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Michael Wolff (Jazz)
Pop, Jazz, World, Freeform
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Michael Wolff is a genuine hipster -- a Manhattan-based family man and internationally acclaimed pianist-composer-bandleader whose late night, blue light singing on Love and Destruction, his tenth album, brings new cool to an inspired selection of rock/pop classics as well as his own tunes about the well-lived life.
A baby boomer in his prime, Wolff is renown for his jazz roots and his melodically fresh and rhythmically compelling multi-keyboard style. A New Orleans native who’s father taught him blues on piano before he began classical lessons at age eight, Michael also grew up in Memphis and Berkeley, California, getting his first significant professional gig when he was 19 from Latin jazz vibist Cal Tjader. He made his recording debut with Cannonball Adderley’s band in 1975, and has worked extensively with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, Sonny Rollins, Tony Williams, Christian McBride and others including his late friend Warren Zevon and singer Nancy Wilson, for whom he wrote orchestral arrangements and conducted more than 25 major symphony orchestras during world-wide tours. Taking his talents to television, Wolff became Bandleader and Musical Director for the "....nio Hall Show," a position held for the 5 1/2 year run of the show.
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After the show ended, Wolff jumped back into the jazz scene with a string of highly-regarded recordings. Wolff’s band Impure Thoughts, launched in 2000, is an infectious improvising ensemble, featuring Indian tabla player Badal Roy, drummer Mike (Headhunters) Clark and electric bassist John B. Williams, all of whom appear on Love and Destruction, Wolff’s first release on Wrong Records.
Over the course of Love and Destruction, Wolff suggests his kinship to Leonard Cohen, Donovan, Jagger, Zevon, Mose Allison, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Fagen and Becker of Steely Dan and a host of bluesmen – those observers of several sides of life, who admit to few illusions but hold onto a measure of hope if not faith. Featuring a mix of rock and alternative favorites (from The Rolling Stones' 'Miss You' to Radiohead's 'Everything in its Right Place' to such classics as 'Stop! In the Name of Love',) the album marks an evolution of Wolff's eclectic sound. He adds, "I’ve given up on trying to be hip. I’m just being myself.” Which is the hippest state of all. |
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Acoustic
