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MULGREW MILLER TRIO

MULGREW MILLER, piano
IVAN TAYLOR, bass
RODNEY GREEN, drums

Mulgrew Miller

Saturday, September 5, 2009 at 8 PM
Windham Performing Arts Center, 5379 Main Street, Windham, NY 12496


Tickets: $25 General Admission, $20 Seniors, $15 Members of the Windham Chamber Music Festival, Catskill Mountain Foundation or WMHT/WRHV-FM, $5 Students


Mulgrew Miller is an American jazz pianist born in 1955 in Greenwood,_Mississippi who performs in a number of jazz idioms. In a childhood filled with early musical experiences, mostly playing gospel music in his church and R&B and blues at dances, Mulgrew was constantly meddling in jazz piano, and established a trio in high school that would play cocktail parties. Miller admits that they didn't really know what they were doing and were merely "approaching jazz". Miller is said to have set his mind definitely to becoming a jazz pianist after seeing Oscar Peterson on television. "It was a life changing event. I knew right then that I would be a jazz pianist."

Mulgrew did indeed become a jazz pianist, and has adopted more from Peterson than his profession. Much of Mulgrew's playing has the same technical prowess so often connected with Peterson. Currently, Mulgrew maintains a working trio with Ivan Taylor on bass and Rodney Green on drums. He has released four albums to date with Derrick Hodge (bass) and Karriem Riggins (drums), both on the label Max Jazz Records: Live at Yoshi's Vol. 1 (2004), Live at Yoshi's Vol. 2 (2005), Live at The Kennedy Center Vol. 1 (2006), and Live at The Kennedy Center Vol. 2 (2007).

On May 20, 2006, Miller was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Performing Arts at Lafayette College's 171st commencement exercises. He currently resides in Easton, Pennsylvania and since 2006 has been the Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University.

Ivan Taylor, born in Chicago in 1985, has been playing the bass since he was nine years old. He had an illustrious high school career, playing with the Illinois All-State Jazz Band, the Grammy Band, and jazz masters Orbert Davis and Von Freeman. Ivan was a star performer at the 2002 Essentially Ellington competition, where he met Wynton Marsalis. This meeting led him to enroll in the Julliard School of Music. In addition to touring with Mulgrew Miller's trio and sextet, Ivan plays with Soul Cycle, the Julliard Jazz Orchestra, and studies with Ron Carter.

As an only child growing up in Philadelphia, gospel music and musical instruments surrounded drummer Rodney Green at home and in church, where his father was a preacher and organist and his mother sang in the choir. Before long the young musician started to sneak out to local clubs to hear live music and play gigs. By age 17, Green, still in high school, was traveling and playing internationally. Word continued to spread about the talented young drummer. after he moved to New York, and Green spent the next couple of years playing with the likes of Christian McBride, Eric Reed, Greg Osby, Joe Henderson, Benny Green, Tom Harrell, Mulgrew Miller and Diana Krall. Today, Rodney Green is a seasoned professional, having worked with Terence Blanchard, Charlie Haden, Wynton Marsalis, Ravi Coltrane, Joe Henderson, George Benson, Nicholas Payton, Cyrus Chestnut, Michael Brecker, Kenny Barron, Marc Cary, Abby Lincoln, Betty Carter, Shirley Scott, Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves.