Dr.
Lloyd Miller is an American musician, academic, musicologist, and multi-instrumentalist. Based in Utah, he has been fusing jazz with Middle Eastern, African folk, and classical forms since the early 1960s. He plays more than 100 instruments and has issued a slew of privately recorded albums. His 1968 offering, Oriental Jazz, is a cult classic and was remastered and reissued by Now-Again in 2019. During the '70s,
Miller hosted a longstanding prime-time musical variety show in Tehran. In 2010, he released a popular collaborative outing with the Heliocentrics. In his eighties,
Miller continues to make music, as evidenced by 2020's wondrous At the Ends of the World for Fountain AVM. It collects 22 unissued recordings between 1960 and 2021, sourced from
Miller's personal archive. He plays a slew of instruments: santur, oud, piano, saxophone, dhol, qanun, tar, setar, tanbur, kamanche, zurna, ney, and analog synth.
These recordings offer
Miller playing solo, in the company of students at Brigham Young University and University of Utah, and with various Persian, Arabic, Indian, and African musicians on his television show. All have been painstakingly remastered. Opener "Camels to Cairo" was recorded in 1963. Reeds, percussion, and tar play a circular eight-note pattern appended and subtracted in each chorus like a ceremonial piece. "Segah Leaves" commences as a santur solo but morphs into a lithe, bluesy, jazz piano tune with droning overtones. "Orientation #1 (Kheneccordion)" from 1963 (revisited in 2021), reveals
Miller's considerable improvisational skills (after all, he played with
Eddie Harris and
Don Ellis in the '50s) on a Persian accordion accompanied by layers of percussion and an overdubbed analog synth for texture and atmosphere. His highly individual oud-playing style is highlighted beautifully in "Takseem It Seems "Beautiful Eyes"," recorded live at a jazz festival with his university ensemble that includes reeds, winds, piano, and percussion. 1963's "Pentakarnatica" weds raga, blues, jazz, and Persian classical music with traditional instruments, as well as piano, saxophones, and an upright bass. 1990's "Persuasian" weaves together various flutes, large drums, santur, and piano; it sounds like it was composed for dancers. "Pacific Breeze," from the early '80s, joins synth, piano, tympani, bass, and more into an ascendant spiritual soundscape flavored with post-bop. Several pieces are drawn from tapes of
Miller's TV show, including "Mellow Cello," which is plucked and played like a lead guitar. 1972's "Shahin" is a lovely jazz piano trio number that suggests the influence of West Coast piano icon
Russ Freeman. 2005's stunning, 18-minute "Improv in Isfahan" is an improvisation played by an ensemble using traditional Persian instrumentation to evoke the feel of Arabic classical music before transforming itself into a swinging post-bop, jazz-piano trio groover.
Orientations, even more than Jazzman's 2009 compilation A Lifetime in Oriental Jazz, is far more representative of
Miller's depth and reach. This isn't merely a great introduction to the artist, but a deep, resonant, and revelatory listen in its own right. ~ Thom Jurek