Drummer/composer Allison Miller presents a special night of original music showcasing her regularly touring band, Boom Tic Boom. This leading-edge sextet’s music—featuring Gary Versace on piano, Jenny Scheinman on violin, Kirk Knuffke on cornet, Ben Goldberg on clarinet, Todd Sickafoose on bass, and Miller on drums—is at turns challenging and accessible, teasing and tough, virtuosic but never overbearing. It thrives on surprises spawned from collective improvisation and projects a vast array of tonal colors, explosive dynamics, rhythmic and harmonic shape-shifts and rich emotions.

Miller will be featuring music from her new release, Otis was a Polar Bear (Royal Potato Family),written a couple months after the birth of her daughter Josie. The album is inspired and dedicated to Josie and further highlights the band’s chemistry and Miller’s development as a composer/arranger. The new material is full of surprises and has been described as a celebratory genre-busting organic mash up of Bach, clave, klezmer, and the Jazz Messengers.

Otis was a Polar Bear is preceded by the critically acclaimed No Morphine, No Lilies (4.5 stars/Best of 2013- Downbeat Magazine), Live at Williasu (Editors Pick-Downbeat Magazine) and BOOM TIC BOOM (“Top 10 Jazz Album of 2010-LA Times).

“Miller’s craftiness as a percussionist is met by her ingenuity as a composer and group conceptualist.” -The New Yorker

7:30pm | $18, $15 mbrs | +$3 at the door