ABOUT CURT MILLER

Curt attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas as a music major studying under trombone master Bill Booth, now one of the most sought after trombonists in the LA recording scene.  The real turning point was at the Orange Coast Jazz Festival where the UNLV Jazz Ensemble was competing.  The “pro” band that was playing at the festival was the Maynard Ferguson band, and during that concert the excitement of the band was all Curt needed to become hopelessly addicted to the instrument and genre.

In 1976, an intern program created by the Music Deptartment with help from Wayne Newton allowed Curt to play the 2nd bone chair in many of the showrooms and that spawned a non-stop career that would last 18 years.  The highlight was getting hired as lead trombonist for the Lew Elias relief orchestra where we played a different showroom every night giving the house orchestras a night off.  Every Monday night was the MGM star policy showroom, Tuesdays at the Frontier Hotel, Wednesdays were MGM Production show (Hallelujah Hollywood), and the other nights included the Riviera Hotel, the Desert Inn and the Sands Copa room.
 “Getting to sight-read a new show nearly every night is something few players ever get to do and the experience and confidence it provided is immeasurable” Curt says.

When the hotels began going “dark” one night a week and moving to a 6 night per week policy in 1983, Curt saw the writing on the wall for relief bands and put the word out he was “looking”.  The Desert Inn Hotel offered him the lead trombone chair and Curt would spend another 5 years there playing such shows as “A Chorus Line”, Ellington’s “Sophisticated Ladies” and a multitude of stars including Sammy Davis Jr., Mel Torme and Jerry Lewis under musical director Jack Eglash.

In 1983 UNLV Dept of Music called Curt and asked him to help build a brand new recording studio and music technology department at UNLV.  Curt had always had an interest in recording, having recorded the UNLV Jazz Ensemble on some of the tours during the early years by lugging around a Pioneer reel to reel recorder.  Curt built the studio and created the curriculum for both the 101 and 201 series recording classes, and would spend the next 11 years in a full time lectureship position at UNLV while simultaneously working at night in the showrooms.  The recording studio became known as a great place to record for jazz and classical, and Curt would record record and produce over 200 CDs for various artists over the those 11 years.

In 1986 while playing Rich Little at the Desert Inn, Rich’s conductor introduced Curt to Artie Butler of Los Angeles who was in town conducting for Suzanne Sommers at another hotel.   Artie (composer of "Here's to Life)" was famous as a producer and arranger, having produced and arranged most all of Barry Manilow’s hits as well as countless others.  Curt spent the next six years making monthly trips with wife Eliane to Artie’s house in Beverly Hills, which also led to recording engagements (as both player and engineer) for numerous Disney projects including the movie “Oliver and Company”.  This would lead to a lifetime friendship between them that still exists today.

By 1990 the big musician’s strike of 1989 had taken a severe toll on hundreds of local players, but fortunately Curt was immediately hired at the Union Plaza showroom, a hotel that did not want to participate in the hotel/musicians fight and had signed a new collective bargaining agreement.  A year later Curt was introduced to Joe Guercio who had just become musical director for the Steve Wynn properties (Golden Nugget, Mirage and Treasure Island).  Joe asked me to be his contractor and assistant musical director for the properties, and they used Curt's big band library for all the casuals and parties at the hotels.”  This partnership would last 5 years, and the two of them also contracted nearly every industrial show that would come to Vegas over those 5 years.  “But even with that success it was getting tougher to make a really good living at it, and the only way I survived was due to the combination of the full time lectureship position at UNLV, combined with the contractor position at Wynn, combined with part time training for a leadership training company” Curt says.

For Curt, the music and recording worlds ended (temporarily) in July 1995.  He was offered a full time position as director of training for Rapport Leadership and he walked away from the trombone and recording world to cut his teeth in the world of business.  “It was an incredible time learning a new world and being awakened to the different income levels outside of the music world. I had to learn how to run a business.”

In 2002 he founded Anexeon, an IT Services company which would eventually become one of the largest of its kind in the state.  “During the years between 2002 and 2008 I was focused entirely on building the business, but when music is in your blood it is hard to stay away from it.  I tried to play the occasional easy gig, but I hated the way I was playing since I wasn’t practicing every day.  You simply can’t be a part time brass player, it requires full time practice to sound half way decent.”  Curt did manage to stay lightly involved in music and recording during those years and was co-producer and engineer for two CDs with Carl Fontana and Jiggs Whigham – “Nice n Easy” and “Keeping up with the Bones’es”.  Sadly, those turned out to be Carl's final recordings.

By 2008 Anexeon was running well, and Curt decided to attempt to become a trombone player again which would require a daily practice ritual.  Curt remembers: “I received a call from Ken Hanlon asking if I still had some of the old Boneheads charts that we used to play at the musician’s union. I had some of them and Ralph Pressler had a few.  Hanlon put together a jazz cruise with Bob McChesney and we all went out on the ship and had a great time playing that book with Bob. I had forgotten how much fun that book was, it had been over 25 years since we used to regularly play that book at the Musician's union hall in the late 70s and early 80s – so I decided to keep it going.  We started withabout 20 of the old Boneheads charts, and since then local writers and arrangers including Curt have written about 60 more arrangements for the group.  It is as fun as it gets for trombone players!”

After that the word got around Curt was playing again and he started getting calls for some of the shows around town – “but only if it’s fun” says Curt.   Some of the really notable shows have been the America’s Got Talent Tour in 2010 for Michael Grimm, Journey, Andrea Bocelli, The WHO, Johnny Mathis, The Grammy's Salute to Frank Sinatra's 100th (TV special), Bob Anderson’s “Frank the Man and the Music”, and in 2019 Curt was hired as the lead trombonist for Lady Gaga’s Jazz and Piano shows at the Park MGM.

Anexeon was sold in 2021 and Curt now enjoys being able to produce/engineer various CD projects as well as playing in shows and jazz groups locally.  In addition, The Las Vegas Boneheads finished their 2nd CD project celebrating the 60th birthday of the group (1962-2022).  The CD is called “Sixty and Still Cookin'” and features Andy Martin as guest artist. 
Curt is currently the President of the Board of Directors for Jazz Outreach Initiative, a 501(c3) non profit education and outreach program supporting jazz.