Joni Miller is a dedicated musician - songwriter, bassist, singer. She leads The Usual Suspects - singing, playing, originals + other peoples music. Friends. Playing Music. Together. Recently she has played bass in the Mattaeyus Moon Trio, and The Planza and the Non Prophet Society, a blues/rock act ouf of Kelowna. The musicial search is about authenticity and excellence. The life search is for truth and absurdity.
Before the Usual Suspects, there was Miller/Eastman band, a collaboration with guitarist extraordinaire Vince Eastman, from 2002 to 2010. Joni and Vince met at a jam in the (now defunct) El Cocal on Commercial Drive in Vancouver. Although Joni had been playing guitar for some years, in the face of Vince's obvious superiority on the instrument, she began nurturing her love for the bass. MillerEastman band performed around BC and into Alberta, in bars, biker rallies, restaurants, festivals, backyards, the Pharmasave in Salmon Arm... you name it. The repertoire ranged from ACDC to latin jazz, and included original material. There was always the intention of recording an album, and work had begun on that project in earnest in 2010 at Blue Light Studios when Vince was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. Colon cancer is one that sneaks up on you. The symptoms are kinda vague - until they aren't.
MillerEastman (then a trio with Rino Marrone) made their last performance on November 17, 2010. Vince slipped out of his body on January 28, 2011, with Joni by his side.
It was a time of overwhelming grief and disorientation, but there was a driving thought "I must find some new musicians". So, Joni dragged herself up to a nearby jam session at the Libra Room on Commercial Drive. She had no intention of participating. The plan was to sit quietly in the back drinking beer and checking out the scene. But - on stage there was a man playing credible blues guitar and a drummer with an unoccupied bass guitar sitting on a stand between them. It was like it was meant to be, and by the next set Joni was sitting in with guitarist Craig Anthony and Daniel Lunn on drums. Shortly after that, Joni began co-hosting the jam with Craig - an interesting three years of Tuesday nights backing up all comers.
And the Tuesday night jam also introduced her to Amrit Basi and Mattaeyus Moon.
Joni comes from a singing, dancing, instrument playing extended family and began her musical training at the age of 6, with classical piano lessons, eventually reaching Grade 8 Royal Conservatory. She found that the piano gave her an outlet for emotion and imagined that her future was in being a concert pianist, expressing herself through Bach and Beethoven, while writing award winning science fiction novels in her spare time.
Then the Beatles happened.
Uh oh.
Break out the stringed instruments - guitar, mandolin. Delve into improvisational piano. Start writing little rock ditties.
In her high school years there was a late night CBC radio show "Crossroads" and she got hooked on the blues. Insomnia has its purposes.
As a teenager, there was a duo with her cousin Judy where they knocked off acoustic renditions of Led Zeppelin songs, and other fun things like that. A later attempt at an all girls rock band never quite got off the ground.
Other things occured, like 7 years devoted to social justice, specifically the women's movement, which led to becoming a self defense instructor, and later a karate black belt. Followed by motherhood. Some of her fiction got published, mostly short stories.
The relationship with the father of her children came apart in 1994, and with it, the miracle of co-parenting. Suddenly, after years of frenzied activity, there was space. The kids were with Dad half the time. Joni began studying guitar, first with Scott Triffo, then Daryl Jenke, which led into a year long composition class led by Danny Casavant, then further studies at the Georgia Strait Guitar Workshop, and its' parent organization, Puget Sound Guitar Workshop.
By around 1998 there was an acoustic act - mostly a duo, sometimes a trio, sometimes even bigger than that. Joni Miller & Friends appeared around the Lower Mainland in coffee houses and restaurants, community festivals, performing 90% Joni's original music. Bob Beazer was the constant in that group - on guitar and back-up vocals.
In 2001 a chance meeting with Iraqi artist Jabbar al Janabi led to a number of years of collaboration on Jabbar's amazing ANU project - improvised, multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary performances involving dance, poetry, live painting, music. It was a time of joyful and creative exploration with a wealth of local artists.
