Episode 070 - Michael Lington; Topping the Contemporary Jazz charts and winning many awards

Saxophonist, Songwriter and Producer Michael Lington has been topping the Contemporary Jazz charts and winning many awards for over 2 decades with his 11 albums and hundreds of live shows. 

Soul music really spoke to him at an early age, and Michael’s playing can be described as a mixture of King Curtis and Earl Bostic, with a serving of Dave Koz, a smattering of David Sanborn and you have Michael Lington.

In addition to performing as a front-man, one of his specialties is performing with great singers, such as Bobby Caldwell and Randy Crawford. 

His brand new album, and first Christmas album, A Foreign Affair Christmas, features a Who’s Who of artists, such as Dave Koz, Vince Gill, Rick Braun and others. It’s a unique album with some twists to some classic songs from all over the world.

The link to his full biography, along with more Resources for this episode, is on our website.

In this show, we talked about:

• Michael’s background in Copenhagen, Denmark

• How he gets his amazing full tone and his influences

• How listening to singers helped him create melodies

• His interesting variation on long tones that brings his tone to the next level

• The most important thing to work on in your practice routine

• Advice he received from James Moody

• His songwriting approach to his new Christmas album, and how he performed one of the tracks in 1 take

• The priceless advice he got from touring with Barry Manilow

• His thoughts on equipment and reeds

• And more

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