Dave Miller
Guitar
Combining major stints in both New York City and Chicago and numerous tours abroad, Dave Miller has cultivated a truly unique, exciting, and inviting approach to songwriting, jazz improvisation, and the guitar. After releasing three albums to wide acclaim with his genre-hopping experimental band, Algernon (Cuneiform Records), Miller once again redefined his parameters for his latest album (Old Door Phantoms, ears&eyes Records), this time taking cues from early American folk music.
All the while, Miller has maintained a role in many collaborative bands such as noisy avant garde-ists, blink. (Thirsty Ear Recordings) and has served as a consummate sideman to such luminaries as jazz songwriter, Patricia Barber (Blue Note Records), saxophonist John Wojciechowski, trumpeter John McNeil, drummer Dana Hall, and Brazilian composer, Clarice Assad, with whom he served as an artist in residence for Jazz at Lincoln Center. Other career highlights include an album collaboration with legendary reggae producer, The Scientist, and numerous appearances at the Chicago Jazz Festival, most recently in 2017 with the highly acclaimed group, the Joe Policastro Trio (Jeru Jazz). On the regular, one can find Miller playing at any of the major jazz clubs in Chicago, such as the Green Mill, the Jazz Showcase, Andy’s Jazz Club, or Pops for Champagne. Grammy winning music journalist, Neil Tesser, cites Miller “among my favorite modern guitarists” (chicagomusic.org). The broadminded musician’s “impressive flexibility" can range "from carefully structured improvisations to complementary texture and color” (Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader) while still "making a listener feel inches from the guitar” (Mark Keresman, New York City Jazz Record).
Miller’s teaching philosophy creates a healthy balance of studying the classics while simultaneously cultivating the student’s own personal voice. Says Miller, “I am a big proponent of finding an entry point into music that creates a sense of awe and wonder in the student, thus fueling his or her passion for musical and personal discovery moving forward. Music education is beneficial in so many areas of one’s life, and I am always humbled and elated to be a part of anyone’s journey.”