Big Miller discusses his influences as a young man.

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Big Miller discusses the 'geniuses' of jazz.

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Big Miller discusses the blues.

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Q: “Tell me about the blues. Charles Mingus once told me that he was a little saddened because the band he had, they were too young, they didn’t know the blues, they didn’t know the difference between a melancholy kind of blues and a sad blues. To him there are hundreds of different kinds of blues and there’s a different way of playing them, a different way of looking at them; that a happy blues is not the same as a sad blues and not just because of the lyrics or anything. There’s a different approach and everything…”

A: “There’s no process, right. There is... now, take the tune 'Summertime', which is a lullaby. Now, you can take a blues in that same... a lullaby style-type of tune with the same kind of progressions. There is another called lament that is even more... it's much prettier than the lullaby. A sad set that tells a very... usually sung in a minor key. And by having a minor key, it makes the strain of sound, end up in the minors. And the blues are all about man and woman mostly, a woman mistreating a man, or a man mistreating a woman, one of the two. Or you will have had a hard time doing something I'm trying to do. Or people don't understand me. Those two are the blues. Reason why they are, because they are always done where people worked, where people lived, when people suffered. So these tunes are about trial and tribulations, thereabout. The happy blues can be, say, anything from a good dinner to meeting a fine woman, or meeting a fine man, or having a happy time all day long at a picnic or a party. The sad can be from anywhere from losing a lover, being sick, rainy day, clouds, storm, can't go outdoors, or a headache from being drunk. They're all different, you see. The approach, the approach comes from the way you accept a tune. I always say a lyrical line expressed with a belief in mind will tell the story. You have to sit down and think about it. What you’re saying, how you mean it. I could say I love you, you say I love you, but say I love you with a definite thing, I love you. The voice will tell whether you're in tune with what you're talking about. And sometimes you say I love you, oh, it’s just that, you don’t buy that. But that way, well, you're forced telling it, it will tell you what it means. If you don't mean it, it will show.”