Joel Miller

Saxophonist-composer Joel Miller has built an award-winning career developing an individual voice that incorporates the folk and pop music of his youth with more recent explorations into Afro-Latin and contemporary classical music. The result has led him to be a perennial figure in radio charts and Best Of lists; the eminent trumpeter Dave Douglas... calls Miller one of the great pleasures of the Montreal scene. Miller kickstarted his career as an innovative bandleader in 1997, winning the Grand Prix of the Montreal International Jazz Festival on the heels of his début record, Find A Way (1997, Isthmus/Page Music). In the intervening two decades, his bands have included musicians of international acclaim including pianists Geoffrey Keezer (heard on his 2012 Origin album Swim) & Henry Hey; drummers Matt Wilson & Brian Blade; and guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel (heard on 2005s Mandala, on Effendi). Millers dedication has been recognized with a long list of honours: most recently, his project Dream Cassette with vocalist Sienna Dahlen won an East Coast Music award in 2016; Swim won a Juno for Best Contemporary Jazz Album and was named Jazz Album of the Year by both La Presse and the Ottawa Citizen. He has fostered longstanding local partnerships, notably with like-minded bandleader Christine Jensen who happens to be Millers spouse. Whether in quintets or Jensens Juno-winning Jazz Orchestra, Millers creativity has permitted him to travel across Canada and throughout the world, bringing his bands to the USA, Mexico, Peru and Japan. A unifying feature across Millers discography is his penchant for vocalists. Beginning in the mid-2000s, he collaborated with Order of Canada laureate and choral icon Iwan Edwards, vocalist Amelia McMahon and Concerto Della Donna for one of his multiple festival appearances. The material subsequently transformed into Millers ArtistShare album, Tantramar (2008). Nearly a decade later, Miller and vocalist/lyricist Sienna Dahlen invoked their love of 1980s pop and new wave in their joint project, ...Read More