Dominic Miller, photo: Christoph Bombart/ECM
At this time of the year people like me look back and make best-of lists. People like you look at them even if hiding behind the sofa and probably just roll your eyes and then furtively check out what some of these choices are actually like. Because how are you gonna know otherwise what’s good if you haven’t been closely following what’s going on and want a human as a guide rather than an AI? Understandably there are a lot of distractions out there, prepping to be done; Tinfoil hat thinking and doomscrolling to avoid; worries about war in Europe and beyond to make sense of.
This isn’t in my year best of just yet. But it will be when I do final updates just before all the irrelevant Christmas music avalanche descends.
Because happily yesterday I heard Dominic Miller’s fourth album for ECM Records, Diana, which is rather beautiful and certainly lifted me out of a temporary torpor given its quality and sheer humanity.
Perhaps it shares something in common with the mood of Trio, a Lars Danielsson album featuring the glorious guitar playing of John Parricelli that I loved a few years ago. Inevitably too – and this is what I did when I finished listening – the mood sends you to the world of Astor Piazzolla a bit. I went off and spent time with this version of ‘Cinco Piezas (Five Pieces for Guitar)’:
But there is a twist that doesn’t make the comparison anyway exact. Trio didn’t have bandoneón or indeed drums on it for instance.
Circle back instead to the Miller world even more.
Miller with moustachioed Belgian bass guitarist Nicolas Fiszman – hear him pleasurably on ‘Grand Nicholas‘ with his fellow famous jazz Belgian Philip Catherine on Live at Flagey – Israeli drummer Ziv Ravitz known for Jokers; plus the ex Jeff Beck and Sting keyboardist Englishman Jason Rebello at Berlin jazz club A Trane in 2025 touring Vagabond.
Because like the deeply personal Vagabond where the guitarist paid tribute to his late father, Diana turns its focus toward his mother who died in February and is an elegy that draws on a blend of folk, chamber music and subtle Latin American influences.
Miller plays a nylon-string guitar. The tunes are lovely. But it’s more than sheer melodicism. Check out ‘Jazz Hotel’ to begin with [shared above at the top of the article] and you will know.
It’s Santiago Arias on bandoneón by the way. Arias like Miller is from Argentina in the former’s case the northern province of Jujuy. He was raised near the Bolivian border and takes inspiration from the musical idioms of the north west, forms such as zamba and chacarera, and the urban tango traditions of Buenos Aires.
Arias is in his mid-thirties and joined Miller’s band for the 2019 release Absinthe. His solo bandoneón releases include Fuellisto.
Miller watchers will be reassured that also on Diana long-time collaborators Nicolas Fiszman on bass guitar and Ziv Ravitz on drums are also on the record.
Miller, 66, of Argentinian and English heritage born in Buenos Aires, down the years has been a key collaborator of Sting’s.
You may also know his contributions to massive but controversial at the time Phil Collins 1989 hit ‘Another Day in Paradise’ and the hugely moving Ten Summoner’s Tales (1993) classic ‘Shape of My Heart’ that Miller co-wrote with Sting.
Diana, recorded in France, a country that’s home to Miller, at a studio famed for late life Ahmad Jamal classic Saturday Morning, is out in November.
