Truth Is Few unsung jazz players are as deserving of wider recognition as Steve Million, one of the busiest pianists in Chicago and the Midwest. The national jazz press is in his corner: Down Beat and Jazz Times, not to mention newspapers across the country, heaped accolades on his first two Palmetto albums - Million to One and Thanks a Million - and no doubt his new recording Truth Is will follow their critical path. With the print media won over, Million is ready to acquire a loyal fan base outside Chicago, performing recently in Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and St. Paul, with many other jazz-friendly cities and Europe to come.

Million understands the importance of recording with New York's Palmetto Records, a label with a solid nationwide reputation and the capacity to get jazz releases in record stores throughout the country. "I think that recording, producing, and finding a record company to release three CDs of my music has been the most significant event of the past five years," he says. "These events have led to personal and professional relationships with [trumpeter] Randy Brecker, [bassist] Michael Moore, [sax players] Chris Potter and Dick Oatts directly and with many others indirectly. Slowly but surely, I seem to be moving in the direction I need to be going in and, believe me, after years of simply pursuing enough work to make a living, this feels very rewarding." And Million wants it known how important drummer Ron Vincent is to his success so far: "He's been my loyal friend and musical ally for 20 years and has co-produced all three of my CDs."

Million's a rare prize. His piano playing is distinct, intelligent, emotionally generous, swinging, shaped by timbres and rhythms that speak of his passion for the music of Thelonious Monk and his great respect for progenitors like Duke Ellington, Cedar Walton, and Paul Bley. His compositional skills are every bit as sharp and persuasive as the spry, intricate dance of his fingers on the keys, and evidence an uncommonly fertile musical mind. The Chicago Reader's Neil Tesser, one of his earliest supporters, has noted, "Million shapes both his improvisations and his compositions like a careful sculptor."

Truth Is deserves repeated listens. Allowing himself more room for piano playing than on previous albums, Million establishes considerable individuality when essaying "Right Place, Wrong Key, an original tune written in the spirit of Monk, and when alluding to the time-honored jazz stride piano style on his unaccompanied rendition of Monk's "Gallop's Gallop." His bossa nova "Fireflies," where world-class musicians Randy Brecker and Dick Oatts plumb arresting moods, is a nod to Antonio Carlos Jobim without being the least bit imitative. Million brings startling new life to his bold arrangement of the chestnut "All the Things You Are," playing the melody and chords in different keys. The lyrical, bluesy title track features some especially rich playing from both Brecker and Oatts, while another outstanding original, "Terror of Toni Town," named both for his wife and the oddball 1938 Western film that featured a cast of diminutive people, appears to be loosely based on "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise."

"Perfectly Spaced" and "Nomadrigal" are updates of material Million wrote in the '70s when he and album bass player Michael Moore, drummer Ron Vincent, and guitarist Steve Cardenas - all of whom perform splendidly on these tracks and others - were working together as the band Four Friends. The pianist says the Truth Is selection "Black Water" also connects with his jazz past. "I used to play it with Steve years ago in some other groups we were in. That song harks back to before I moved to Kansas City. [Atmospherically] it's kind of about living out in the country, being a kid out in the farms. I lived near a town called Black Water, Missouri."

Flash back to the Show Me State in the early 1960s. Million underwent his initial jazz revelation when the mighty Count Basie Orchestra visited his neck of the woods and the famous bandleader invited the 7-year-old to sit next to him on the piano bench for the second half of a concert. Today, Million still marvels over the experience: "It was like a dream."

Million began getting serious about the piano and music in college at North Texas State and the University of Missouri at Kansas City. "For a while my writing was actually more advanced than my playing," he recalls, "But from 1978 to 1981 I started performing at jazz gigs and working hard." The start of the '80s found him spending a year in the very center of the jazz universe, New York City. "Up to then, I was mostly playing my own compositions, but in New York I learned standards and really made the commitment to be a professional musician." Upon his return to Kansas City, Million started working extensively as a solo pianist. The aforementioned Four Friends group and a position as musical director for blues-and-jazz singer Ida McBeth, along with other projects, filled the remainder of his time until his move to Chicago in 1988. In that same year, not incidentally, he traveled to Washington D.C. and made a favorable impression on the great pianist Sir Roland Hanna and other keen evaluators of talent as a semifinalist in the annual Thelonious Monk Piano Competition.

Million's debut album, Million to One, with Randy Brecker, Michael Moore, Ron Vincent and Chris Potter, was released in 1995 to uncommonly high praise for a debut recording. Down Beat's Thomas Conrad awarded the disc 4 stars and Jazz Times' Patricia Myers wrote, "Million's originals speak well of their author...." Thanks a Million, out two years later, earned a coveted 4 1/2 star rating from Down Beat's Frank-John Hadley, who exclaimed "the Chicagoan brings discipline, personality, imagination, talent and quiet passion to his playing and songwriting." Deni Kasrel of Jazz Times gushed, "Reminds me of the best bands led by Horace Silver or Lee Morgan!"

As a fixture on the Chicago jazz scene, Million says he's "working all the time." There are his numerous solo piano engagements around town. Frequent duet gigs, too, and many engagements alongside drummer Robert Shy and organist Mike Kocour in a locally popular band known as Monk's Dream. Plus, there have been a good number of performances by the Steve Million Trio, with Tim Davis on drums and Dave Marr on bass.

Whether recording for Palmetto or performing live in one setting or another, Million possesses the music he plays, zigzagging unpredictably around the melody, emphasizing unlikely phrases, and giving his note choices rich emotional color. He always steers clear of cliche and predictability. It's well within reason to suggest that Million's wise and illuminating jazz music makes the listener feel that he or she is being spoken to personally.

Count on jazzophiles everywhere embracing Steve Million and his fine new album Truth Is, sooner rather than later. After all, he's one in a.... # # #