Each day this week, we're spotlighting the homegrown budding talent sourced via KCRW's Young Creators Project, a community arts mentorship platform celebrating the creative work of SoCal residents under 21.
The past decade or so has cemented Los Angeles as a world capital of contemporary jazz — thriving and forever pushing boundaries. Artists like Jameal Dean, Sharada Shashidhar, Terrace Martin, Thundercat, Kamasi Washington are just a few of the relatively young musicians that keep LA forward-facing. Today’s Young Creators Project finalist, Veritus Miller, could be next to join their ranks. The 19-year-old pianist, percussionist, and composer’s debut “Days With You Are Beautiful” is a frenetic yet tightly paced epic. If this is where we begin, just imagine the sensory adventures that lie ahead.
“There’s a moment in the song,” Miller tells KCRW’s LeRoy Downs, “the interval section is just solo piano. What that’s supposed to represent is like ‘all that happiness and stuff that you were going through, it might be going away.’ You're uncertain, you obviously don't know what's gonna happen next. So it's a little bittersweet. It's like, ‘I'm still happy, but it might be over… oh no!’ But then it comes back around, and that's just how life goes.”
Watch Miller in the video at the top of this page as he performs “Days With You Are Beautiful” for the 2023 Leimert Park Jazz Festival. And use the player button to your left to enjoy his catch up session with longtime family friend Downs (Miller’s father is percussionist and LA community staple Marcus L. Miller and his cousin is saxophonist Kamasi Washington). The two talk going into the family business, embodying the name Veritus, and endings that are actually beginnings.
More: Veritus Miller "Days With You Are Beautiful": Today's Top Tune
CREDITS:
KCRW Music Director: Anne Litt
Interviewer: LeRoy Downs
Producers: Liv Surnow and Anna Chang
Recording Engineer: Katie Gilchrest
Audio Editor/Mix Engineer: Myke Dodge Weiskopf
Digital Producer: Marion Hodges
Digital Editorial Manager: Andrea Domanick
