The most poignant music is often inspired by watershed events in an artist’s life, and few occasions are more transformative than the arrival of one’s first child. For Allison Miller, the extraordinary drummer, composer, and leader of her band Boom Tic Boom, that life-affirming experience provided the seed that led to the creation of her latest full-length studio album, Otis Was a Polar Bear.
The album, with violinist Jenny Scheinman, cornet player Kirk Knuffke, clarinetist Ben Goldberg, upright bassist Todd Sickafoose, pianist Myra Melford, and Miller on drums, is Miller s latest collection of 10 original compositions following her critically acclaimed No Morphine, No Lilies, which Downbeat Magazine said reveals her exemplary chops and stylistic breadth. The birth of Miller’s (and partner Rachel’s) daughter Josie found the NYC-based drummer reordering her priorities and the very way in which she approached her art.
Drummer and composer Allison Miller plays with joy and fire. She powers bands with a sense of life and momentum that leaps from the bandstand right into your ears and feet. Under her hands, the trap kit dances and talks—sometimes in a whisper but usually with a blend of shout and laughter. To my ears, she plays in the same line as Art Blakey and Ralph Peterson, Jr. She is a natural bandleader because she is such a superb collaborator.
Her latest recording, Otis Was a Polar Bear, features her Boom Tic Boom jazz group with the killer line-up of clarinetist Ben Goldberg, Kirk Knuffke on cornet, violinist Jenny Scheinman, and rhythm section-mates Todd Sickafoose on bass and Myra Melford on piano. It’s an unusual sextet, but Miller has arranged the ten songs on this collection so that her band seems more like an orchestra… or maybe a circus… of different sounds and combinations. Each song is written as a tiny, coherent suite in which the voices jump forward, come together, fall away and leap back into conversation. As a result, there is a furious fun to Otis that runs directly counter to the classic jazz stereotype of MELODY-SOLOS-MELODY.
Listen to “Hoarding the Pod” and you’ll hear: (1) a unison written melody for cornet and clarinet, accompanied by thrashing-free piano trio, (2) a dancing syncopated figure for piano/bass unison, eventually in counterpoint with another melody for cornet and violin, (3) a violin improvisation over the rhythm (a bit funkier though) and harmonies from section two, (4) a new melody for cornet and clarinet that creeps in beneath the violin solo, (5) which blends into a free-wheeling “free” solo for cornet accompanied by an increasingly frenzied Miller on drums, with atonal interjections by piano and then a two-note figure for clarinet and violin, (6) a return to the melody of section one over even more frenzied work by the trio with violin glissandi around the edges, and (7) a return to the piano figure from section two, this time with clarinet improvising at the same time, soon joined by the cornet/violin melody from before.
Whew! But wow! The music is intricate but logical, fun and free but also structured. Read more...
01. Fuster
02. High T
03. Slow Jam
04. Staten Island
05. Shimmer
06. The Listener (For Josh Cantor)
07. Hoarding the Pod
08. Otis Was a Polar Bear
09. Pig in a Sidecar
10. Lullaby for Cookie
Boom Tic Boom is:
Allison Miller, drums and composition
Myra Melford, piano
Jenny Scheinman, violin
Kirk Knuffke, cornet
Ben Goldberg, clarinet and contra alto
Todd Sickafoose, bass
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