Love and Destruction
Jazz pianist Michael Wolff has performed with numerous musical legends and will bring his talent to JMU tomorrow
By Jill Yaworski, a&e editor
Posted on January 11, 2007

James Brown. Miles Davis. Ray Charles. Placido Domingo. Black Crows. Whitney Houston. You name the singer or band, and Michael Wolff has probably played with them.

Wolff’s music draws from each musician he has played with for inspiration. “Over the years I’ve worked with so many musicians, and they’ve all influenced me in some way,” he said. “I filter their style through my music to make it all my own.”

A New Orleans native, jazz pianist Wolff has a résumé to envy. The 53-year-old first appeared on the scene when he was keyboardist for  Cannonball Adderly’s band in the ‘70s and soon after played with famed tenor saxophonist Sunny Rollins. Making a name for himself, Arsenio Hall personally asked Wolff to be the bandleader and musical director of his TV show. 

“That was a fun gig because I got to act, play music and do comedy,” Wolff said of “The Arsenio Hall Show.” Wolff was on the show for its five-year run until it ended in ’94. “I got the chance to meet and play with great musicians. It was like my musical education was being paid for.”

On Wolff’s newest album, Love and Destruction, recently released by Wrong Records, the pianist attempted something different — singing.

“The album was fun and different for me because I got to work on songs with lyrics,” Wolff said.

Wolff wrote five of the tracks himself, including “Underwater,” which is an intense and mournful tribute to New Orleans. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Wolff received many calls and e-mails of despair and anger from his relatives still living in the area.

“I thought of all the places that meant a lot to me as a child growing up there,” Wolff said. “I let those images flow through my mind and into the song. It’s a dark and busy piece that’s very personal.” Wolff even went back to the city’s Ninth Ward and taped the “Underwater” music video on location in an abandoned house that was ruined in the hurricane.

The other eight tracks on Love and Destruction are covers which include a blend of rock and alternative songs like Radiohead’s “Everything in its Right Place” and The Rolling Stones’ “Miss You,” to classics like The Supremes’ “Stop! In the Name of Love,” in hopes of appealing to a younger crowd.

“It’s an old jazz tradition to take hit songs and make them completely your own,” Wolff said. “Miles Davis used to do it with hit songs of the day on Broadway. I decided I would try it with modern songs and add my own ‘jazzy thing’ to them.”

Wolff said Love and Destruction is an album of duality: of positives and negatives, hope and despair. Always undertaking new sounds and innovations for his music, Wolff said he looks to the distinguished jazz musician Miles Davis for motivation.

“He never did anything just one way,” Wolff said. “He was constantly changing his sound and trying out different things. He was a perfect paradigm of a great musician.”

Besides his music career, Wolff is going back to acting. He has recently been filming Nickelodeon’s “The Naked Brothers Band” TV series and movie, which he also produces. But Wolff is proud to say the project is a family affair. His wife, actress Polly Draper (“Thirty Something”), wrote the script, while his two sons, Nat, 12, and Alex, 9, are the stars. “The Naked Brothers Band” is a fake documentary of the kids’ rock ’n’ roll band, and each episode is based on a song. The movie premieres on Nickelodeon on Saturday, Jan. 27 at 8 p.m. and the television series begins Saturday, Feb. 3 at 8:30 p.m.

“We all have to work really hard, but luckily we get to be around each other all the time,” Wolff said. “It’s like acting camp. We’ll eat dinner together as a family, then we’ll all read scripts together.”

Wolff, accompanied by his band Impure Thoughts, will perform hits from Love and Destruction in Wilson Hall Auditorium Friday at 7:30 p.m. The band members include John B. Williams on bass, Victor Jones on drums and Badal Roy on tabla drums.

According to Wolff, the band draws on the audience’s vibe when performing live. “We never have anything planned when we perform a concert,” he said. “Playing live is dangerous in a way, but exciting. We improvise a lot, and it’s very organic. We don’t present a choreographed, show-biz act.”

Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for children and $18 with a JAC Card. To learn more about Wolff and his band or to watch the “Underwater” music video, visit michaelwolff.com.