Allison Miller
Modern Jazz

NYC-based drummer/composer/teacher Allison Miller engages her deep roots in improvisation as a vehicle to explore all music. Described by Paste magazine as a “Modern Jazz Icon in the Making,” Miller has released 16 albums as a leader or co-leader and has collaborated with artists such as Myra Melford, Derrick Hodge, Toshi Reagon, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Alan Baylock, Jenny Scheinman, Renee Rosnes, Ingrid Jensen, Carmen Staaf, Todd Sickafoose, Brandi Carlile, Camille A. Brown, Natalie Merchant, Scott Colley, Dayna Stephens, and Ani DiFranco.
The critics named Miller Rising Star Drummer in Downbeat magazine’s 67th Annual Critics Poll and Best Jazz Drummer in Jazz Times’s 2019 Critics Poll. Her composition, “Otis Was a Polar Bear,” is included on NPR’s list of The 200 Greatest Songs by 21st Century Women+. She is also the first recipient of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation’s Commissioning Grant. The product of this commission is Miller’s immersive award winning multi-media song cycle, Rivers In Our Veins, dedicated to and celebrating America’s waterways. The studio version of Rivers In Our Veins was released October 2023 and has received critical acclaim, including NPR’s 50 Best Albums of 2023 and 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2023. “Extraordinary composing, orchestrating, band-leading, and a sophisticated, engaged and playful ensemble characterize Rivers in Our Veins, Allison Miller’s ninth album. Also: Tap dancers.” – Downbeat
Miller, a three time Jazz Ambassador for the U.S. State Department and Monterey Jazz Festival Artist in Residence alumni, has also released five albums with her longtime band, Boom Tic Boom. Named Jazz Journalist Association’s Small Ensemble of the Year, the band has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe and Asia as well as being featured on such programs as NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Tiny Desk with Bob Boilen, WNYC’s Soundcheck and New Sounds with John Schaefer, and Jazz Night in America with Christian McBride.
While breaking from band-leading, Miller focuses on collaborations, co-directing Lux Quartet with Myra Melford, and Bluenote recording supergroup Artemis. Artemis was recently named Jazz Group of the Year in Downbeat’s 88th Annual Reader’s Poll. Miller also composes for the gaming company Cloud Chamber/2K.
As a side-musician, Miller has been the rhythmic force behind such artists as Sara Bareilles, Ani DiFranco, Natalie Merchant, Brandi Carlile, Indigo Girls, Toshi Reagon, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Patricia Barber, Marty Ehrlich, Ben Allison, and Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Miller, Yamaha’s 2022 Educational Legacy Award recipient, teaches at Peabody Conservatory, the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, Stanford Jazz Workshop, Centrum, Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz, and is the Artistic Director of Jazz Camp West. She was the 2022 director for Jazz Educator’s Network Sisters In Jazz program and a featured clinician at PASIC’s 2022 International Convention. Miller is a contributor to the groundbreaking book, New Standards: 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers, published by Berklee Press/Hal Leonard and proudly endorses Yamaha drums, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth sticks, Evans drumheads and Sunhouse percussion.
“Miller’s album is brilliant and thrilling. There are no arid stretches on this recording. It’s inventively through-comped and played by musicians up to the task.” – NYC Jazz Record
“Rivers In Our Veins’ reflect[s] grand concepts played out through connected musical pieces…the music seems to move like, well, a river, through all sorts of terrain, following its own logic…Ms. Miller, lean[s] in and out of rhythms with both ingenuity and economy…” –Wall Street Journal
“Miller and Bloom guide and prod each other into consistently interesting sound patterns. They do not sound like anyone else.” –Jazz Record
“…Glitter Wolf is undeniably accessible, gloriously melodic and funky as hell.” –New York City Jazz Record
“…Miller’s craftiness as a percussionist is met by her ingenuity as a composer and group conceptualist.” –The New Yorker
“Ms. Miller is a drummer, bandleader and composer with an aesthetic of limber poise, drawn at once to brisk maneuvers and deep grooves.” –The New York Times
“Ten years into the band’s existence, these musicians are firing on all cylinders… Glitter Wolf sounds like an album by Boom Tic Boom-and no one else.” –Downbeat
“…the album defies expectations with a mix of head-bobbing grooves and rich melodies…” –The Los Angeles Times