Jazz Through the Ages

Instruments and Music by Dr. Lloyd Miller • Exhibit runs from September 19th to October 24th 2022

ARTIST STATEMENT: This exhibit features musical instruments, many over 100 years old,
historically vital to American jazz. Landmark personalities, whose contributions
were essential to the development of jazz, are also featured.
The main roots of jazz came to America from West Africa, France and
Spain. Blues and rhythms came from Africa while the instrumentation for the
parade band was a European development of Turkish military music. Before the
turn of the century, African-American musicians in and around New Orleans
developed their own parade bands characterized by a syncopation and energy that
John Phillip Souza never dreamed of. Creole and French music also contributed to
the evolution of jazz as we know it today.
We hope this exhibit will encourage you to learn more about the various
styles of jazz as played and enjoyed through the ages.

ARTIST BIO: World music and jazz expert, Dr. Lloyd Miller has made numerous
recordings since the 1960s. Lloyd’s childhood piano and banjo-playing mother
Maxine Adams and his clarinetist father Sherman Miller furnished an early start to
Miller’s musical interest. At age 15, Lloyd formed a New Orleans style jazz band
in Glendale California with drummer Spencer Dryden.
Later Miller received a PhD after 7 years in Tehran, Iran where he
discovered similarities between jazz and Middle Eastern music. Founder of Salt
Lake Ethnic Arts, Miller has taught music, philosophy, history and culture to
thousands of students at universities for over 40 years. Over the decades he has
performed hundreds of jazz and world music events. In Europe, Lloyd played briefly
with jazz trumpeter Don Ellis, tenor sax man Eddie Harris, and pianist Jef Gilson
resulting in the release of a popular French jazz album. In Paris, Lloyd met Dr.
Daryush Safvat who became his mentor showing him the value of Persian
traditional music.
After 13 years abroad, on his return to the United States, Lloyd
demonstrated his East/West concepts in a highly-sought-after album called
Oriental Jazz released in 1968 and recently re-pressed by Now-Again records,
selling thousands of copies worldwide. Miller’s music has been internationally
released in a documentary film titled Sufi, Saint and Swinger which was screened
in Finland at the World Music Expo in 2019. He also wrote premier jazz scores for
Utah Symphony and Colorado Springs Symphony. Seven vinyl albums and thirty
CDs and DVDs later, Dr. Miller lives and performs in Salt Lake City still sharing
his lifetime of jazz/folk/ethnic/world music with others.