by Scott YanowA fixture on the Chicago jazz scene since 1988, pianist Steve Million finally made his recorded debut as a leader in the mid-1990's with Million To One (on Palmetto), featuring Randy Brecker and Chris Potter. Million remembers seeing and talking to Count Basie when he was seven. Although he played a little bit of piano as a child, he did not take music seriously until high school. Million spent a year at North Texas State and then studied classical music at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. During 1978-80 he worked steadily in the Kansas City area, spent a year in New York, moved back to Kansas City and during 1984-88 was the musical director for blues singer Ida McBeth. He moved to Chicago in 1988, was a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk Piano Competition and has worked in many different settings since including with Kevin Mahogany, Von Freeman, Carmell Jones, Slide Hampton and Ira Sullivan among many others. For a time Million headed an unusual piano-organ-drums trio called Monk's Dream that exclusively performed Thelonious Monk tunes.