Baltimore-native Derrick Michaels is a tenor saxophonist and improviser with a deep sound and a bold, imaginative presence in the creative music community. With roots in both the lyrical and exploratory branches of the creative saxophone tradition, his wide expressive palette brings a soulful, melodic sincerity to a wide range of musical environments.
He has been described by Jazz Weekly as a “thick-toned tenorist”, and by Downbeat magazine as wielding a “large sound and free flowing style”. The Baltimore Jazz Alliance says: “Derrick Michaels’ saxophone playing comes right out of his soul; the instrument sounds like a human voice.”

These performances at the Wine Collective feature renderings of jazz standards and music from the Great American Songbook as Michaels forays further into the traditional side of the jazz canon and language, leaning deeply into the “singing” quality that the tenor saxophone has long been celebrated for throughout the history of the music, while encouraging collective creativity and spontaneous orchestration across the ensemble, inspired by many years of wholehearted exploratory performances in the free improvisation scene.

::club date/restaurant, Wine Collective, The::In-person, Indoor, No-cover, Free