Tom Millar is a pianist, composer and bandleader. He was born in Sydney, Australia and grew up in London. After reading Music at King’s College, Cambridge, he studied Jazz Piano and Composition for a Masters at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and with Django Bates in Bern, Switzerland.
His debut album with his quartet, Unnatural Events, will be launched on September 20th 2017 at the Pizza Express Jazz Club, Soho, London. It is coming out on independent jazz label Spark!, and was recorded with funding from an Emerging Excellence Award (Help Musicians UK), the Jazz Services’ Recording Support Scheme, and a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. The quartet plays Tom’s original music, inspired by places and people that are important to him. Tracks include the soulful ballad 'Park Hill’; his setting of the proto-environmentalist poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'Inversnaid'; and rock-out grooves in 'The Seafarer', 'Power Chord Thing' and 'Woad'. It features some of the most in-demand young jazz musicians in London: Misha Mullov-Abbado on bass, Alex Munk on guitar and Dave Storey on drums. Singer Alice Zawadzki features on two tracks on the album. To support the release, the quartet will be embarking on a 20-date UK tour.
Tom has performed at venues including the Wigmore Hall, Pizza Express Jazz Club, Vortex, 606 Club, the London Jazz Festival, KKL Lucerne and Paul Klee Centre, Bern. He toured England and Wales with the Lyric Ensemble, performing the music of Michael Garrick; with Ollie Howell’s quintet; with Duncan Eagles’ quartet; and has recorded albums with the Tom Smith Septet and Andrew Linham Big Band. Further afield, he has played in the USA, Europe and Qatar, including a nationwide tour with Swiss blues star Philipp Fankhauser and venerable singer Margie Evans from Shreveport, Louisiana. He recently played for the opening residency in Quincy Jones’ first ever jazz club, Q’s bar, at the Palazzo Versace, Dubai, between November 2016 and January 2017, and in February 2017 with bassist Lisa Hoppe's Ambush at the Jazzwerkstatt Festival, Bern.
