Allison Miller and Michelle Dorrance at 92NY

Allison Miller and Michelle Dorrance
92NY
"Rivers in Our Veins"
New York, NY
February 2, 2025

Jazz and tap have long been enthusiastic dance partners. With "Rivers in Our Veins," drummer and composer Allison Miller adds further art forms to the mix.

The 80-minute piece celebrating America's waterways marries tap from dancers led by the acclaimed Michelle Dorrance to solo conventional dance, performed to music by Miller's sextet—all to a backdrop of live improvised video.

The result could easily have been a multimedia muddle. Yet Miller—one of today's most intelligent and compelling bandleaders—brought the many elements of her composition together at 92NY in engrossing and occasionally stirring ways.

The backbone of the piece is Miller's varied score. While primarily jazzy, its harmonies and rhythms at times edge into other American musics—mirroring Miller's own musical breadth. Jazz predominates her resume, through ensembles like the all-women collective Artemis and her own Boom Tic Boom. Yet she's also drummed for singer-songwriters including Natalie Merchant and Brandi Carlile and played soulful jazz with organist Lonnie Liston Smith.

Correspondingly, at 92NY, "Rivers in Our Veins" sometimes ventured—slyly and seamlessly—away from a flowing jazz feel to the 2-and-4 rhythmic pattern of rock and even, in one passage, the 1-and-3 emphasis of reggae. Miller's sterling band deepened that expansiveness. In particular, violinist Jenny Scheinman infused some of her solos with the lilt of folk fiddling, she being a fine Americana singer-songwriter as well as a jazz musician.

Other strong soloing came from reedist Ben Goldberg, trumpeter Jason Palmer, and pianist Carmen Staaf, who at one point played a melodic and arpeggiated outing that evoked Keith Jarrett at his solo improvisatory best.

The show stayed grounded in the jazz tradition—and continuously diverting—thanks in large part to its heavy dose of collaborative improvisation, both among the musicians and beyond them.

Excitement flowed from several duets between tap dancers and band members. In a show highlight, Miller brought her snare drum to center stage, where she and Dorrance, both smiling broadly, traded rhythmic turns in a kind of cutting contest. For another exchange, the band quieted down as bassist Rashaan Carter and dancer Claudia Rahardjanoto conducted a slow, subdued artistic conversation.

Contrasting the furious energy of the tap performers was the flowing movement of modern dancer Maleek Washington. His slow, twirling choreography included some water-related gestures, like a repeated motion that evoked skimming stones over smooth water.

The interplay between the music and Todd Winkler's live video projections was thrillingly intimate. In mid-set, as Miller took a full-kit solo, Winkler projected video of fish repeatedly jumping, the jumps sometimes coinciding with Miller's cymbal crashes and rim shots, eliciting delighted whoops from the crowd. At other times, gorgeous footage of the speeding surface of rivers served to deepen the emotions of the evocative score.

This is a wonderfully balanced work. As serious as Miller's message is—with its pre-show calls to donate to environmental group Riverkeepers-the 92NY performance mostly exuded joy. More improvisational passages were countered by structured ensemble work. No soloist, whether musician or dancer, outlived their welcome.

This is a show that deserves to be seen, and savored, by a diverse audience. Kudos to 92NY for bringing "Rivers" uptown, before a very different crowd from the one for the piece's 2023 album-release outing at Roulette, the long-time avant-jazz mecca in Brooklyn. One yearns for a tour for the piece, including to locations along other rivers that Miller researched and sought inspiration from for the piece, including the Susquehanna. Finding funds for such an environmentally aware excursion would be a tall order, especially in 2025's America, but we can dream, can't we?