Legendary keyboardist John Medeski and acclaimed cornetist Kirk Knuffke join forces as The Angelic Brothers, a masterful collaboration that mixes jazz, experimental sounds, and improvisation—drawing inspiration from the visionary work of the Sun Ra Arkestra. Their first Miller appearance promises an electrifying fusion of craft and invention.

Angelic Brothers Description:
From a shared lifelong love of the music and mystery of Sun Ra, John Medeski and Kirk Knuffke created Angelic Brothers, a piano cornet duo, with a recording of the same name in the works. Sun Ra’s visionary music not only looks forward and outward across the cosmos, but also echoes the entire history of jazz, from ragtime through the swing era into free jazz and beyond. Working from the original scores Medeski and Knuffke present a variety of classics and deep cuts exploring aspects of the arrangements never recorded. Playful, swinging, intimate, and deep, Angelic Brothers reveals the true universality of these songs and their rich possibilities for new interpretations and discoveries.

Bios:

All About Jazz calls cornetist Knuffke, “one of modern jazz’s most skilled navigators of the divide between inside and outside, freedom and swing”. He has released 18 records as a leader/co-leader, including Cherryco, NPR’s best jazz album of the year 2017. Winner of Downbeat magazine’s “rising star 2015” and tagged by the New York Times as “one of NYC’s busiest musicians” Knuffke has collaborated and performed with Roswell Rudd, Allison Miller, Myra Melford, William Parker, Marshall Allen, Tootie Heath, and Billy Hart, to name a few. His ability to “perfectly balance sly groove and meditative exploration” (Time Out NY) has impressed audiences and critics across the planet.

Famed keyboardist John Medeski is not easily contained to a single genre; he is credited on over 300 works to date, most notably as one third of the groundbreaking trio, Medeski Martin and Wood.Equally comfortable behind a Steinway grand piano, Hammond organ, or any number of vintage keyboards, Medeski is a highly sought after improviser and band leader whose projects range from work with John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette, The Word, the Dirty Dozen, Vernon Reid and Jack Bruce to Susana Baca, Sean Lennon, David Byrne, Reggie Workman, the Blind Boys of Alabama and many more. More recently, in 2023, he composed and performed the original score for the television series "The Curse," created by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, starring Emma Stone.