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Andrea
Miller - Maybe Today |
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Andrea Miller, Jazz singer, by choice, but who measured up well
with the best R&B and Pop singers when she delved into those genres
earlier in her career, may be one of the best young singers on the music
scene today. She has drawn praise from the late Al Jarreau with whom she
was booked for an extensive tour, before his passing in 2017 (Editor’s
note: Al Jarreau passed away, before the tour took place.), from
Celine Dion for whom she recorded a demo, as she worked with David
Foster, as well as Alan and Marilyn Bergman and from producer, arranger,
songwriter and musician Tom Saviano (Dolly Parton, Melissa Manchester
(as musical director and arranger), Dusty Springfield, Sheena Easton and
others).
Andrea Miller recently released her new album
Maybe Today, composed and
arranged by Michael Cunningham, an album that they hope to tour with
full orchestral support.
She talks about the album, “They are all of Michael Cunningham’s
arrangements and compositions. It is almost like I am the voice of
Michael Cunningham on this particular album. These are his wonderfully
orchestrated string arrangements. A lot of his original material is on
the album.
Originally, we met online through Facebook and he asked me to do a
couple of songs in a work for hire session work. We both really dug each
other’s musicality. One thing led to another and it took us about two
years to finish the album. It wasn’t funded by anything or anybody.”
The title track is a love song elegantly performed by both the musicians
and Ms. Miller. The strings section comprised of Andreanna Moravec
(violin), Emi Tanabe (violin), Jennifer Lowe (violin) and Bill Cernota
(cello) and with Michael Cunningham on piano provides a beautiful
accompaniment. Andrea Miller’s vocals are exquisite which echoes an
observation that Tom Saviano made about her singing in general when he
said, “Andrea (Miller) has a captivating voice that draws you in,
elevating any song she touches and she seems to do it effortlessly!”
Andrea Miller talks about the song, “Maybe Today,” “It is (one of
Michael’s songs) and I love it. It is quite complex melodically. I love
a challenge. He is so old school and he writes out the charts by hand on
paper with pencil. I was mailed the actual chart with his handwriting on
it. That is how I learned the song. He had a rough piano recording of
it.
A lot of his compositions are about longing or maybe a relationship that
didn’t work out. (Many) of his songs are melancholic in a way, both
instrumentally and melodically, which is great, because although I am a
happy camper I like singing anything sad or that tugs at your
heartstrings. I think his compositions are so beautiful and that is why
we decided to use (this song) as the title of the album.
Michael does a lot of Classical music as well. He is a great guy and a
great musician.”
When you listen to Andrea Miller sing “Think It’s Gonna Rain Today,”
there can be no doubt that you are listening to one of the best and most
elegant singers of our time. The song is introduced with beautiful
strings and Dede Sampaio’s percussion. It is a song of longing, the type
of song for which Andrea Miller has confessed a fondness.
An overcast sky, the threat of
rain and changing winds become metaphors for a relationship that seems
to be shifting and one that is coming to an end. The storm clouds are on
the horizon.
“The song “Think It’s Gonna Rain Today,” is a gorgeous song. Michael had
heard my recording of “Over the Rainbow,” on Facebook. He was looking
for a singer to demo the song “Think It’s Gonna Rain Today.” I got the
call. I recorded the song with Geoff Gillette who is the sound engineer
for the Yellow Jackets. We recorded it at the Entourage Studios in the
LA area. That was just a work for hire. Then we did a couple of more
songs a couple of months later and we (Michael Cunningham and her)
realized we could make this into an album. That was the very first
Michael Cunningham piece that I recorded. A couple of work for hire
sessions turned into an album. I love the song. It is over too soon. A
lot of people say I wish it was longer,” she says.
We concur with Andrea Miller and other listeners the song leaves you
wanting more, but then perhaps that is what Michael Cunningham was
striving for.
As you listen to the songs from
Maybe Today Andrea Miller leaves you wanting more as well. When the
album comes to an end, despite this being a collection of eleven songs,
this writer was thinking please do not tell me it is over already.
Al Jarreau was also impressed when he first heard Ms. Miller sing and he
remarked, “As my countdown to stage got smaller and smaller, I started
to hear some marvelous music coming from the stage, floating through my
dressing room window. Our opening act was a brilliant young singer named
Andrea Miller. The whole band was impressed with her song selection,
with her bandmates, arrangements, and her Jazz sensibilities.”
When asked if she draws upon personal experience to find that connection
with a song and that gives an emotive quality to her vocals she replied,
“I definitely am that kind of a singer and I have a Bachelor of Fine
Arts in Acting. A lot of people don’t know about that, because I didn’t
pursue acting. I ended up pursuing singing. My Bachelor of Fine Arts in
Theater is from USC. I draw
upon all of my acting training and I literally try to emote and get
behind the lyric of the song.
There is a wonderful singer friend of mine named Dee Dee McNeil and
about ten years ago we were talking about Jazz and how much I love Jazz,
the improvisation, scatting and how you never really play the same thing
twice the same way, especially the horn players. The whole point of Jazz
is to improvise and not play it the same way twice. She said, do keep in
mind however, as a singer you have a responsibility to sing the lyrics.
When you are on the stage you have the responsibility of telling the
story. Don’t ever get too caught up in your riveting riffs (she
chuckles) or your interpretation. Don’t ever forget about the story.
That was a great lesson and I have never forgotten that.
I could honestly sing heart wrenching ballads all night long (She
giggles). It is my forté and I just love it, but I do realize there is
an audience and so I sing swing tunes and a bossa nova to make an
evening of music out of my set wherever I am.
I do love ballads the best. I could sing them all night long.”
Let’s revisit that Al Jarreau quote for a moment and provide some proper
context for it.
In 2015 Andrea Miller was doing some online networking with agents and
managers in the music industry and one day she received a reply from Bob
Zievers who was Al Jarreau’s agent.
“He (Bob) asked if he could call me. The next thing I knew I was talking
to him and he said I don’t know why you haven’t been discovered yet and
he said I think you would be a great match with Al Jarreau whom I
represent. I said oh my gosh you represent Al Jarreau. He said yes, I am
going to do anything I can to help you. Keep me advised of what you are
doing in your career and with any new music that you have.
I did and it was June when he called me. I was in a grocery store
parking lot in my car. He asked what I was doing on October second and
if I would like to open for Al Jarreau at the Newport Beach Jazz
Festival? I said yes, yes, yes. He booked me again to open for Al a few
months later in North Carolina. I was set to open for him on his tour
throughout Europe last year (2017) and do two feature duets with him
during his set, which would have been the big break that I have never
had. Al passed away and none of those gigs ever happened.
None of that ever happened (said wistfully). I got to work with
him a number of times. I sat beside him (as we drove) and he talked my
ear off and gave me some pointers.
I got to see him in the hospital, before he passed away. He used
to call me Miller Time. He was a sweet, sweet, sweet man. I am so
grateful for the opportunity that I had to work with him and to learn
from him.
Two of the songs on Maybe Today,
“I’m Afraid the Masquerade is Over,” and “I’m a Fool to Want You,” were
originally recorded on a previous Michael Cunningham album as
instrumentals, but after hearing them Andrea Miller asked if she could
sing them, so her vocals were substituted for the clarinet. As Ms.
Miller says, “There is a clarinet and an Andrea version.”
When you are having a conversation with this personable young lady, even
as she sat in her car on a very hot day so that she could get a better
cell phone signal, it is hard to imagine that she was in her own words
“a very, very shy child and so shy that I would cry during my ballet
lessons and gymnastic lessons.”
The native of Salem, Oregon who now makes Los Angeles her home says,
“The only way that I could make it through the lessons was if my mom
stayed in the room. I was super, super shy, but for some reason I have
been singing since I was five years old and for some reason when I sing,
there is safety in it for me. There is a freedom. That sounds strange,
because to a lot of people it can be intimidating or it is not a very
comfortable feeling. I was so shy that it was like my own little bubble.
I would start to sing and I would have a way to express myself.
I wasn’t nearly as shy when I
was singing.
I get lost in the freedom that I feel when I sing. Everything else goes
away, whatever problem, concern or stress that I might be feeling it
just goes away. Then you add an element of Jazz to that freedom and you
are skyrocketing into freedom land. I feel artistically trapped with Pop
music. It’s fun and I still enjoy singing Pop and R&B, but with Jazz
there is more artistic freedom that is accepted and that is why I love
singing Jazz so much.”
We mentioned earlier that Andrea Miller worked with David Foster, as
well as Alan and Marilyn Bergman on a demo (“I Knew I Loved You”) for
Celine Dion and she recalls how that came about.
“It was so
exciting and it was about being in the right place at the right time and
knowing the right people. Everything
was aligned. You always have to be prepared. Whenever that right time
comes you have to be at your best. It is just not luck; you have to be
prepared when you are called upon. Ennio Morricone a wonderful Italian
composer who wrote all of these movie soundtracks including,
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
and Once Upon a Time in America
wanted to do an album of his greatest works and with different artists
covering the songs. The album is called
We All Love Ennio. He wanted
Celine Dion to sing the theme for
Once Upon a Time in America and it is called “Deborah’s Theme,” but
it was instrumental and it had never had lyrics put to it. He asked Alan
and Marilyn Bergman to write the lyrics and meanwhile a friend of mine
was somehow brokering the deal of putting this album together. He is
friends with Luigi Caiola and he got called upon somehow to contact
Celine Dion. She agreed to do the song, but she said she needed to hear
it. She said she needed a vocal demo, because the song had never been
sung and it didn’t have lyrics or a melody.
(My friend) said hey would you like to do a vocal demo for Celine Dion?
I said of course. The next thing I know I was at a piano player’s house
in Northridge and Alan and Marilyn Bergman show up. We had a small
writing session. We got a demo version of the song laid out, which we
took to David Foster the next week in Malibu when he still had his
studio there. He really fine-tuned it and when I recorded it with him,
he was playing the keyboard, I was singing and there was one take. There
was no cutting or pasting or punching in. Alan and Marilyn were in front
of me directing me, as I was singing it.
They would say, don’t come in yet or come in now. It was
interesting, because there was a calm that came over me, as I was going
through the process of getting into the song. This is where I am
supposed to be, this is why they chose me and this is what I am supposed
to do. Everything was fine.
On my way there I thought what are you doing, you are going to be
working with David Foster and the Bergmans. This is crazy. They wanted
me to do the next version of the demo, which was with a sixty-four piece
string orchestra, but my grandma passed away and I needed to go to that
funeral,” she says.
They shipped it off to Celine, so she could hear it. I was able to
attend the recording session a week later when she was recording the
song. Quincy Jones was directing that session. Afterward, Rene her
(late) husband was at the recording session and he found out I was the
singer who demoed the song for her, so he told her that. She turned
around and she came to where I was sitting on a couch and she kneeled
down and she took both of my hands and she thanked me for the demo. I
thought Oh My God.
I was in Manilla a few weeks ago at a Celine Dion concert with my friend
who had arranged for me to do the demo and he said Celine I don’t know
if you remember Andrea, she sang the demo for you of “I Knew I Loved
You.” Celine started singing it again, so we sang it together a little
bit backstage, right before she did her soundcheck. That was like a full
circle moment.”
While growing up in Salem, Oregon Andrea Miller credits her father Joe
Miller for cultivating an interest in music and introducing her to Jazz.
“My dad used to play clarinet and saxophone. He studied music and he was
a band teacher in Prineville, Oregon for about the first two or three
years of my life. He then decided to go into insurance, because he
wasn’t making enough money as a band teacher to support the two kids.
He never gave up playing the
horn. He was in the Salem Pops
Orchestra.
He would play Errol Garner and Benny Goodman. My very first memory of
music was when my father was playing “Raindrops Keep Falling On My
Head.” Whenever I was alone in the car with my dad he would always bust
out whatever he was listening to like Stevie Wonder or Quincy Jones. He
just had really good taste. He gave me a great introduction to music and
he was very supportive of me singing and following my dream.
He was very instrumental, no pun intended, in my musical journey.
I have to wedge in here my brother who is a monstrous, amazing musician.
He is Aaron-Andre Miller and he lives in Bend, Oregon. He is a wonderful
piano player and he teaches piano in Bend. We are really close. We grew
up doing talent shows together. He would play piano and I would sing. It
is cool that both my brother and I grew up and became musicians and are
making a living doing it. My dad gave up his career to support his
family and I feel that we carried it on for him,” she says.
As a child and throughout her teenage years Andrea Miller was always
doing musical theater. Later when she was accepted into the University
of Southern California’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program.
“I thought I was going to be an actor singer.
The lightbulb went on early that
I could sing. After I graduated from college and I got my acting degree
I quickly realized I had no interest or passion in just being an actor.
There was no singing involved. I didn’t have much interest in it. I
became so burnt out from musical theater, because I had been doing it
for so long. I thought I am not going to be an actor and I am sick of
musical theater and I know I like to sing. What would it be like to sing
like Andrea? Until I was twenty-three I had always played a character in
a musical or something like that, but I never knew what just Andrea
Miller sounded like.
That is when the lightbulb went off and I got to discover what kind of
singer I was going to be and what it is that I wanted to do. That was a
turning point and realizing that it was just going to be my voice and
me… and the world (she laughs
lightly). I was going to see how far that was going to take me. I
did a little bit of Pop and R&B in the beginning and I quickly realized
that Jazz fit better and it was more fulfilling to me. I just got so
boxed in and bored with singing Pop and R&B, because everybody wants to
hear the hook. Even as much as I love singing “Let’s Stay Together,” by
Al Green, you can’t really deviate too much from the melody that
everybody wants to hear.
As a singer I was getting burned out and bored with all of the different
songs that I was singing and then I walked into a Jazz club called The
Money Tree in LA. I was artistically searching for what I was going to
do next and I when I walked in there was a trio playing. The next week I
went back on open mic night and I had brushed up on “’Round Midnight,”
which is a Thelonious Monk song. It is not the easiest song to sing. A
lot of people might expect a beginner singer to do “Autumn Leaves,” or
“Summertime,” or my “Funny Valentine.” I signed up and then they called
out my name. I asked can I do “Around Midnight,” and they said are you
sure? I said yes, C Minor. It went really well and I started going there
every week on open mic night and really getting my feet wet in the world
of Jazz, because I had never sung it before. I realized I had listened
to it my whole life, my brother is a Jazz player, my dad is a Jazz
player and so I decided to see how this fits and I have never looked
back.
We are glad Andrea Miller never looked back and we think somewhere out
there Al Jarreau is smiling and saying Miller Time. Riveting Riffs
Magazine thinks it is Miller Time. It is Andrea Miller’s time to shine.
Please
visit the website for Andrea Miller and do yourself
a favor order a copy of Maybe
Today.
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We
did some covers, “It’s All Right With Me,” “The Water Is Wide,” and “You
Would Be So Nice To Come Home To.”
He
also had a wonderful core band that had been with him for I think
fifteen or seventeen years and they backed me up a couple of times. They
were so effortless and they were a well-oiled machine. When you have it
like that there is not a lot of preparation (needed). You just go out
there and you knock it out of the park, which is what they did. It was
cool to watch how it all worked on that level,” she recalls.
Reflecting
upon recording the demo Andrea Miller says, “I was really glad that I
was a trained singer in a situation like that, because it wasn’t
necessarily a difficult song, because it was one that was not on the
Classical side, but as a singer I know how to breathe and I know how to
sing properly. I was glad for that in the moment. I also learned a lot
from watching three greats work (You can hear her reliving the moment
with glee). We were brainstorming, with try it like this, try it like
this. I would sing however they wanted me to. I remember watching Alan
and Marilyn work and how meticulous they were with every single word.
They are the greatest lyricists, some might argue, on the planet. I saw
why they are, because they have such precision and they take such time,
care and thought with each lyric. We did the whole thing in about two
hours.