Israel-born, Manhattan-based jazz/fusion guitarist Oz Noy likes to play the field. Musically, that is.
Noy is a recurring fixture with his trio every few years at the Funky Biscuit in Boca Raton, where he appears again for two shows on August 21. In his 2019 debut at the venue, that trio was rounded out by young French bass virtuoso Hadrien Feraud (whose credits include John McLaughlin, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Gino Vannelli) and former Chick Corea drumming icon Dave Weckl. In 2022, it was former Yellowjackets and Allan Holdsworth bassist Jimmy Haslip and fusion guitarist Mike Stern’s current extraordinary drummer, Dennis Chambers.
This year, the drummer is longtime Steely Dan member Keith Carlock. And the bassist is Manhattan-born, South Florida-raised rising star Brad Adam Miller. Talk about having friends in high places in all cases. Both Noy and Carlock are a generation older than Miller, who’s only 31 (Noy moved to the United States while in his mid-20s in 1996, two years after Miller was born).
The young, largely self-taught bassist now splits time between New York City and South Florida, where he received an unofficial education while growing up by working with musicians like multi-wind instrumentalist Ira Sullivan, guitarist Randy Bernsen and steel drummer Othello Molineaux. Each had crossed paths musically with Jaco Pastorius, the Pennsylvania-born fretless bass legend who’d moved to the Sunshine State before tragically dying at age 35 after a Wilton Manors nightclub altercation in 1987.
Some of Miller’s Jaco connections were even more direct.
“I moved down to Fort Lauderdale with my mom when I was 11 years old,” Miller says by phone from his home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “When I was 16, I moved in nearby with Julius Pastorius [Jaco’s son, a talented drummer], so it was natural to meet musicians like Ira, Randy, and Othello.”
Miller has built both local and Big Apple connections since his late teens. After sitting in with Noy’s band at the 55 Bar in Greenwich Village, the bassist scored a residency gig at a New York City steakhouse called Richie’s. He was able to add any personnel he wanted, so the first-call guitarist was one of his first calls, and Noy accepted.
“I even helped book Oz’s first show at the Funky Biscuit in 2019,” Miller says. “He needed a contact, and I gave him [owner] Al Poliak’s number.”
Carlock has worked with Noy for more than 20 years, and appeared on his 2006 debut Oz Live (Magnatude), recorded at the Bitter End in New York City in 2002. Educated at the acclaimed University of North Texas, the Mississippi-born Carlock (whose additional credits include Wayne Krantz, Sting, John Mayer, James Taylor, Chris Botti, and Toto) has been called the best drummer Steely Dan ever had by its founding vocalist. keyboardist and songwriter, Donald Fagen. That’s high praise among a list that includes Chambers, Steve Gadd, and Peter Erskine.
Comparatively, Noy and Miller have learned less through schooling and more through hands-on experience. The young bassist will be playing only his second show with Carlock, but says the first went so well that a sequel was in order.
“We first played at Beardfest in Hammonton, New Jersey on June 26,” says Miller, “and it was awesome. It was in an outdoor setting in the woods, and I got to play with Keith, one of my favorite drummers.”
Other instrumentalists on Noy’s albums include keyboardists Dave Kikoski, Jim Beard and George Whitty, drummers Vinnie Colaiuta, Anton Fig and Steve Ferrone, and bassists Will Lee, John Patitucci and Jimmy Johnson.
“I’ve gotten used to working with musicians who play on a very high level,” Noy says in an understatement. “Spoiled, perhaps.”
The guitarist’s latest recording is Fun One (Criss Cross Jazz), featuring standards by John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. It’s a quartet setting with Kikoski, bassist James Genus and drummer Clarence Penn, with the album released on one of traditional jazz’s signature recording labels. Noy’s trio at the Funky Biscuit will likely focus more on his own creative compositions and notoriously funky facelifts of material by artists ranging from Prince and The Meters to Bonnie Raitt and the Beach Boys.
Which means Miller, who started on electric bass at age 7 and added acoustic upright at age 10 (utilizing it with his self-titled big band earlier this year at Crazy Uncle Mike’s in Boca Raton), will be playing his Moollon electric axe on material that exemplifies Noy’s website declaration of, “It’s jazz — it just doesn’t sound like it.”
That’s because it’s jazz/fusion, the post-British invasion electrified subgenre that resuscitated sagging acoustic jazz starting in the late 1960s via trumpeter Davis and his gifted offshoot musicians and composers. Those open-minded non-traditionalists included Corea, McLaughlin, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, and Billy Cobham.
Funky Biscuit patrons on August 21 can thus expect the unexpected. Noy’s medleys range from Monk to James Brown, and he’s likely to call on material from his two volumes of Twisted Blues and display his range of chordal and effects mastery on originals from banner releases like Booga Looga Loo (2019) and Snapdragon (2020).
As for Miller, the Pastorius shadow looms long and large, especially because of the similar trajectories and all-encompassing approaches. The late bassist also cast a wide net in settings from the horn-drenched R&B of Blood, Sweat & Tears and intricate popular music of Joni Mitchell to the powerful fusion of Weather Report and high-octane material he released under his own name in large and small groups.
Thus far, Miller’s credits are mostly in wide-ranging live settings including with rising jazz saxophonist Patrick Bartley Jr., the hip-hop-tinged fusion act Blaque Dynamite, and his own groups. His big band has included former Pastorius steel drum icon Molineaux; his small groups not only Noy but drummers Thomas Pridgen (The Mars Volta) and Ari Hoenig (Jean-Michel Pilc). Miller has avoided playing fretless, other than on his acoustic upright bass, in part to avoid Jaco comparisons. But he could put his own stamp on music exactly 50 years after the giant steps of the fretless master’s groundbreaking, self-titled 1976 debut.
“I’ve been working on my own album,” Miller says, “and I’m about two years into the process. I’ve recorded at the Power Station in Pompano Beach with Adam Deitch [drummer for Lettuce], Oteil Burbridge [bassist for the Allman Brothers Band and Col. Bruce Hampton & The Aquarium Rescue Unit] and an awesome keyboardist, BIGYUKI.”
It’s also bound to be jazz, whether it sounds like it or not.
If You Go
Oz Noy, Keith Carlock and Brad Adam Miller appear at the Funky Biscuit, 303 S.E. Mizner Blvd. in Boca Raton.
When: 6 and 9 p.m. Thursday, August 21
Tickets: $50-$60
Info: 561-395-2929, funkybiscuit.com