Phil Miller Guitar Prize – Birmingham Conservatoire 29 February 2024

This is the third annual competition commemorating the life of Phil Miller, open to students at Birmingham’s prestigious music institution, funded by generous donation from Phil Miller’s widow Herm Mew, who has also bequeathed Phil’s archive to the university.

This event continues to evolve: last year it was memorable for a number of highly interpretive, largely solo performances, with extra treats thrown in for for good measure, with performances of Phil’s music through a trio led by Fred Baker; tonight the evening kicked off with the Phil Miller Legacy band, a group of whom Fred, Phil Miller’s long-time right hand man and musical kingpin of this event, identified as first and second year students. This is something that he was particularly excited about as, under his tutelage, it means that the band can grow during the lifespan of its contributors’ studies.

Over the course of around 45 minutes, the band, underpinned by Baker on guitar, featured a very impressive frontline of sax, trumpet and voice, augmented by piano/keyboards (Marcus Coats), a second guitar (Jamie Mcleish), bass (Kyle Welch) and drums (Kefan Hu) and worked through 3 pieces. I understand the musicians here are students on the Conservatoire’s jazz course, and the interpretations reflected that: themes were stated and restated, before the band went along the frontline trading solos, moving on to piano and both guitarists. The opener ‘No More Mister Nice Guy’ is from Miller’s bluesiest album (‘Out of the Blue’ ) since Delivery and a casual observer might not appreciate the full gamut of his quirky compositional style from this opener, but it was a good vehicle for the band’s soloing talents, Henry Hanson in particular on trumpet.

For ‘Calyx’ we were into more iconic Canterbury territory, introduced by Baker’s atmospheric guitar effects – but the joy of this piece was the fulsome vocal performance of Grace Conner. With clear, rounded vocal sounds and an impressive range, she started off the piece with the ‘lost’ lyrics ‘Poetry in Motion’ but beyond this it was her improvised scatting which really embellished the piece.

‘Delta Borderline’ finished things off, a hugely enjoyable blow through this most counter-intuitive of Miller pieces: the brass messy and cacophonous, and the soprano sax of Ben Kempner solo cutting across it abrasively and providing my personal highlight of the entire evening. Jim Bashford provided extra precision to this piece on a second drum kit.

Fred concluded the first half with two short pieces on acoustic guitar: ‘Nowadays a Silhouette’ – in my thoughts in the last few days for a number of reasons: Billie Bottle’s new interpretation on church organ, as well as its original format being that long lost Canterbury album ‘Before A Word Is Said’; as well as ‘Lock In’ from the second Miller/Baker duo album ‘Double Up 2’. This format sees Fred Baker in one of his conducive manifestations: intimate and dexterous.

And so into the main event: the Phil Miller Guitar Prize. Last year there were 5 entrants: 4 of whom were solo performers on either guitar or bass. Performances had been impressionistic: with much use of loopery and effects. Tonight’s versions were much tighter and much closer to the originals – and all were duos: James Cony and Joseph Hiles, last year’s winners,  set the bar high with a beautiful rendition of ‘Calyx’, written for 2 complementary guitars. Ollie Millington and Jude Edson meanwhile interpretated ‘Second Sight’, and, like the original, saw the guitar chords giving space for some wonderful bass solo work, somewhat faithful to Baker’s original performance.

The third duo of Ben Lawrence and Tom Winter broke the mold in featuring a somewhat subdued saxophone alongside guitar in interpreting ‘Phrygian Blues’, before a very strong final rendition of ‘Eastern Region’ from Kyle Welch and Aedan Lang on bass and guitar – from a low-key beginning, the interplay between the two instruments was impressive and cohesive, and only the siting of a field recorder on my table stopped me from whooping my approval.

Final results:

1st: James Cony / Joseph Hiles

2nd: Aedan Lang / Kyle Welch

Joint 3rd: Ben Lawrence / Tom Winter / Olly Millington / Jude Edson

In true Phil Miller Guitar Prize style, the traditional set ender is a whole stage rendition of ‘Nan True’s Hole’, where most of the original band, plus associated competition entrants, converge on stage for this most exultant of celebrations: one dirty riff extending over 11 minutes with solos galore – a rousing finale.

One final word: last year the walls of the jazz venue were festooned with Herm’s wonderful portraits of Phil Miller: tonight there was an exhibition of artefacts donated by her to Birmingham City University, curated by Pedro Cravinho. Some are presented below.

There is a hope that this event will continue to grow with the Legacy band potentially supporting Soft Machine on site at some point in the future – there is little doubt that this event is not only keeping Phil’s legacy alive, but providing an unusual and appreciated focus for many of the Conservatoire’s highly talented students – this is neither easy nor easily found material and it’s a joy to hear Phil’s music in a new and enduring context.

The evening’s events were taped and will hopefully be available on the Legacy site in due course.        

Please visit the Legacy site at https://philmillerthelegacy.com/