Jazz Bridge presents special Jazz Appreciation Month celebration @ the Collingswood Community Center Thurs. April 5th!

Appearing at the Collingswood Community Center, 30 E. Collings Ave. in Collingswood, NJ (08108) on Thursday, April 5th will be a special edition of “Miller Time" to celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month, featuring saxophonist Mike Pracher, guitarist Brian Betz, organist Chris Simonini and drummer Jim Miller.

One Show: 7:30-9 p.m. Admission: $10/$5 for students. No advance sales. Free Refreshments! For info: 856-858-8914.

Jazz Bridge, a 501C3 nonprofit that assists our local Jazz and Blues musicians in crisis, is sponsoring this concert.

Born in the Midwest and moving to Philadelphia in 1977, Jim Miller led and co-founded the “electro-jazz" group Reverie, whose eponymously titled first album—now 30 years old—was recently licensed for Asian release. As a sideman, he has backed Larry Coryell, Johnny Coles, John Blake, Anita O'Day, Mark Murphy, Richie Cole, Randy Brecker, Clark Terry, Joe Ford, Cecil Bridgewater, James Moody, Dave Liebman, Reggie Workman, Steve Marcus and many others. Miller has worked and recorded regularly with Suzanne Cloud, Tyrone Brown, Jim Ridl, Tom Lawton, Denis DiBlasio, George Rabbai and Monkadelphia, resulting in his performances on over three dozen CDs. For influences, Jim credits initially hearing The Ethel Merman Disco Album as “a life-changing experience."

Critics have called Miller “musically inspiring, uncompromising, observant and technically impressive" (jazzreview.com), a drummer with “characteristic flexibility, one that makes it sometime seem as if he's physically steering the band around the turns of whatever tune is rolling past" (Cadence), “the orchestrational drummer of choice" (Jazz Player magazine), and “unbelievably difficult to listen to" (both allaboutjazz.com and his mom).

For this special concert celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month, Miller and his co-conspirators will perform unique arrangements of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk classics as well as two lesser-known John Coltrane compositions, along with a few surprises...because Jazz is “the sound of surprise!"

To check out the complete schedule of other Jazz Bridge concerts, please visit the Jazz Bridge website.