Michael Adkins

MICHAEL ADKINS, a critically regarded jazz saxophonist and composer, began exploring improvised music within a creative Sarnia musical community at Lake Huron’s juncture with the St. Clair River, less than an hour from Detroit and a half-day drive from Chicago. Adkins was soon moving between Ontario, Michigan, New York, Boston, Europe, the Mississippi Delta, New Orleans, Chicago, and the Canadian and US West Coast, experiencing in each region jazz' multiple lineages and its ongoing evolution. Throughout his travels, Adkins has been particularly influenced by musical relationships formed with drummers. Among many others, these have included a critically acclaimed recording, international touring, and club performances with Ian Froman; New York City performances and two critically acclaimed recordings with Paul Motian; six recordings, sessioning, and performances in Boston, Memphis, Nashville, and New Orleans with Bob Moses, and five years of continuous sessioning and performances throughout the US Southeast with the late, legendary Alvin Fielder, who summarized Adkins playing in three words: “He can swing!” Fielder, a founding member of the Black Arts Music Society and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), who traveled as a stellar improviser between his natal Meridian, Mississippi and New Orleans, Houston, Chicago, New York, and the world, remains legendary for his musical contributions, dedication to jazz artistry, and devotion to his family's profound contributions to African American civil rights and to the musical legacy of his brother, trumpeter William Fielder. For Adkins, Alvin Fielder was a friend, musician, jazz historian, and mentor non pareil.

Adkins’ 2019 solo recording release, Michael Adkins Quartet Flaneur (HatHut), which featured the late Paul Motian on drums, Russ Lossing on piano, and Larry Grenadier on bass on drums was listed in Cadence magazine's top ten critic’s poll for the year. Stuart Boomer calls it “a work as profoundly elegiac as any a Canadian musician has produced.” Julian Aunos, in CitizenJazz, observes, “La musique est là, lumineuse, douce, et envoûtante. Pas tout à fait des ballades mais pas encore up-tempos. Entre-deux.” And Jazziz critic Jakob Baekgaard calls it “a gift out of nowhere.” An earlier release, Michael Adkins Quartet Rotator, also featuring Motian and Lossing, with John Hébert on bass, was selected as WIRE Magazine’s 2008 Jazz & Improv Album of the year, with Brian Morton calling it, “the best hour of contemporary jazz I've heard this year.” Adkins’ first CD release, Infotation, featuring Froman on drums and Hébert on bass, appeared on indie-label Semblance Records in 2005, a decade before the term 'infotation' would surface at an IEEE conference as an attraction between patterns of information, where correspondence between energy and information exists. More important is Chris May's All About Jazz observation: “Adkins sounds unlike anyone you ever heard before—but at the same time, like someone who's always been with us.” 

Performance Highlights in Brief

Michael Adkins occupies a perpetually unfolding space in contemporary jazz—a solo artist whose voice is both unmistakably personal and deeply connected to the lineage of the music. Over the course of a quietly expansive career, he has performed and recorded with such visionary artists as Paul Motian, Alvin Fielder, Masabumi Kikuchi, Bob Moses, Ian Froman, Dave Holland, Antonio Sanchez, and Ralph Alessi, among many others.

Equally at home in intimate club settings or exploratory studio environments, Adkins has developed a reputation as a musician who listens deeply, responds instinctively, and plays with both precision and soul. Collaborations with a wide array of artists—from Patti Austin and Jeff Coffin to John Medeski, Jim Vivian, Kevin Turcotte, Danny Gottlieb, Russ Lossing, John Hebert, Billy Mintz, Roberta Piket, Avishai Cohen, and many others well and little known—reflect a broad musical sensibility shaped by curiosity rather than category.

For listeners seeking music that values nuance over flash, and expression over effect, saxophonist Michael Adkins offers a sound that honors the spirit of improvisation while speaking in a voice that is distinctly his own.

Artist Statement

"For me, jazz is an ongoing conversation—between tradition and innovation, structure and freedom, individual voice and expansive spirit. My approach to solo performance is rooted in listening deeply: to the space around me, to the echoes of the music, and to the moment unfolding in real time."

"Improvisation is a way of being—an honest response to where I am emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Each performance is a unique journey, shaped by the time and place, the audience, and my own evolving relationship with the music."

"Having had the privilege to collaborate with so may gifted artists— jazz luminaries, emerging voices—I have learned that openness and curiosity are as important as technical mastery. It is this balance that I strive for: honoring the lineage of jazz while continually seeking my own voice within it."

"Ultimately, my music is an invitation—to listen closely, to love music, and to join in the shared experience of live creation."

Awards

Jazz&Improv album of the year - Wire Magazine UK

Cadence Magazine - TopTen Critic's Poll