Lloyd Miller (musician)
Lloyd Miller (b. 1938) is an American jazz musician and ethnomusicologist who is well known for his research work on Persian music and Afghan music. He can play 100 instruments in 15 jazz, ethnic and world music traditions.
Lloyd Miller received a doctorate in ethnomusicology from the University of Utah. His thesis was entitled "Music and Song in Persia". While writing his thesis, he spent 7 years in Tehran as an arts writer for several publications and a PR person for the Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music. In 2012 his original PhD dissertation was published by Eastern Arts at BYU under the title Afghan Music and Dance.
He is native in English and fluent in Persian, Dari and French, capable in Swedish, German and a few other languages. In the early 1960s Lloyd attended the Sorbonne and the Langues Orientale in Paris and went to school in Geneva for a time. During the 1950s and 60s, Miller played with top jazz artists in Europe like Don Ellis and Eddie Harris.[1] Miller was interested in eastern culture and music. In 1969 he went to Iran again on a Fulbright scholarship and remained 7 years mastering Persian music as well as other Middle Eastern traditional and folk music genres mainly under the supervision of masters Dr. Daryush Safvat and Mahmud Karimi as well as other masters.
Dr. Miller is also known as Kurosh Ali Khan, a name he used while hosting a prime-time television show in Tehran, Iran in the 1970s. The program was known as Kurosh Ali Khan va Dustan, or Kurosh Ali Khan and Friends, a variety show with music. He was an arts critic and journalist for several years in Iran frequently submitting articles under various names to Tehran Journal, Kayhan International, Ayendegan, Iran Air Homa, Around Iran, Etela'at and others also Sketch Magazine in Beirut. He attended the popular Shiraz Arts Festival and Tehran Film Festival several times as an official journalist where he met and worked with many well-known artists from various countries.
His mother, Mrs. Maxine Adams Miller, was the author of Bright Blue Beads: An American Family In Persia,[2] and Dr. Miller is the author of Music and Song in Persia: The Art of Avaz published by Curzon Press London and also by University of Utah Press. Maxine's father was attorney W. Lloyd Adams a prominent figure in Rexburg Idaho and much beloved "father of Madison County." Lloyd Miller is his only grandson and Adams was Lloyds family mentor.
Lloyd's recording titled Oriental Jazz, produced in the 1960s, has become a much sought after collectors' item and was re-released recently as a CD and is a current popular item in Europe and the UK and features many selections of jazz and oriental music blends. He also released 7 other vinyl LPs during the 1960s and has released over 30 CDs and DVDs of his own music and including music and dance featuring other known virtuoso artists. [3]