Origin New York City Role Drummer Name Allison Miller | Website allisonmiller.com Genres jazz, folk, rock, pop Music group The Shondes | |
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Albums No Morphine No Lilies, Inspiration, Tiny Resistors Similar People Todd Sickafoose, Kitty Margolis, Harvie S, Marty Ehrlich, Toshi Reagon Profiles | ||
Drum tricks with allison miller using alternate percussion
Allison Miller is a New York City-based drummer, composer, and teacher. She has recorded five albums as a bandleader: 5 AM Stroll, Boom Tic Boom, No Morphine-No Lilies, Live at Willisau, and Otis Was a Polar Bear, as well as working as a session musician. Her work with bands has included forming the band Honey Ear Trio with Rene Hart and Erik Lawrence, Holler and Bam with Toshi Reagon, and her own band, Allison Miller's Boom Tic Boom.
Contents
- Drum tricks with allison miller using alternate percussion
- Allison miller female drummer in control
- Biography
- Discography
- Other projects
- References
Miller has performed with songwriting vocalists Ani DiFranco, Natalie Merchant, and Erin McKeown, and toured with avant-garde saxophonist Marty Ehrlich and organist Doctor Lonnie Smith and folk-rock singer Brandi Carlile.
Allison miller female drummer in control
Biography
NYC-based drummer/composer/teacher Allison Miller engages her deep roots in improvisation as a vehicle to explore all music. Described by critics as a charismatic and rhythmically propulsive drummer with melodic sensibility, Miller has been named “Top 20 Jazz Drummers” in Downbeat Magazine’s acclaimed Critics Poll. Her band, Boom Tic Boom, is a 2014 recipient of Chamber Music America’s “Presenter Consortium for Jazz Grant” and is proudly sponsored by Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.
Boom Tic Boom, featuring pianist Myra Melford, violinist Jenny Scheinman, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, cornet player Kirk Knuffke, bassist Todd Sickafoose, and Miller on drums and composition, is currently celebrating its fourth release, Otis was a Polar Bear (2016, RPF), which was recently included in NPR’s esteemed Jazz Critics Poll. The New York Times says, “(Otis was a Polar Bear) is a smart, engaging new album.”
Previous releases include 5am Stroll (2005), Boom Tic Boom (2010), Live at Willisau (2012), and No Morphine No Lilies (2013) -“No Morphine No Lilies demonstrates that her (Allison Miller) craftiness as a percussionist is met by her ingenuity as a composer and group conceptualist.” -The New Yorker.
Boom Tic Boom has been met with critical acclaim receiving 4.5 stars from Downbeat and making “Top 10 Jazz Albums” lists for Downbeat, The LA Times, Jazz Journalists Association, and Something Else. The band has been featured on WNYC’s New Sounds with John Schaefer, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series with Bob Boilen, JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater, The Checkout: Live with Josh Jackson, and festivals such as Stanford Jazz, SF Jazz, Willisau, Saalfelden, Muenster Jazz, Iowa City Jazz, Reykjavik Jazz, Ear Shot-Seattle, Mary Lou Williams- Kennedy Center, Edgefest, Mass Moca, Pioneer Valley, and Redwood Jazz Alliance.
While breaking from band leading, Miller focuses on collaborations, co-directing Holler and Bam with Toshi Reagon, and Honey Ear Trio with Jeff Lederer and Rene Hart. She is the musical director for Speak with Rachna Nivas and Michelle Dorrance, And Still
You Must Swing with Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and Camille A. Brown’s Ink. She is also a proud member of the Bessie award winning show, The Blues Project with Dorrance Dance and Toshi Reagon’s Big Lovely.
As a side-musician, Miller has been the rhythmic force behind such mainstream artists as Ani DiFranco, Natalie Merchant, Brandi Carlile, Toshi Reagon, Joey Arias, the Meredith Vieira Show, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Pino Daniele, Erin McKeown, Jill Sobule, and Martha Redbone; and her jazz skills have been embraced by everyone from organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith and vocalist Patricia Barber to avant-garde trailblazer Marty Ehrlich, Steven Bernstein, Ben Allison, Steve Cardenas, and Ben Goldberg.
Miller is a three time Jazz Ambassador for the US State Department and has been appointed Arts Envoy to Thailand for her work with Jazz Education Abroad. She is on Yamaha’s Top 30 Clinicians List, conducting clinics and master classes throughout the world, and teaches at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in NYC, Jazz Camp West, and Stanford Jazz Workshop. Starting in 2018, Allison will become the new Artistic Director of Jazz Camp West. Her lessons and writings have been published in The Huffington Post, Modern Drummer, Jazz Times, DRUM, Tom Tom, and Drummer UK. Her instructional videos are produced and published by Reverb.
In 2008 Miller founded the Walter Salb Memorial Musical Scholarship Foundation in honor of her late teacher and mentor. The foundation annually provides a monetary award to a promising young musician directed toward furthering their studies in music.
Miller endorses Yamaha drums, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks, and Evans drumheads.