Pianist and composer Michael Wolff made his recording debut with Cal Tjader in the mid 1970s and went on to play and record with Airto and Flora Purim, Cannonball Adderly, Sonny Rollins, The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, and Nancy Wilson. He has performed with and conducted over 25 symphony orchestras worldwide. For five years in the 1990s, Wolff was band leader and musical director of the Arsenio Hall television show. He has released a dozen recordings to critical and popular acclaim.
His album Jumpstart, with Christian McBride and Tony Williams, won the Gold Disk Award in Japan. Wolff has recently formed a new band, Wolff & Clark Expedition, with drummer Mike Clark. Their first album, Wolff & Clark Expedition, was released in February 2013 on Random Act Records, and quickly rose to the top of the jazz charts.Their second album, Wolff & Clark Expedition 2, rose to the top five in the jazz charts and remained there for over three months.
Wolff is also performing now with his new trio featuring Ben Allison on bass and Alan Mednard on drums. As a Yamaha/Bosendorfer artist, Michael has been recording and performing in conjunction with jazz radio station WBGO at the Yamaha Piano Salon in New York City, where his new trio recorded their first trio recording live. That album, Swirl, was released January 2019 on Sunnyside Records.
Wolff has composed the scores to many film and television projects, such as: Made Up, The Tic Code, Dark Angel, Who’s the Man, and The Naked Brothers Band. Most recently, Wolff wrote the score for the new Polly Draper film, Stella’s Last Weekend.