Mulgrew Miller (August 13, 1955 – May 29, 2013) was an American
jazz pianist, composer, and educator. As a child he played in churches and was influenced on piano by
Ramsey Lewis and then
Oscar Peterson. Aspects of their styles remained in his playing, but he added the greater harmonic freedom of
McCoy Tyner and others in developing as a
hard bop player and then in creating his own style, which influenced others from the 1980s on.