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The Push-Pull Quartet
Miller's early influences were from his father's love of romantic classical and 20th Century music. He began playing the alto saxophone in 5th grade, and by High School delved into free-form improvisation. In his early twenties, he expounded on 20th Century composition techniques and wrote a number of small orchestral pieces for various ensembles including The Fourth World Quartet with his brothers Laurence and Roger, Jack Waterstone and Denman Maroney .
From 1977-78, Miller played sax with punk band Destroy All Monsters. Returning to songwriting, his composition streak came to a halt.
Throughout the 1980's, although primarily playing guitar, Miller included horn playing in various Ann Arbor-based rock groups.
Returning to college @ Columbia College Chicago in 1993, Miller began developing an all-interval method of his own inspired by Arnold Shoenberg's 12-tone method. This all-interval method came to fruition in 2007, and a symphony is in the works for the newly-formed Sensorium Saxophone Orchestra .
THE PUSH-PULL QUARTET formed in Spring, 2007. This NYC-based ensemble performed the NYC area, recording 9 tracks at Wombat Recording Studios later that year. Miller's material entails semi-structured improvisations and pantonal composition using tone row and interval row techniques.
Ben Miller; alto and c-tenor saxophone
Chris Welcome; electric guitar
Shayna Dulberger; upright bass
John McLellan; drum kit
Raised in Chicagoland, Welcome studied with Frank Portolese, Vic Juris and Brian Kershner. He has performed with Daniel Carter, Jack Wright, Blaise Siwula, Herb Robertson, and others. Welcome has received positive reviews in Cadence Magazine, All About Jazz, WNUR and others. He has toured extensively with Blaise Siwula and with the noise/rock/jazz group Mothguts. Welcome has recently recorded an album of his works for Tigerasylum Records, "The Chris Welcome Quartet".
Dulberger has performed with William Parker, Ras Moshe, Daniel Carter, Bill Cole, Paul Flaherty and others. She has performed in the Vision Festival XII, CMJ Music Festival, Performa07, Music Now, C.O.M.A. and The Phantom Ear Music Series. Dulberger performs with many other ensembles, including TheKillMeTrio, The Chris Welcome Quartet, The Young Equestrians and The E.R.A. Her albums have been reviewed by All About Jazz, Signal to Noise, Jazz & Tzaz, WNUR and others.
Born in Puerto Rico, raised in Massachusetts, McLellan has worked with Joe and Mat Maneri, Roswell Rudd, Bern Nix, Roy Campbell, William Parker, Ken Vandermark, Denman Maroney, and many others. He has performed at festivals throughout the country, including the Newport Jazz Festival, the Iowa City Jazz Festival, and New York's Vision Festival. McLellan's inventive drumming can be heard on his duo record with saxophonist Joe MCPhee, "Grand Marquis" on Boxholder records and Mat Maneri's latest release on Thirsty Ear Records, "Pentagon". He also plays with Trio Caveat, The Up, The E.R.A. and The Chris Welcome Quartet.
You can see The Push-Pull Quartet live (see Upcoming Performances) with a fall mini-tour to be set up in support of their first release At The Stroke of Twelve on Tigerasylum records.
Listen to The Push-Pull Qaurtet: If, and or but, from their first recording presented to The Mad Hatter's Review Issue #6 (an on-line literary ezine of which Miller composes for).
Listen to "All Twelve Windows" (solo saxophone CD): All Twelve Windows
Contact Ben Miller at info@benmiller.info
© 2003 Ben Miller
