Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com
To the best of my knowledge, pianist Bill Miller, who accompanied Frank Sinatra for more than 50 years, never recorded an album under his own name. He led a sextet in the early 1960s, but only while accompanying Sinatra on tour. In interviews prior to his death in 2006, Miller intimated that he occasionally played gigs in Los Angeles clubs, but he never mentioned recording an album, either as a leader or as part of a small group. [Photo above of Bill Miller accompanying Frank Sinatra at a recording session in the early 1960s]
As a result, we have Miller only in early big band settings and with Sinatra on his recordings and films. In the case of the latter, we have Pal Joey (1957), where Sinatra plays a carousing club singer and often is shown at a piano singing and faux playing whiskey-soaked ballads as Miller's piano is heard.
Miller recorded on Buddy Collette's two excellent albums with the Swinging Shepherds and on a bunch of others where he largely is obscured by multiple instruments. The lone exception is his piano accompanying singer Robbie Williams in 2001 on One for My Baby (and One More for the Road) here. According to the notes, Williams recorded with Miller at Capitol in Los Angeles (vs. singing over an older recording)...
And here's Williams and Miller in the studio...
If you missed my Wall Street Journal conversationwith Roger Moore on the song, go here.
Used with permission by Marc Myers
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