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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7Organization and Presentation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Description of the compositions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Compositions

 American Hope *

Babes Of Cancun *

Bar Room Ballad *

Bead Jive

BD Junkman

Blues For Ona

Blues For The High Priest

Dark Dance

Deep Pools

Designor Muzik

Gargoyle

Green Street

 JC In The City *

 JC On The Land *

 Just A Breeder *

Last Illusion

Lost Illusions

Love Thing

Man In White *

Microcosm

Monk Strut *

One Nite Strut

Nite Dancer

Nite Daze

ECM 

ECM 

 Jazz 

Modal 

 Jazz 

New Jazz 

 Avant-garde 

New Jazz 

ECM 

 Avant-garde 

 Avant-garde 

New Jazz 

ECM 

New Jazz 

 Avant-garde 

New Jazz 

New Jazz 

New Jazz 

ECM 

Blues 

New Jazz 

Hardbop 

Hardbop 

New Jazz 

Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16

Latin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Ballad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Free Latin  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Latin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Broken Swing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Swing 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Broken 8th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Space / Funk  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Space / Funk  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Latin / Swing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Colors / Funk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Space / Funk  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Broken 8th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Shuffle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Latin / Swing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Hard Swing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

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Palm X

Password

Peacock Park *

Ruth *

Seventh Sign *

Small Feats *

Soul Bod *

Spirit in Pursuit

SR Ballad

Sunchild *

Sun Fun

Sweet GB

Sweet Illusions

The Lieb *

The Wall

 Wood Dance *

New Jazz 

Hardbop 

New Jazz 

Modal 

Modal 

New Jazz 

New Jazz 

 Avant-garde 

New Jazz 

Modal 

 Avant-garde 

New Jazz 

Modal 

ECM 

New Jazz 

Modal 

Latin   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Ballad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Waltz   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Bossa   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Ballad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Bop   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Ballad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Bossa   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Ballad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Latin   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Broken 8th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Broken Swing   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Waltz   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

* These tunes have been cited as the favorites of many performers, including Ron.

Listing of Compositions by Ron Miller Found on Released CDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Bibliography  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

About The Composer  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

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7

Ron Miller Songbook 

Introduction 

INTRODUCTION

The compositions contained in this book are stylistically diverse and of varying levels of difficulty.They were selected based on their playability, their popularity, and because they are among thecomposer’s favorites. They reflect the many influences upon the development of Ron’s personalstyle and are from many “periods” in the continuing development of his style.

The first major influence to have an effect on Ron’s jazz compositions is that of the works ofHorace Silver; many of Ron’s early jazz compositions are very similar to that of Horace’s. In addi-tion to Horace, Ron has been influenced by the composers that provided the works performed by

the Jazz Messengers, the Cannonball Adderley groups, and Blue Note recordings in general. Theremaining seminal influences include that of Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus – still amongRon’s favorite composers.

The next three composers that had a great influence on Ron, and actually changed his musical“life” were Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, and Herbie Hancock. Many of the compositions inclu-ded in this book have harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic qualities that can be traced to the influ-ence of those three composers. Of the avant-garde composers, Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra arethe most influential. Along with an individual composer’s influence, there is the “group concept”influence as represented by the directions of the Miles Davis groups, Weather Report, Material, andthe above mentioned Jazz Messengers.

Included among the great jazz composers listed above would be many of the composers of clas-sical music and other musics of diverse description. A partial listing would include: Tchaikovsky,Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Ravel, Respighi, Leroy Anderson, and John Philip Sousa.

Listening to the works of the above listed composers should assist the reader/player in under-standing the aesthetic goal of Ron’s compositions.

It should be noted that compositions produced after 1972 reflect Ron’s training as a compo-sition student at the University of Miami. The study of classical music scores and of course, the

 jazz recordings of that time is in evidence in Ron’s compositions from that point on. Prior to thatperiod, Ron was a performing “street-oriented” jazz pianist – that experience is shown in his com-positions produced before 1972.

Ron Miller’s jazz compositions can be described in one or more of the following ways:• Hardbop• Newbop/New Jazz• Modal ( Wayne/Herbie )

• ECM• Fusion ( Weather Report, Miles, Chick Corea )• New Reharmonization• Bebop avant-garde• Fusion avant-garde