Improvisation Can Be Taught - Jazz Piano Legend Mulgrew Miller

Pianist extraordinaire Mulgrew Miller discusses the fine art of Jazz improvisation. Mulgrew Miller (born August 13, 1955 in Greenwood, Mississippi) is an American jazz pianist who performs in a number of jazz idioms. He began his career as member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.
In a childhood filled with early musical experiences, mostly playing gospel music in his church and R&B and blues at dances. Miller was interested in jazz piano, and established a trio in high school that would play at cocktail parties. Miller admits that they did not 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. Much of Miller's playing has the same technical prowess so often connected with Peterson. Currently, he 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 MAXJAZZ): 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.
Miller currently resides in Easton, Pennsylvania. As of 2006 he is the Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University. He was the Artist in Residence at Lafayette College for 2008-2009

For more Mulgrew, please visit:
http://www.mulgrewmiller.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Jazz Improvisation
• piano
• Mulgrew Miller
• Art Blakey
• The Jazz Messengers
• Oscar Peterson
• William Patterson University

[rololoo]

Very good explanation.

[JazzVideoGuy]

@rololoo He's a very good teacher, Mr. Miller.

[azexperiment]

JVG rocks! Brett more of these instructional type interviews please! Great stuff. I owe you some token dough$ for your great work bro ! There should be a paypal button donate link on these videos! Thanks for doing this.

[JazzVideoGuy]

@azexperiment Thanks so much for the kind words. I'm so glad you're able to use this. Stay tuned.

[bobbygoesbig]

Brett, I heard Mulgrew had a stroke recently. Is he doing ok?

[JazzVideoGuy]

@bobbygoesbig It was a mild stroke. He's doing better.

[bopguity]

This is as close to the Gospel truth about learning jazz I've ever heard. Props to Mulgrew and Bret for this vid.

[caberwacky]

He's not asian :D

[symioncion]

great!



[TheTruth285]

He explained this so well that I had to replay it a couple of times to sink in. lol! He knows his stuff.

[legalrule]

What a fantastic guy and he is an equally great teacher!!

[miglage]

Muy interesante el enfoque de Mulgrew Miller!!!

Y buen profesor!!

[bluebirdWANNABOP]

@lexo30 -- not to knock your "deep grammar" which exists behind ANY verbal language -- true enough -- but even WITH THAT, each person still learns some PARTICULAR language by listening, by hearing that PARTICULAR language (i.e., the vocabulary, the phrasing, etc). And in fact, there are researchers now who think that musical aptitude may predate verbal aptitude in evolutionary history. But this is all something of a digression from the real topic here, isn't it?

[lowgrau]

right on

[lexo30]

Not to knock Mr. Miller who is a great pianist and probably a great teacher too, but his description of how we learn (ordinary) language is not correct. We don't learn to speak by imitating other people. We don't really 'learn' to speak; we acquire the complex stuff without anyone teaching it to us. His description of how we learn language is a great description of how we learn to play jazz, but being able to play jazz is not a basic human faculty in the same the way that ordinary language is.