bishop Show. Miller recalls staying up late for the performance. "It was like something from another planet. I couldn't imagine somebody could do what he was doing. And as the religious people might say, I was baptized by fire. Let me tell you. That single event changed my life forever. The very next day I was a different kid than I had been the day before." From that day forward Miller knew what he wanted to do with his life—to become a jazz pianist.

After high school Miller went to Memphis State with a band scholarship. By this time he had become a talented euphonium player. The first person he met at the university was another soon-to-be Jazz Messenger, Donald Brown. Strangely enough both of these talented pianists were in the same city, at the same school, and both playing the euphonium. Does anyone still believe in coincidence? Miller's two years in Memphis proved to be an inspirational time. He became close friends with the late James Williams and encountered yet another shocking phenom, Phineas Newborn. Jr. Miller recalls seeing Newborn play during one of his first nights in Memphis. "I sat there, and I saw this little man walk up to an old upright piano and commence to playing such unbelievable piano. I mean, we were so moved. I remember looking at everybody and James and Donald, and there were kind of tears in their eyes. And mine too." Years later Miller actually played an impromptu duet with Newborn at Bradley’s in New York City. Miller remembers with astonishment, "Now that I'm saying this I can hardly believe it... But with the respect that I had for him I would never have jumped up on the piano if I wasn’t invited." This would not be the only time he would reunite with someone in New York. While still attending Memphis State, Miller attended an Aeborsold jazz camp. Some of the teachers included Joe Henderson and Woody Shaw. After having played in front of Shaw and others, Miller decided to try to meet the innovative trumpet player.

"I went over and introduced myself and said, 'How you doing Mr. Shaw? My name is Mulgrew Miller, and I'm just happy to meet you.' He said, 'What’s your name?' I said, 'Mulgrew Miller.' He said, 'Well, I’m going to see you in New York in a couple of years.'" Miller did not think too much about this. But through a turn of events he found himself in New York via Boston, Los Angeles and Mercer Ellington’s band. Within one week of what would have been two years, Miller saw Shaw play at the Village Vanguard. During the break Miller once again introduced himself saying, "Mr. Shaw." The visually impaired trumpet player looked at him and said, "I know you. You're that piano player with the funny name. I told you I'd see you in New York in a couple years." This special connection eventually resulted in Miller playing in Shaw’s band for three years, a position that Miller felt destined to fill.

Woody was at the top of his list back then. But many others were on his dream list of bandleaders, including Joe Henderson, Ron Carter, Freddie Hubbard and others. Miller says with amazement, "Most of the names on the list that I have now that I play with I'd never have fathomed in my wildest dreams. For instance, Art Blakey was not on that list, because I just didn't envision that such a thing could ever happen. Or Tony Williams, because Tony was doing the fusion thing. So I just didn’t consider him at all." One by one Mulgrew Miller has played with nearly everyone he ever hoped to play with, and many more with whom he thought he would never get the chance. These days he is most definitely on the dream lists of many young musicians who are up and coming. When asked what advice he would give someone who places Mulgrew Miller at the top of his or her list he replied, "It's the same, I think, as it's always been. You just have to show a certain amount of ability and respect for the music, and a certain kind of promise. It's not even necessary for me that a person knows Mulgrew Miller's repertoire. That helps, but if you know something about Monk and Cole Porter and Duke Ellington and other American composers, then I'm more impressed with [your] musicianship."

Since 2005 Miller has been cultivating musicianship in students as the Director of Jazz Studies at William Patterson University in New Jersey. He brings his artistic vision into the classroom. "Clarity was always uppermost in my mind. I always wanted to execute and articulate with a certain kind of rhythmic clarity. Not only that but a certain kind of conceptual clarity. And that's my big thing now when I’m teaching. I stress conceptual clarity, although I’m still working on that myself." He says, "I think one of the reasons that I'm somewhat effective as a teacher is because I really understand how I got to things. A lot of players have so much natural ability, or they had so much concentration and focus on emulating and imitating what they heard, that they don't really know how they put things together. They just play."

Miller points to something he hears in many young players that he calls information overload. This is where players seem to lack the storytelling ability and instead regurgitate licks from transcriptions. Miller partially blames this overload for why audiences are less interested in jazz. He continues, "One of the big differences between me and probably ninety-five percent of other players you hear on the scene—I've done almost no transcriptions in my life." In reference to transcribing he adds, "A person might learn all of that and may not really know how it was put together. He just knows what the notes are and learns those notes and plays them. And so I think in my approach it's taken me a long time to put things together. I'm a slow learner—I think Miles said he was that way. And when you get down the road a piece, you find you've got more that's your own. This is what I believe. No matter what's been done before, when you come upon it on your own it's yours, because you come upon it in your own way, through your own emotions and your own personality and voice. But when you copy it off the record it doesn’t mean as much." This humility and deep conviction of what he believes has certainly transformed Miller into at once a continuation of all that has come before and an innovative artist with a unique and personable voice. Miller feels that this process of learning may be harder or slower, but is a better process in the end.

Miller is scheduled to appear at this year's Chicago Jazz Festival. He will be performing alongside Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ira Coleman, and Kenny Washington in a special tribute to Betty Carter. Other projects are listed on his website, mulgrewmiller.com, and include the release of Ron Carter's new trio album as well as performances with Dave Holland’s Sextet. Of course, you cannot go wrong by picking up any of his trio recordings as a leader, including Live at Yoshi's Vol. 1 and 2, and Live at the Kennedy Center Vol. 1 and 2.

ABOUT BEN DOCKERY

Ben Dockery is a jazz pianist living in the Chicagoland area since 2005. He is currently a DMA candidate at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Contact Dockery via email: bdocker2@uiuc.edu

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