Michael Wolff to play INNtone Festival in Austria
Michael Wolff will be playing at the INNtone Festival in Austria on May 23, 2010. He will be playing with Franz Hackl, and the will begin at 3:00pm. More information to come!
More: http://www.inntoene.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=27
One More Weekend at the Knickerbocker
Michael Wolff will be playing one more weekend at the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill in New York City. The dates are set for Friday and Saturday, April 23rd & 24th. Come out and have a great meal and hear some great music!
More: http://www.facebook.com/michaelwolffmusic?ref=ts
Michael to Play the Knickerbocker 4 Weekends in a Row!
Michael will be playing one of his favorite venues in NYC four weekends in a row! February 26 & 27, March 5 & 6, 12 & 13 and 19 & 20 he will be at the Knickerbocker Bar & Grill with a different trio each weekend. Check out his Tour Page for more details. Come on out for dinner, the food is great and then relax and enjoy Michael's music!
Michael Sells Out the Kennedy Center Jazz Club - Recorded For NPR
On Saturday, October 24th, Michael and his trio, Chip Jackson and Victor Jones, with Special Guest Steve Wilson sold out the Kennedy Center Jazz Club in Washington, DC for two sets. The performance was a Dr. Billy Taylor Select Performance, and Dr. Taylor was in attendance for both shows, and sat in with the band during the first set.
The whole evening was recorded by NPR's JazzSet with DeeDee Bridgewater for future airing. We'll announce here when we know the exact dates.
Michael called "one of the most engaging all-around performers in the jazz game"
Michael just performed a concert at the Florence Gould Theater at the Honor of Legion in San Francisco. As luck would have it, and is typical with airlines these days, his regular trio was unable to make the concert. But, he called on two long-time friends, Akira Tana on drums and Peter Barshay on bass. They lit the place on fire! Here is the review from the Contra Costa Times:
Review: Michael Wolff a master entertainer at SFJAZZ show
By Jim Harrington
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 06/15/2009 11:34:33 AM PDT
Updated: 06/15/2009 11:40:13 AM PDT
Michael Wolff spent the first part of his career surrounded by jazz legends.
The Louisiana-born, Berkeley-raised pianist was just 19 when he broke into the business as a member of Cal Tjader's band in the early '70s. A few years later, he made his recording debut alongside the great Cannonball Adderley. He went on to perform with Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter and several other A-list jazz stars.
The 54-year-old former UC Berkeley student, who now lives in New York, surely learned much from those undisputed jazz masters. In retrospect, however, his greatest tutor might have even been late-night TV host Arsenio Hall. As the band leader and musical director for "The Arsenio Hall Show," which ran from 1989 to 1994, Wolff spent countless hours watching the host work the crowds. He obviously paid attention, for the one thing that truly differentiates Wolff from most other jazz musicians is his ability to entertain.
During his homecoming gig Saturday afternoon at the Florence Gould Theatre at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, Wolff proved to be one of the most engaging all-around performers in the jazz game.
The show, part of SFJAZZ's Spring Season, included its share of fine musicianship, stellar improvisation and memorable tunes. Yet, what made really it special was everything else Wolff did to make sure his fans had a good Jazz pianist Michael Wolff performs at the time. He was witty and funny between songs, at one point going into a stand-up comedy routine that would have impressed Arsenio, and he showed a great deal of enthusiasm and energy for both the crowd and the music. He even danced onstage, something veteran concertgoers might have believed was against the law at jazz shows.
Wolff came to town in support of the newly released "Joe's Strut," a work named in honor of the pianist's old friend and fusion-jazz giant Joe Zawinul, who died in 2007. That CD features a two-saxophone quintet on five cuts and a regular piano trio on the remaining three numbers. Wolff led a standard piano trio during Saturday's concert, which meant that some of the "Strut" cuts performed would lack the twin saxophone power found on the recorded versions. Still, if you didn't know the record, it would have been impossible to tell that anything was missing — all of the music felt very full and passionately alive.
The pianist had enlisted the right men for the occasion: San Mateo County drummer Akira Tana and Berkeley bassist Peter Barshay. This trio doesn't perform together regularly, but it jelled in about two minutes and grew stronger as the 90-minute set progressed.
An early highlight was the trio's elastic take on the old standard "Autumn Leaves." The three players opened the tune by milking a slinky, slightly funky groove, built on a tightly coiled bass line, and then moved at a leisurely gait through a pastoral patch, before unexpectedly bringing the number to a close in bawdy nightclub fashion.
That ending served as a proper segue to the title track from "Joe's Strut." The original composition lived up to its name; in pace and swagger, it was very much a "Strut" and it also held true to Zawinul's vision of fusion music. It was a truly rocking number, one that found Wolff channeling his inner Jerry Lee Lewis and bringing "Great Balls of Fire" to the keys.
The afternoon's most memorable moment — although, not its best musically — came during the encore when Wolff's trio covered the Temptations' mighty "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone." During that number, the pianist coaxed audience members out of their seats to play a game of follow the leader — he got them to clap along, dance and sing to the classic soul cut. It was a sight I'd never seen at a jazz concert, and one that makes me want to catch this wonderful entertainer the next time he's in town.
Arsenio would be proud.
Joe's Strut Now Available on ITunes!
Ok, we know a lot of you have been waiting, and so have we! Finally, ITUNES has posted "Joe's Strut" for purchase. They were very behind for quite a while in putting up new releases, supposedly because of having to do upgrades or something like that.
If you don't want to buy the hard copy, (even though the packaging looks awesome...) go to ITunes and buy "Joe's Strut" on ITunes! If you want the great package, go to Michael's STORE PAGE and buy it now!
