I was saddened yesterday to read of the death recently of Bill Miller, who for some 40 years was Frank Sinatra’s pianist, and gave his unique touch to such classic Sinatra songs as One For My Baby, Angel Eyes, and so many others.
Bill Miller, the pianist whose light touch set the mood for many of Frank Sinatra’s most memorable songs, died July 11 at Montreal General Hospital at the age of 91. He had a heart attack after breaking his hip July 1 while on tour with Frank Sinatra Jr.
Mr. Miller was the elder Sinatra’s elegant, steady and often inspired accompanist for nearly four decades and was one of the privileged few allowed into the singer’s inner circle. For the past eight years, he had worked with Sinatra’s son.
Mr. Miller, content to toil in the shadows for much of his career, provided the musical framework for some of the elder Sinatra’s finest performances. He was best known for his pensive introduction to the torch song “One for My Baby,” written by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. Sinatra recorded the tune in 1958 and sang it in almost every concert until he stopped performing in 1995.
Mr. Miller’s unhurried piano line sets the mournful tone for the heartsick ballad, with its haunting opening lyric: “It’s quarter to three, there’s no one in the place except you and me.”
Both casual and responsive, Mr. Miller’s piano part was the perfect foil for Sinatra’s confessional storytelling in song.
Listening to the original recording of One For My Baby from 1958, you really feel like you are transported to a bar somewhere. Sinatra is the jilted lover looking to drown his sorrows. Miller the piano player at the back of that smoky bar. It was, and remains, one of Sinatra’s finest recordings.
Miller and Sinatra worked together for many years after that, and became friends (or at least as much as one could become friends with Frank Sinatra) as well as collegues:
An inveterate night owl, Mr. Miller had a pallid complexion that led Sinatra to introduce him onstage as Suntan Charlie. Over time their musical partnership deepened into genuine friendship.
“I was allowed to get closer to him than most people,” Mr. Miller said. “After work, he liked to have a drink or two, and I like to have a drink or two, so we would hang out and talk about whatever was happening — weather, current events, the things guys usually talk about.”
Most people will never know who Bill Miller was, and he never was a prominent member of the Sinatra entourage, but he ranks up there with Nelson Riddle and Billy May as one of the musicians who helped bring The Voice to life.
More thoughts from Todd Zywicki, who also points to this article from the Washington Post about Miller joining Frank Sinatra, Jr.
