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Discography

Jane Ira Bloom - Allison Miller

Soaring, poetic, quick silver, spontaneous and instantly identifiable are words used to describe the soprano sound of saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom. She's been steadfastly developing her singular voice on the soprano saxophone for over 40 years creating a body of music that marks her as an American original. She is a pioneer in the use of live electronics and movement in jazz, as well as the possessor of "one of the most gorgeous tones and hauntingly lyrical ballad conceptions of any soprano saxophonist - Pulse." She is the winner of the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album for her trio album "Early Americans."

Her continuing commitment to "pushing the envelope" in her music has led to collaborations with such outstanding jazz artists as Kenny Wheeler, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell, Rufus Reid, Matt Wilson, Bob Brookmeyer, Julian Priester, Jerry Granelli, Billy Hart, Mark Dresser, Bobby Previte, & Fred Hersch. She's also spearheaded collaborative world music groups featuring world music virtuosi Min Xioa-Fen on Chinese pipa, South Indian veena artist Geetha Ramanathan Bennett, koto artist Miya Masaoka, Korean komungo player Jin Hi Kim, and bassist Mark Dresser. She has performed at such diverse venues as Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Kennedy Center, the United Nations, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the Smithsonian's Einstein Planetarium, the Montreal, JVC, and San Francisco Jazz Festivals as well as regular club engagements in NYC and tours of England, Portugal, Switzerland and Brazil with her group.

Winner of the 2021 & 2020 Downbeat International Critics Poll for soprano saxophone, and multi-time winner of the Jazz Journalists Award for soprano sax of the year, the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Award for lifetime service to jazz, the Charlie Parker Fellowship for Jazz Innovation and the International Women in Jazz Jazz Masters Award. Bloom is the first musician ever commissioned by the NASA Art Program and was honored to have an asteroid named in her honor by the International Astronomical Union (asteroid 6083janeirabloom). She's garnered numerous awards for her creativity including a Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition and a residency at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. A new jazz festival in Brooklyn, NY featuring cutting edge woman artists was named in her honor (The Bloom Festival).

A strong visual thinker and a cinematic stylist, Bloom's affinity for other art forms such as painting, film, theatre and dance has both enriched her music and brought her into contact with other innovative artists such as actors Vanessa Redgrave & Joanne Woodward, painter Dan Namingha, comic Lewis Black, cartoonist Jules Feiffer, and legendary dancer/ choreographer Carmen DeLavallade. She has composed for the American Composers Orchestra (NYC), the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, the Pilobolus, Paradigm, & Philadanco Dance Companies, TV movie features (Shadow of A Doubt/ NBC-TV), and film soundscores (John Sayles' Silver City) writing works for large ensemble involving her signature movement techniques. She has also collaborated with classical composers premiering new works for soprano saxophone ("Sinfonia" by Augusta Read Thomas). She has curated a discussion/ performance series on improvisation at the Philoctetes Center for the Multi-Disciplinary Study of Imagination in NYC, presenting a wide range of programs including collaborations with dancer/ choreographer Carmen deLavallade and bassist Rufus Reid (Moving & Playing: Jazz Improvisation & Dance), performances with pianist Fred Hersch and bassist Drew Gress (The Art of the Ballad), and panel discussions with neuroscientist Josh McDermott and Arabic music scholar Toufiq Ben Amor (Dancing on the Ceiling: Music and the Brain). Bloom is the recipient of three awards in jazz composition from the Chamber Music America / Doris Duke New Jazz Works Program for the creation of Chasing Paint, a series of compositions inspired by painter Jackson Pollock that premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Mental Weather, a suite of neuroscience inspired pieces, Wild Lines: a jazz reimagining of Emily Dickinson's poetry that premiered at UMASS/ Amherst in the poet's hometown, and Picturing the Invisible: a NYC Women's Fund project inspired by the groundbreaking science photography of  Berenice Abbott.

The Philadelphia Music Project commissioned her premiere of Unexpected Light - a unique collaboration of improvised sound & light with world-renowned lighting designer James F. Ingalls. JIB has participated in several international and 'remote' events directed by bassist Mark Dresser and composer Sarah Weaver including a large ensemble performance at the United Nations that linked improvising musicians in Korea, China, New York, and San Diego. Bloom continues to find inspiration in creating exploratory music with improvising musicians from around the world. She has recorded and produced 20 albums of her music dating from 1977 to the present. In 1976 she founded her own record label & publishing company (Outline Music) and later recorded for ENJA, CBS, Arabesque, Pure Audio, and Artistshare Records. Bloom has been the subject of a number of media profiles; she has been featured on CBS TV's Sunday Morning, Talkin' Jazz on NBC-TV, TIME Magazine's Women: The Road Ahead special issue, in the publication Jazzwomen: Conversations w/ 21 Musicians, in the Library of Congress Women Who Dare calendar, in Life Magazine's "Living Jazz Legends," on NPR's Morning Edition, Jazzset, Live From the Kennedy Center w/ Dr. Billy Taylor, and in the documentary film Reed Royalty hosted by Branford Marsalis. She is a professor at the New School's College of the Performing Arts School of Jazz in NYC, holds degrees from Yale University and Yale School of Music and studied saxophone with woodwind virtuoso Joseph Viola. Nat Hentoff has called Bloom an artist "beyond category." Bill Milkowski has called her "A true jazz original...a restlessly creative spirit, and a modern day role model for any aspiring musician who dares to follow his or her own vision."

 

Drummer, composer, and bandleader Allison Miller is a boundary-pushing performer known for her adventurous approach to post-bop and modern creative jazz. Arriving on the New York scene in the late '90s, Miller has played with a diverse range of performers from Ani DiFranco and Natalie Merchant to Marty Ehrlich, Joel Harrison, and Dr. Lonnie Smith. A three-time Jazz Ambassador of the U.S. State Department, she also leads her own inventive groups like Honey Ear Trio and Boom Tic Boom, the latter of which has earned praise with albums like 2013's No Morphine No Lilies and 2016's Otis Was a Polar Bear.

Born in Texarkana, Texas, and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Miller began her musical studies on the piano at age seven, introduced to the instrument by her mother, who also played and sang. At age ten, she switched to drums, and by age 12 was studying locally with noted swing and big-band drummer Walter Salb, who she credits as a major early influence, especially in the sense of building an inclusive family of musicians with which to surround herself. Following high school, she attended the University of West Virginia, where she enrolled in the alternative music program, studying percussion styles from all over the globe. Upon graduating, she moved to New York City, where she further honed her skills, studying privately with noted drummers Michael Carvin and Lenny White. There, she quickly earned a reputation as a strong session and touring performer, appearing on albums with guitarist Joel Harrison, saxophonist and longtime associate Virginia Mayhew, reed player Marty Ehrlich, and organ legend Dr. Lonnie Smith.

As a solo artist, Miller made her debut with the Lenny White-produced 5am Stroll in 2004. Featured on the album were saxophonists Steve Wilson and Mayhew, pianist Bruce Barth, and bassist Ray Drummond. However, given her active touring, studio, and teaching obligations, she did not record under her own name for five years. It was also during this period that she caught the attention of alternative singer/songwriters like Natalie Merchant and Ani DiFranco, with whom she has toured and recorded on and off for over a decade.

In 2010, the drummer issued Boom Tic Boom, the eponymous debut album from her boldly imaginative ensemble with bassist Todd Sickafoose, pianist Myra Melford, and violinist Jenny Scheinman. While her work as a university instructor and as a session and touring musician multiplied, Miller also launched the genre-bending Honey Ear Trio, issuing the group's 2011 debut album, Steampunk Serenade, with bandmates Erik Lawrence (saxophonist) and Rene Hart (bassist). Boom Tic Boom then returned with their sophomore effort, No Morphine No Lilies, in the spring of 2013. The following year, she won a Presenter Consortium for Jazz Grant from Chamber Music America.

In 2016, Boom Tic Boom recorded their third album, Otis Was a Polar Bear. Along with band regulars Sickafoose, Melford, and Scheinman, the album also featured cornetist Kirk Knuffke and clarinetist Ben Goldberg. Knuffke was also on board for Miller's sophomore album with her Honey Ear Trio, 2016's Swivel, which found saxophonist Jeff Lederer replacing Lawrence. In 2019, Boom Tic Boom returned with Glitter Wolf. That same year, Miller and Scheinman collaborated on the jazz-Americana set Parlour Game, sharing equal billing and co-writing all of the material.          Artist Biography by Matt Collar