He’s truly blessed, and wow, is he gifted. But for pianist and vocalist Ivo Monroe Miller, it’s all about appreciation and giving back. Miller, who had a near-death experience in early 2009, was told by his doctor that had he
He’s truly blessed, and wow, is he gifted. But for pianist and vocalist Ivo Monroe Miller, it’s all about appreciation and giving back.
Miller, who had a near-death experience in early 2009, was told by his doctor that had he not gone to the hospital, that may have been his last day alive.
“Dr (Christopher) Jordan saved my life,” Miller said. “I had three-feet of gangrene in my intestines. I’m fine, now.”
Miller, who found out from an uncle his grandmother died from the same ailment, scar tissue, said the gangrene built up over the past forty-plus years, following the removal of his appendix at the age of 11.
“I’m better than ever-I feel like I’m in my 40s,” he said.
Ever grateful to Dr. Jordan, Miller said it’s fitting that he’s now playing for patients at Wilcox Hospital on a grand piano that was donated.
“I hear that’s becoming commonplace on the Mainland,” he said of musical therapy in hospitals. “They bring the patients down, and it makes them feel better – it makes me feel better, too.”
No doubt it makes even the healthy feel better, as the sounds of Miller are relaxing, soothing and airy.
Miller has had a long time to perfect his music, as he got his start playing piano at the age of five.
“I’ve just stuck with it forever,” Miller said. “On the farm back home, it hurt dad’s back bringing the piano up the stairs-it was a big, old upright-as time went on, we traded it in for a better one.” Miller said his mom had musical talent as well, but that she
quit because her father was “grumpy and she was very sensitive.” It wasn’t until long following Miller’s plunking around on that family piano that he picked up tunes by ear. Despite lessons, he didn’t read sheet music until he was eight.
“I had the first teacher fooled from the ages of five and eight because I couldn’t read (sheet music) and I would play by ear after she played something,” he said. “Then my next teacher said, ‘You can’t read, can you?’ and I was found out.”
Following the insight of that music teacher, sheet music and a music education at the University of Miami provided a broader variety of music for Miller, who began building up the range of genres he could play-a range that now includes classical, jazz, Latin, Hawaiian and even Filipino songs. Miller said his musical influences in life have included George Gershwin, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, anything Big Band and the works of Antonio Carlos Jobin.
“If he’s alive, he’s still writing music,” he said. “He is so prolific.”
That broad range of influence and range of ability has proven to be an asset over the years for Miller, who spent much of his musical career touring on the road in Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa in the 70s before playing piano and singing vocals on cruise ships.
“It’s quite a life,” he said. “Orlando, Atlanta, Minneapolis, three years in each city then I got hooked up with cruise lines.”
Miller said meeting his wife, the Director of Hospice at Wilcox, made him give up that life. “I hung up my sea legs when I met my wife, Lori Miller,” he said. “We’ve been married 16 years now. And then (our son) Jordan came along, and life is now complete.”
That kind of appreciative attitude resonates from Miller, and into his music. Whether he’s singing the praises of Lemongrass for the free meal they give him when he plays there (he says the food is “terrific,” and that he loves their “mahi mahi, ribs and seabass,”) lauding the efforts of the doctor who saved his life or describing the beauty of the island, it seems being positive just works for Miller.
“I never thought I’d be on this beautiful island, I never thought I’d live in Hawai’i,” he said.
Those wanting to hear those positive vibes can do so either by purchasing his CDs, “Tropical Lovin’” and “Christmas Tears” at JC Flowers in Kapa’a, Strings in Hanalei, Lihu’e Border’s Books Music and Movies, or online at CDbaby.com, or by tuning into KQNG and KKCR (which play his songs regularly).
The albums feature two songs which won awards, “Tropical Lovin’” and “Come to the Islands.” The fact that the songs are enduring some success makes Miller yet again grateful, who noted, “I think it’s a sign it’s not my time to go yet.”
• See Ivo Monroe Miller live at from 6- 9 p.m. Friday – Sundaynight at Lemongrass in Kapa’a or Tuesdays -Thursday at WilcoxMemorial Hospital in Lihu’e.
