Biography

Tom Millar is a London-based jazz pianist, composer and bandleader.

Since his quartet’s debut album release, Unnatural Events, in 2017, he has taken the band on a 20-date UK tour, and received extensive radio play including BBC Radio 3, Jazz FM and London Jazz Radio. He was made a City Music Foundation Artist in 2018, which will support the band’s second album recording in 2019. Previous awards include an ‘Emerging Excellence’ Award from Help Musicians UK, the Jazz Services Recording Support Scheme, Arts Council England funding for the album tour, and a successful Kickstarter campaign.

In 2018 he appeared on Swiss national radio, and toured Denmark, Switzerland and the UK with guitarist Dimitri Howald. Venues where he has performed include the Wigmore Hall, Pizza Express Jazz Club, Vortex, 606 Club, the London Jazz Festival, Jazzwerkstatt Festival Berne, KKL Lucerne, and Paul Klee Centre, Berne. 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 Dimitri Howald’s Ilja, 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 played for the opening residency in Quincy Jones’ first ever jazz club, Q’s bar, at the Palazzo Versace, Dubai, during the winter of 2016/17.

Tom previously ran the monthly jam session and gig at the Green Note, Camden, as well as playing a monthly duo concert there with some of his favourite singers. He is also a member of Way Out West musicians’ collective, for which he has created various different projects including a sextet with Gareth Lockrane, Duncan Eagles, Stefanos Tsourelis, Dave Storey and Dave Jones, and a nonet playing his compositions and arrangements with Jim Hart, Tim Whitehead, Tony Woods and Laura Jurd, among others.

After reading Music at King’s College, Cambridge, Tom studied Jazz Piano and Composition for a Masters at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and later with Django Bates in Berne, Switzerland.

Selected press quotes:

"Millar's writing is part of a lineage of polished modernism whose building blocks are to be found in the holy trinity of Herbie, Chick and Bill Evans, but whose additional masonry has pleasing echoes of their scions, namely Pat Metheny and Brian Blade. At its highpoint the performance reaches a poetic, pastoral grace." Kevin Le Gendre, Jazzwise   

'beautifully articulated piano lines … Millar's percussive composition 'Rain in Rio' [was] an audience favourite' Jazzwise

'Ambitious young band … exploring sophisticated original material' Time Out, London

'Tom's music is full of strong melodies, quirky rhythmic hooks and unusual forms' Londonjazznews.com

'Finely crafted tunes and thoughtful improvisations' Tim Whitehead