Pianist Bill Miller played with Red Norvo and with Charlie Barnet in the
1930s and 1940s. In 1951, he was playing the Skyroom in the Desert Inn
in Las Vegas with a jazz trio when Jimmy Van Heusen heard him and
introduced him to Sinatra who was doing an engagement at the Painted
Desert Room. Sinatra’s accompanist had just left him and he was in the
middle of his career slump. Of course, Sinatra knew Miller from his work
with Norvo and Barnet.
Bill Miller about their first meeting: “I immediately started playing
solos on songs he liked, and playing the notes that I knew he would like
- the pretty notes. And then Frank came up to me and said, ‘How would
you like to work with me, kid?’”
Miller began playing for Sinatra at the Desert Inn and soon began
accompanying him on his CBS show as well. Miller first recorded with
Sinatra on all four of his sessions in 1952, his final year with
Columbia. He was still there when Sinatra made his famous comeback and
he stayed with him until the very end, easily making him the musician
who was working with Sinatra the longest.
He was also Sinatra’s friend. Sinatra called him “Suntan Charlie,” because he was so pale, and sometimes variations on this nickname. In
November of 1964, Miller’s house was in a terrible mudslide, which
resulted in the death of his wife.
Bill Zehme: “Bill Miller and his wife and his daughter had been asleep
that morning in their Burbank home when the reservoir behind the
property burst. The water - ungodly furies of water - crashed down on
the house, ripped it apart, swept everything down the hillside. His
daughter, quite miraculously, escaped. He and his wife did not. 'I flew
out, she flew out, cars came through, I thought I was going to drown,'
he recalls. In flood rapids, he was washed down the street, clung for
two hours to the roof of a car in a storm drain, before rescue arrived.
Then he lost consciousness. His wife, he would later learn, was already
gone. Frank was there, at St. Joseph's, when he woke that night, the
first face he saw. Frank assured him that his daughter was all right.
'How about my wife?' 'We don't know. Don't worry about a thing,
everything will be taken care of.' The next time he awoke, Frank told
him. He had gone to the morgue and identified the body. She had been in
the water for a long time. For the next thirty-some years, he would
shake his head mournfully and say - although never to Bill Miller -
'It's a picture I can't get outta my head.' To Miller, he said this:
'Bill, if it's any consolation, there wasn't a mark on her.' 'Which,'
Miller says now, 'was maybe a lie, I don't know.'
He stayed in the hospital for two weeks (all bills paid), then Frank
brought him to his Palm Springs place for another two, easing him back
to the life that goes on. Then he found him a nice apartment, got it
furnished, made sure father and daughter were comfortable readjusting.
'He got me a break on the rent, and paid for the first two and last
month's security,' says Miller. 'Had the secretaries running around
buying dishes and housewares. Had the lawyers getting my papers
together. The house was cleaned out. Including a coin collection, which,
I don't know, was probably stolen by the police. But he came through
like a giant.’”
Bill Miller (1970): “One thing I can say about Frank: a lot of the unfavorable newspaper stories you’ve read about him are not just
exaggerated - they’re completely untrue. Because in many cases I’ve been there and I know what happened. The facts have been twisted around to
make an unhappy incident sound like he was just a bad character.
Sometimes it’s just been a case of being a little angry at somebody
and saying something that we all might say. If someone calls you a nasty
name, you’re liable to turn round and call them one, aren’t you? As a matter of fact, I think he’s more tolerant than he needs to be. Because he’s a target you see, much more so than you or I would be, of course.
Many times he just kind of brushes the whole thing off: ‘Oh, what the
hell. Nothing new.’”
Bill Miller (1970): “He is a perfectionist. I forget the song, but I
remember we did fourteen takes on one occasion. However, they’re
deceiving fourteen takes could mean that on the very second bar of the introduction somebody goofed and we’d have to start again.
But singing–wise normally, to strike an average, I’d say usually by
the third or fourth take he’s got it in the can. Even if the dynamics of
the orchestra are not quite what they should be, if his vocal is what he
thinks is it, he’ll say: ‘Well, that sounds good enough to me.’ He’s able to assess his own work very accurately.
When it’s a completely new song, I always run it down for him, and rehearse it with him. He’s a very fast learner; unless it’s a really unusual song, constructed in a strange way then it may take a little
longer.
He does read just a little. He can pick out certain notes; which he
does on the piano, too. Singly, he knows where every note is; he can differentiate A flat from E flat, etc. But reading per se, no. I would
say he has quite an above–average ear.
Frank is one of the few singers I know who hardly ever sings out of
tune. VERY rarely. And then only perhaps one little note; maybe it’s one
of those tough songs, let’s say, where he has had a problem. After
twelve takes, there’s not much left, so you settle for the best of the
lot, you see. Otherwise we’d have to come back and do it again which
we’ve done and the same thing might occur. As I say, that’s a very rare occasion.
If it just wasn’t up to his standard, he’d scrap it. I wouldn’t say he’s
scrapped a lot of things, but there have been a few that, after he’s
heard it three or four times, he’s decided that his performance wasn’t really what it should be. Occasionally we’d go back and re–do it, but
most of the time just drop it entirely.
As for the quality of Frank’s voice today I think he sounds as good
now, if not better, than he did, say, fifteen years ago. His voice has
matured sort of mellowed. Also his capacity to swing has increased.
The final decision about material and treatment is always his. He
says : ‘Here’s the way I think we’ll do it’ and that’s how it’s done.
For the most part they’re all his own ideas. When a session is coming
up, there’s a general conference and exchange of thoughts between
everybody involved. Or he may have a concept for an album long before a consultation, and he just says: ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ It’s only when there’s a little doubt in his mind that he may be open to suggestions.”
Guitarist Al Viola: “Bill is the best. If you listen to the few records
they did without any orchestra, like 'Where or When,' where it's just
the two of them alone, you can hear the strong structure of his
harmonies backing Sinatra. It's perfect!”
Photo: Frank Sinatra and Bill Miller, 1965
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