When it comes to their brand of joyful jazz, Sammy Miller and his band - called the Congregation – can take inspiration from anywhere. Their live show features songs from 150 years of American Music, which they combine with a generous helping of high energy charm.
But here – at Newbury Park High School, they seem to be able to make jazz out of almost nothing. Even something as basic as the tune "hot cross buns."
Miller and the Congregation are here, teaching a one-off workshop for High School students.
"I'm here to give other people the tools to bring themselves joy. I mean, that's what I'm interested in pushing for these students. Same principles in what we're trying to do when we play for people, but now we're trying to give students the skills to bring joy for themselves," Miller told KCLU.
The music room at the High School is full of budding musicians of the future, who are told to turn their music stands away from them, and gradually over the space of 45 minutes, they grow a simple childhood tune – hot cross buns – into one which they can not only all play confidently together but bring in the improvisation techniques Miller is helping them to explore.
"Music, is not just a language, is a universal language," says Miller. "So we have to babble and we have to mimic before we can be creative and really create. So jazz is a great vehicle for that. And once we learn how the language works, then we can do whatever we want with that language. But I'm trying to teach them those building blocks of babbling and messing up a lot, just like a one year old would do."
In the space of just one class, he makes a difference for these young musicians, who are now heads up, making eye contact with each other and playing with pep.
Like student Emily Crystal, who plays the French horn.
"I've never worked on Improvization like that. I think my main takeaway would just be that jazz really can be made out of anything," said Crystal.
And Brayden Nieva, who carefully places his saxophone away after the session.
"I just enjoy being able to see pros play in front of me. It's nice to see what I can become later in my career," said Nieva, 15.
"I guess one of the main things is to be like more loose and like, I guess not less serious, but less like anxious about everything. Music is definitely a language. There is a lot to it that you need to know to go to speak it fluently," said Nieva.
For Miller, coming here to teach isn’t about intimidating them with musical terms, or the pressure of performance, but passing the baton to ignite the passion for playing music in the next generation.
"So much of music education is concert to concert. Getting ready for pep band - Winter Band. And I'm just trying to give them some skills so they can play music long after school is over when they're adults, for their children or for the grandchildren, for their great grandchildren," said Miller.
And Sammy Miller and the Congregation will be playing at the Scherr Forum in Thousand Oaks on Friday November 1st.
