Mark Miller
BIO
Biography

Mark Miller has been a writer — journalist, critic, author, historian —and photographer in the field of music, specifically jazz, for some 50 years. He is the author of 13 books, and served from 1978 to 2005 as the jazz columnist for “Canada’s National Newspaper,” The Globe and Mail. He has also written for Coda MagazineDown BeatThe New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, The Encyclopedia of Music in CanadaSaturday Night and several other popular and scholarly publications.

His interests as an author and historian lie in musicians and stories that have been lost, forgotten or overlooked in the annals of jazz. His books include several studies of jazz in Canada — notably Such Melodious Racket: The Lost History of Jazz in Canada, 1914-1949 (1998) and The Miller Companion to Jazz in Canada (2001) — and a survey of the pioneering American musicians who introduced jazz to Europe, Asia and South America, Some Hustling This! — Taking Jazz to the World, 1914-1929 (2005).

He has also written the biographies High Hat, Trumpet and Rhythm: The Life and Music of Valaida Snow (2007), Herbie Nichols: A Jazzist’s Life (2009), Claude Ranger: Canadian Jazz Legend (2017), Of Stars and Strings: A Biography of Sonny Greenwich (2020) and Oneliness: The Life and Music of Brian Barley (2021), as well as the biographical studies Cool Blues: Charlie Parker in Canada, 1953 (1989) and Way Down That Lonesome Road: Lonnie Johnson in Toronto, 1965-1970 (2011). Some of his several thousand articles for The Globe and Mail were anthologized in A Certain Respect for Tradition: Mark Miller on Jazz, Selected Writings 1980-2005 (2006).

Miller has been described as “the dean of Canadian jazz journalists”(The Jazz Report, Spring 1998) and is praised for the clarity of his writing and the depth of his research. He lives in Toronto.

ADDRESS
City: Toronto, Province/Territory: Ontario
EMAIL
GENRE
Non-fiction
LANGUAGES
English
PUBLICATIONS
Publications
Title
Jazz in Canada: Fourteen Lives
Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Year
1982
Title
Boogie, Pete & The Senator: Canadian Musicians in Jazz, the Eighties
Publisher
Nightwood Editions
Year
1987
Title
Cool Blues: Charlie Parker in Canada, 1953
Publisher
Nightwood Editions
Year
1989
Title
Such Melodious Racket: The Lost History of Jazz in Canada, 1914-1949
Publisher
The Mercury Press
Year
1997
Title
The Miller Companion to Jazz in Canada and Canadians in Jazz
Publisher
The Mercury Press
Year
2002
Title
Some Hustling This! Taking Jazz to the World, 1914-1929
Publisher
The Mercury Press
Year
2005
Title
A Certain Respect for Tradition: Mark Miller on Jazz, Selected Writings 1980-2005
Publisher
The Mercury Press
Year
2006
Title
High Hat, Trumpet and Rhythm: The Life and Music of Valaida Snow
Publisher
The Mercury Press
Year
2007
Title
Herbie Nichols: A Jazzist's Life
Publisher
The Mercury Press
Year
2009
Title
Way Down That Lonesome Road: Lonnie Johnson in Toronto, 1965-1970
Publisher
The Mercury Press/teksteditions
Year
2011
Title
Claude Ranger: Canadian Jazz Legend
Publisher
Mark Miller
Year
2017
Title
Of Stars and Strings: A Biography of Sonny Greenwich
Publisher
Mark Miller
Year
2020
Title
Oneliness: The Life and Music of Brian Barley
Publisher
Mark Miller
Year
2121
AWARDS
Awards
Name
Association for Recorded Sound Collections Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research
Publication
The Miller Companion to Jazz in Canada
Year
2002
Programs & Interests
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Interested in participating in the Northern Ontario WITS program:
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