Marcus Miller

Born: June 14, 1959, Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.

Marcus Miller is a prolific American solo artist, bassist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer.  Along with 13 albums as a solo artist he has played on over 500 recordings with artists from jazz to r&b to rock and blues including Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Eric Clapton, Chaka Khan, Elton John, Grover Washington, Jr., Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, Bernard Wright, Luther Vandross and George Benson among many others.  He is one of the most influential bassists of all time and his slap bass tone from his modded ’77 Fender Jazz Bass is one of the most recognizable bass sounds you will hear.  He is also one third of the bass trio known as SMV with Stanley Clarke and Victor Wooten.

Born William Henry Marcus Miller Jr., Marcus had a musical upbringing.  His father, William Miller, was a church organist and choir director and through his father, Marcus is the cousin of legendary jazz pianist Wynton Kelly.  Marcus was classically trained on clarinet and is still known to play bass clarinet during live performances and on records.  Eventually learned to play saxophone, keyboards, and guitar.  At 12- or 13-years old Marcus picked up the bass and fell in love with it.   His first bass was a Univox bought for him by his mother. As a bassist his earliest influences were James Jamerson and the thump master himself, Larry Graham. [1]

Marcus Miller – New York Session Days

Marcus began gigging in New York clubs at the age of 15 and would become a busy session musician and composer on the New York scene with some of his earliest dates being with jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey.   With Bobbi slated to record an upcoming album with popular NY percussionist and producer Ralph MacDonald, Marcus wrote a song and presented it to her for the record.  After hearing the song Bobbi agreed that it would fit the record and asked Ralph if her young bass player could play on the session.  Ralph agreed and Marcus would walk into that session with a room full of New York session legends including Steve Gadd, Richard Tee, Eric Gale and Anthony Jackson.  The session went off without a hitch with Anthony watching a young Marcus from the control room.

Within a year or two, Ralph was set to produce Bobbi’s next record and Marcus decided he needed to write another song, but this time allow his bass playing to stand out.  This time he wrote a song with a bass solo and after cutting it with Ralph, Ralph asked if Marcus could read music.  Marcus told him “Yeah, I can read music” to which Ralph responded “No, don’t bullshit me, man, because I’m about to recommend you for some of these studio jobs, but you got to really be able to read.”  And I said, “Man, I can read fly shit!  I play clarinet.  Orchestral clarinet.  These little bass parts are nothing!”  So he said okay and told me to join Registry.” [2]

Musicians’ Radio Registry was a service that handled bookings for New York session players like Anthony Jackson, Steve Gadd, Will Lee before cell phones and answering machines existed.  Producers and contractors would call up the registry and ask to book a particular musician for their session. [2]

As a session musician in the late ‘70’s and 80’s he would play bass and work with a who’s who of jazz and r&b artists including David Sanborn, Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, Al Jarreau, Chaka Khan, Bob James, Chaka Khan, George Benson, Peabo Bryson, Earl Klugh, Grover Washington, Jr., Bill Withers, The Brecker Brothers, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, Tom Browne, Cheryl Lynn, Luther Vandross and Miles Davis. His relationships with Miles, Luther and David Sanborn would become particularly fruitful.

Marcus and Miles Davis

His relationship with Miles would begin in the early ‘80’s.  After a significant hiatus, Miles Davis was forming a new band and requested that sax player Bill Evans find him a funky new bass player.  Bill told him “Well, Marcus is the new guy in town.” In the middle of a session, Marcus received a call from Miles asking if he could be at Columbia Studios in a couple of hours.  After confirming that it truly was on the phone Miles (Miles had been in retirement and some were unsure if he was alive or ever going to perform again) Marcus made his way to Columbia Studios and within hours was recording a new album with Miles.  This album would be “The Man with the Horn.”   Marcus would go on to record on Miles’ albums “We Want Miles” (1982), “Star People” (1983), “Tutu” (1986), “Music from Siesta” (1987), “Amandla” (1989) and can be heard live with Miles on the boxset The Complete Miles Davis at Montreux (2002).  The box set features all of Miles Davis’ 11 sets at Montreux Jazz Festival between 1973 and 1991.

Miller would win two Grammy awards for his work as composer, producer and bassist on the song and album, “Tutu,” which is considered to be one of the most definitive Miles Davis albums of our time. [3]

Marcus with David Sanborn

Marcus would also build a close working relationship with David Sanborn.  The two met in the Saturday Night Live band, where Marcus would play from 1979 -1981. The two would go on to collaborate on 15 David Sanborn albums from 1980 – 1999.  One of Miller’s best-known basslines, “Run for Cover,” was composed, recorded and produced by Miller for Sanborn’s album “Straight to the Heart.”  The album won the 1986 Grammy award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance.   [1]

Marcus and Luther Vandross

Marcus’ built a particularly close relationship with Luther Vandross, who, prior to being a chart-topping R&B artist, was also a busy New York session vocalist.  Over 15 years, their partnership would produce a whopping 13 consecutive platinum selling albums of which Miller was the producer on 7.  The pair had a double Grammy win in 1992 for Vandross’ double platinum album “Power of Love/Love Power” which would win “Best R&B Vocal” and “Best R&B Song” and would stand as the last #1 R&B album until Vandross’ release of mega hit “Dance with My Father” in 2001. [3] The relationship between Miller and Vandross also produced the slap bass anthem “Never Too Much” with the intro slide heard ‘round the world, played by a then 21-year-old Miller. 

Solo Career

Marcus’ solo career took off in the early 1980’s with two funk/r&b albums “Suddenly” (1983) and “Marcus Miller” (1984).  Both albums featured him as producer, multi-instrumentalist and singer.  With an almost ten year break between solo efforts, Marcus released the critically acclaimed “The Sun Don’t Lie” (1993), an album which featured slap bass classics like “Panther”, “Rampage” and “Scoop” and the beautiful ballad “Mr. Pastorius”, Marcus tribute to the late Jaco Pastorius. In an interview with Low End Nation bassist David Dyson recognized this album as one of his desert island bass albums.  Marcus has since recorded another 9 studio albums and 3 live records as a solo artist with more bass anthems including “Power”, “The Blues”, “Detroit”, “Bruce Lee” and incredible renditions of Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie on Reggae Woman”, Edgar Winter Group’s “Frankenstein” and Talking Heads “Burning Down the House” among many other beautiful tracks.

Marcus is also a prolific composer and producer for film.  He began contributing music to film scores in 1987 with the film “Siesta” starring Ellen Barkin, Jodie Foster and Gabriel Byrne. [4].  Since that time he has contributed to another 27 films including 1992’s “Boomerang” starring Eddie Murphy for which he produced the original score, “Above the Rim” (1994), “The Great White Hype” (1996), “The Ladies Man” (2000), “Head of State” (2003), “Save the Last Dance 2” (2006), and “Marshall” (2017) which starred Chadwick Boseman.

In 1997 a supergroup called “Legends’ was formed which featured Eric Clapton on guitar and vocals, Steve Gadd on drums, David Sanborn on sax, Joe Sample on piano and Marcus on ass and bass clarinet.  The group did 11 dates at prominent jazz festivals in Europe and their performance at Montreux Jazz Festival was released to DVD as “Legends: Live at Montreux” (1997).

Marcus continues to write, produce and play on his own material and that of the world’s top artists and through his previous work and continuing contributions remains one of the most influential bassists on the planet.