Yacht Rock! Love Is A Drag! Foreign affairs! 

Bandleader and trumpeter, Mike Sailors fires on all cylinders as the consummate jazz musician. In our chat, we discuss our mutual admiration for curating involved shows for an audience, a record off the beaten path with a fascinating history, and a castle gig that needed more than a little magic to satisfy the guests.

FEATURED RELEASE:

The New Alchemy Jazz Orchestra

“Let’s Duel” (2019)

Getting to Know: Mike Sailors 

Mike Sailors has performed around the world in Japan and Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. He has appeared at venues such as the Blue Note (Tokyo, Sapporo and New York), Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola, The Jazz Standard, Yoshi’s, The Jazz Standard, The Jazz Kitchen, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, the Bowery Ballroom, Smalls Jazz Club as well as the Tokyo Blue Note Jazz Festival, the EFG London Jazz Festival, the Detroit Jazz Festival and the Montreal Jazz Festival. Mike was also a featured guest artist at the 2015 North Carolina Music Educators Conference, as well as a featured guest artist and composer at the 2013 Brevard Music Festival. 

Sailors has worked as a sideman for bands and artists including the Birdland Big Band, Bobby Sanabria and The Multiverse Big Band, the Fat Cat Big Band, the Baby Soda Jazz Band, the Hot Sardines, the Captain Black Big Band led by Orrin Evans, The Jason Marshall Big Band, Cynthia Sayer and The Mingus Jazz Orchestra. His past experience also includes performances with The Gerald Wilson Orchestra, Jon Hendricks, McCoy Tyner, Marcus Belgrave, Willie Nelson, Dale Watson, Rodney Whitaker and John Clayton. He’s also appeared as a featured soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Gulf Coast Symphony Orchestra and the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. 

Mike also was an active Trumpet player in the NYC Broadway scene. Past shows include Beautiful - The Carole King Story, Be More Chill and The Prom. 

Along with an active performing career, Sailors has maintained a busy career in composition. His first commission, dating back to 2005, came from the North American Saxophone Alliance (N.A.S.A). The piece featured the late Dewey Redman and was later recorded and featured on Redman’s last commercial recording “Live with Dewey Redman”. Since then, Sailors has been hired by the likes of Mack Avenue Records, Decca Records, the Columbus Jazz Orchestra, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra as well as a host of internationally known musicians including Ryan Kisor, Sean Jones, Rodney Whitaker, Pete Bernstein, Jimmy Cobb and many others. He has also written for TV, most recently for TD Ameritrade. His band, The New Alchemy Jazz Orchestra, recently released an album featuring his compositions. The self-tilted album features originals penned by Sailors, and is distributed by Outside In Music.

Originally from Charleston, South Carolina Mike grew up playing in his local church. He went on to attend the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2001, Michigan State University in 2007 and The University of Texas in 2010. 

In 2019, Sailors joined the faculty of The University of Texas Butler School of Music, where he leads the Jazz Trumpet Studio and mentors young artists looking to build careers in music. He currently splits his time between New York City and Austin, Texas. In Austin, he spends his time leading bands for a variety of different occasions, as well as touring nationally and internationally.

Watch the full interview on our YouTube channel here!