mulgrew miller
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Mulgrew Miller was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1955. He was picking out melodies on the piano at six, taking lessons at eight, and going on gigs with his older brother by ten. As a teenager, he soaked up every kind of music available in his small Southern hometown: blues, country and western, gospel, rhythm and blues, classical European & but not until he heard his first jazz record by Oscar Peterson did he find a focus for his passion. I was blown away, he recalls: “It was a life changing event. I knew right then that I would be a jazz pianist”. Miller chose the easy does it approach at age 15, focusing on careful attention to craft, impeccable choices in the musicians to surround himself with, and a balanced life that included a stable home and vegetarian lifestyle. He found friends-mentors like James Williams and Donald Brown at Memphis State University who taught him to listen to the greats, saxophonist Bill Easley who got him his first professional gig, and Ray Charles sideman Rudolph Johnson who introduced him to Eastern spirituality. These influences, combined with the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. and the lessons of the civil rights movement integral to his Mississippi childhood, shaped him as both a person and an artist.
His professional career started, aged twenty, with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, led by the late Mercer Ellington. During his formative years as a sideman, Mulgrew also worked with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Woody Shaw’s Quintet and Betty Carter’s group. He was also one of the founding members of Tony Williams’ Quintet.
The experience gained with such luminaries allowed Mulgrew to rapidly become established as one of the most in demand pianists in the New York scene. In 1985 Miller made his first recording as a leader for producer Orrin Keepnews’s former label, Landmark. During the nineties Mulgrew developed his career as a leader of his own trios/quintets, recording an impressive series of albums for RCA/ Novus.
In 1995 Mulgrew toured Europe and the US sharing the stage with fellow pianist Kenny Barron. Mulgrew has also been noticed in various all star groups, such as The New York Jazz Giants, One Hundred Golden Fingers or the yearly editions of Jam Session-Jazz at the Philharmonic Today, and has recorded with almost every known Jazz artist in the scene, from Joe Lovano to Nicholas Payton. In fact, Mulgrew remains one of the most recorded pianists in the scene today, second only to Kenny Barron, with over 400 recording sessions to his credit. His latests releases, on MaxJazz, include The Sequel (2003), featuring Mulgrew surrounded by long-time associates Steve Nelson and Steve Wilson and Live at Yoshi’s (2004), where Mulgrew can be heard fronting his regular trio featuring Derrick Hodge and Karriem Riggins.
Since 1999, Mulgrew has been working with virtuoso bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen: together they have recorded a wonderful CD for Bang & Olufsen featuring the music of Duke Ellington and Jimmy Blanton. The duo became a trio in 2000, with the addition of the exuberant drummer Alvin Queen.
A highly original composer, Mulgrew has moved, as an interpreter, from such influences as McCoy Tyner and Wynton Kelly to become very recognizably his own man, powerful, lyrical, and imaginative.