Marcus Miller

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This article is about the jazz musician. For the German football goalkeeper, see Markus Miller.
Marcus Miller

Marcus Miller giving a concert in Budapest
Background information
Birth name William Henry Marcus Miller Jr.
Born June 14, 1959 (1959-06-14) (age 50)
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Genre(s) Jazz, jazz fusion, R&B, rock, funk
Occupation(s) Musician, songwriter, producer
Instrument(s) Bass, guitar, vocals, saxophone, clarinet, keyboards


([1])
Years active 1975–present
Website http://www.marcusmiller.com/
Notable instrument(s)
Fender Jazz Bass

Marcus Miller (born June 14, 1959 in Brooklyn, New York) is a Grammy Award-winning jazz musician, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist.

Miller is perhaps best known as a bassist, working with trumpeter Miles Davis, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn as well as a prolific solo career. Miller is classically trained as a clarinetist and also plays keyboards, saxophone and guitar.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Formative years

As a child, Miller was around music a lot and always fooling around on the piano: His father played piano and organ (mainly in church). His father's family also includes cousin Wynton Kelly, a very influential jazz pianist who played with Miles Davis in the late fifties. At the age of eight Miller began playing the recorder, and the clarinet at age ten at the public schools he attended. In middle school, he learned saxophone as well. Miller went to the High School of Music and Art (now the Laguardia School of Performing Arts), where he majored in the clarinet. As a teenager, Miller would buy sheet music to many popular songs and want to play them. His father would teach him how to read the guitar chord symbols and make up his own accompaniment. At the same time, Miller was playing bass in some funk bands in his neighborhood, learning about funk and grooves, and relating to people with music.

He subsequently went to Queens College, NY, majoring in music education, and business education and continued on clarinet there. Miller also participated in the jazz ensemble there, under the direction of Bud Johnson. During college Miller began to get a lot of work as a musician in NY on bass. Already very much in demand after four years, he decided to discontinue at Queens College and work full time.

[edit] Professional career

Marcus Miller at Paradiso

Miller spent approximately 15 years performing as a sideman or session musician and observing how great leaders operated. During that time he also did a lot of arranging and producing. During the late seventies he was a member of the Saturday Night Live band ('78 and '79). He played on over 500 recordings, including those by Luther Vandross, Grover Washington Jr., Roberta Flack, Carly Simon, McCoy Tyner, Bryan Ferry and Billy Idol. He won the "Most Valuable Player" award, (awarded by NARAS to recognize studio musicians) three years in a row and was subsequently awarded "player emeritus" status and retired from eligibility. In the nineties, Miller began to record his own records, he had to put a band together to take advantage of touring opportunities.

Miller's proficiency on his main instrument, the bass guitar, is generally well-regarded. Not only has Miller been involved in the continuing development of a technique known as "slapping", particularly his "thumb" technique, but his fretless bass technique has also served as an inspiration to many, and has taken the fretless bass into musical situations and genres previously unexplored with the electric bass of any description. The influences of some of the previous generation of electric bass players, such as Larry Graham, Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius, are audible in Miller's playing. Early in his career, Miller was accused of being simply imitative of Pastorius, but has since more fully integrated the latter's methodology into his own sound.

Miller has an extensive discography, and tours frequently and widely in Europe and Japan.

Between 1988 and 1990 he appeared in the first season and again toward the end as both the Musical Director and also as the house band bass player in The Sunday Night Band during the two seasons of the acclaimed music performance program Sunday Night on NBC late-night television.[1]

As a composer, Miller wrote "Tutu" for Miles Davis, a piece that defined Davis' career in the late 1980s. He also composed "Chicago Song" for David Sanborn and co-wrote "'Til My Baby Comes Home", "It's Over Now", "For You To Love", and "The Power of Love" for Luther Vandross. Miller also wrote "Da Butt", which was featured in Spike Lee's "School Daze".

Miller has won numerous Grammy's as a producer for Miles Davis, Luther Vandross, David Sanborn, Bob James, Chaka Khan and Wayne Shorter. He won a Grammy for "Best R&B Song" in 1991 for Luther Vandross' "Power of Love" and in 2001 he won for "Best Contemporary Jazz Album" for his fourth solo instrumental album, M2.

Miller currently leads his own band, which strives to remain faithful to the concepts of improvisation and innovation in jazz-based music that is perhaps more accessible to different audiences. His concerts and recorded works are often regarded as intensely creative and therefore appealing to serious musicians. In 1997 Miller played bass and bass clarinet in a band called Legends, featuring Eric Clapton (guitars and vocals), Joe Sample (piano), David Sanborn (alto sax) and Steve Gadd (drums). It was an 11-date tour of major jazz festivals in Europe.

In addition to his recording and performance career, Miller has also established a parallel career as a film composer. He has written numerous scores for films featuring: Eddie Murphy, L.L. Cool J, Chris Rock, Matthew Perry, Samuel L. Jackson and others.

Fender currently produces a Marcus Miller signature Fender Jazz Bass in four- and five-string versions. [2]

[edit] Discography

Solo period (1982–present)

David Sanborn period (1975–2000)

  • 1977: Lovesongs
  • 1980: Hideaway
  • 1980: Voyeur
  • 1981: As We Speak
  • 1982: Backstreet
  • 1984: Straight to the Heart
  • 1987: Change of Heart
  • 1988: Close-Up
  • 1991: Another Hand
  • 1992: Upfront
  • 1994: Hearsay
  • 1995: Pearls
  • 1996: Songs from the Night Before
  • 1999: Inside

Miles Davis period (1980–1990)

The Jamaica Boys period (1986–1990)

  • 1987: The Jamaica Boys
  • 1989: The Jamaica Boys II: J. Boys

Film Scores

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sunday Night episodes #104 (1988), #121 (1989)
  2. ^ Levine, Doug (25 March 2008). "Bassist Marcus Miller Surrounds Himself With New Generation of R&B Stars on 'Marcus'". VOA News (Voice of America). http://voanews.com/english/archive/2008-03/2008-03-25-voa63.cfm. Retrieved on 03 January 2009. 

[edit] External links

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