Michael Blake

Michael Blake is a Canadian-born tenor and soprano saxophonist who has been a fixture of the New York scene since the early 1990s, when he joined the Lounge Lizards. Born in 1964 in Montreal, he settled into the city's downtown creative jazz world and has worked as a sideman with Charlie Hunter, Steven Bernstein, Ben Allison and Ray LaMontagne. His first album as a leader, Kingdom of Champa (1997), was produced by Teo Macero and folded Vietnamese music into a jazz setting, an early sign of a discography that ranges across bop, Brazilian rhythm, tango and folk forms. He leads Chroma Nova, a string-augmented ensemble whose 2023 album Dance of the Mystic Bliss was written in part for his late mother, the dancer Merle Blake, and he has also recorded under the Blake Tartare name. In New York he fronts the Blaketet, a horn-heavy band featuring baritone saxophonist Lisa Parrott.