Steve Millhouse

After a very long career of playing bass with many different artists, touring the world, recording, playing Broadway shows etc. Steve formed two different trios to showcase his own unique chordal and soloistic style of playing on the Contrabass Guitar. After it being a side project for many years, he formed the Steve Millhouse Trio consisting of Steve Millhouse - contrabass guitar, Rich Perry - tenor saxophone and Eric Halvorson - drums playing a mixture of Steve’s original compositions as well as songs from the great jazz composers. The first performance of his trio concept was in Tokyo, Japan in February 2020. After a hiatus during the pandemic, Steve resumed performing with the Trio in April 2022. Their debut recording The Unwinding was released in February of 2023 on SteepleChase Records with liner notes by Steve Swallow and Gary Fukushima. Their follow-up album entitled Looking Back to Today will again be released on SteepleChase Records in March of 2025 with liner notes by Neil Tesser.

Steve began playing with his second trio in May of 2022, the Steve Millhouse Cinema Trio which draws from the vast body of musical work written for the cinema. It features Allen Farnham on piano and Eric Halvorson on drums playing their own arrangements of music from some of the greatest composers in the history of cinema including Henry Mancini, Michel Legrand, Johnny Mandel, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jerome Kern, Sting, Disney and beyond. The arrangements are both an homage to the brilliant original scores of the past with a fresh new treatment and perspective. The Cinema Trio's first album entitled Valley of the Moon was released in November of 2023. Their follow-up recording, Music on the Way: The Music of Henry Mancini was released in November of 2024. Both albums feature special guest Scott Wendholt on trumpet and flugelhorn with liner notes by Bill Milkowski. The later album was also chosen to be on Bill Milkowski’s Top 100 CDs of 2024

During the last three years Steve has been playing with his bands regularly in NYC as well as touring extensively in Japan promoting the music from his three recently released recordings.

Between 2010 and 2015 he toured the world with international star Ute Lemper. He played on her CD “Forever: The Love Poems of Pablo Neruda” released in 2013 and subsequent tour including a live DVD from the legendary Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, Spain. The tour also played concerts in other iconic venues around the world including the main hall of the Sydney Opera House, SF Jazz, the Sala São Paulo and a TV appearance in São Paolo Brazil. He also recorded her CD “The 9 Secrets” released in 2015.

Steve worked extensively on Broadway since moving to NYC in 2007 until 2023, most recently playing electric and double bass for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He’s also played Elf at the Theater at Madison Square Garden; It Shoulda Been You in 2015; the 2015 Pippin tour in Tokyo Japan; the Broadway revivals of Pippin in 2013 and Godspell in 2011; the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular for five seasons; shows at the Daegu International Musical Festival in Daegu, South Korea in ’11 and ’12; and played for many other Broadway shows in NYC and Broadway tours around the US. Steve most recently played a tour of Dreamgirls in the US, Shanghai, China and Tokyo, Japan in late 2019 until February 2020. In 2017 he began touring with Jeremy Stolle and the Unreachable Stars in cities across the US as well as nineteen cities throughout China in 2017 and 2018.

 Steve has also performed in concert with a very long list of recording artists and Broadway stars, film stars and TV stars. He has played on Grammy nominated recordings; The Original Broadway Cast Recording of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and It Shoulda Been You; The New Broadways Cast Recording of Pippin and Godspell; many local and national TV jingles; and many artist’s recordings.

Steve became an oenophile many years ago as a result of touring throughout the world, and since 2016 has been an owner of a boutique fine wine shop in Greenwich, Connecticut called Wine Wise in addition to his busy music career.