Steve Million

A fixture on the Chicago jazz scene since 1988, pianist Steve Million finally made his recorded debut as a leader in the mid-1990's with Million To One (on Palmetto), featuring <a href="spotify:artist:3Rsba5XTDhxUyjK4sn1wBj">Randy Brecker</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:4hdVPbHhsWAn2XTXVRJoxB">Chris Potter</a>. Million remembers seeing and talking to <a href="spotify:artist:2jFZlvIea42ZvcCw4OeEdA">Count Basie</a> when he was seven. Although he played a little bit of piano as a child, he did not take music seriously until high school. Million spent a year at North Texas State and then studied classical music at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. During 1978-80 he worked steadily in the Kansas City area, spent a year in New York, moved back to Kansas City and during 1984-88 was the musical director for blues singer Ida McBeth. He moved to Chicago in 1988, was a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk Piano Competition and has worked in many different settings since including with <a href="spotify:artist:7sJEt4QPDYhjJ9tcHSlhhN">Kevin Mahogany</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:39Ni96Dw8uEeQb2KgeXIT8">Von Freeman</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1Fz7kYXFWKM4L4Hjaq9ktx">Carmell Jones</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1JrZuQYlOzhNj1nvlB0Yys">Slide Hampton</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:4tAgCULCgQOWm2GOc6K3nb">Ira Sullivan</a> among many others. For a time Million headed an unusual piano-organ-drums trio called Monk's Dream that exclusively performed <a href="spotify:artist:4PDpGtF16XpqvXxsrFwQnN">Thelonious Monk</a> tunes. ~ Scott Yanow, Rovi