Overview

"FROM TOURETTE'S TO TRIUMPH. FROM CANCER TO CURE. FROM THE SEGREGATED SOUTH TO COMMANDING STAGES AROUND THE WORLD, JAZZ MASTER, MICHAEL WOLFF'S JOURNEY BEGINS WITH PURE GRIT AND ENDS IN PERFECT VICTORY. Award winning jazz musician Michael Wolff's journey nearly ended six years ago at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in lower Manhattan. After being worked on by doctors and nurses for most of the night, Wolff, with the perfect timing only a world class musician would have, regained consciousness just in time to hear one of the doctors ask his wife if he had a DNR. Before she could even ask what that was, Wolff used his last ounce of energy to gasp, ""Resuscitate me!"" After being treated for the wrong cancer for a year and a half, it was discovered that Wolff had an ultra-rare, untreatable cancer called histiocytic sarcoma and had three months to live. Fortunately, he was someone accustomed to surviving the odds. Wolff had already survived a painful childhood overshadowed by Tourette's Syndrome, where his brilliance as a jazz pianist and passion for music saw him through. He went on the road at nineteen, not only performing with some of the great luminaries of Jazz, but also conducting over twenty-five symphony orchestras worldwide. In 1989, Wolff was chosen to be the musical director of Arsenio Hall's groundbreaking late-night talk show, which was extravagantly praised for its diversity of musical guests and brilliant house band. It was through The Arsenio Hall show that Wolff became a household name and where he met and eventually married Actor/Writer/Director Polly Draper when she was a guest on the show. (Their two sons, Nat and Alex Wolff are now highly successful actors and musicians in their own right, so the talent was passed on to the next generation.) In the meantime, Wolff has released twenty-one albums to critical and popular acclaim, written award-winning scores to movies and television series and has managed to beat an untreatable cancer. His compelling story begins with his fish out-of-water story in the segregated South, then moves to politically turbulent Berkley, California in the early sixties and then it takes him around the world as he earns his stripes as a world class Jazz musician. On That Note is more than a memoir. It is like a Jazz score with words, taking the reader on the wild journey of Wolff's singular life. It is a life driven by a passion for music and a passion for being alive. Sometimes hilarious and sometimes harrowing, Wolff's story instantly sweeps us up with it and charms us with a unique voice. Many books claim to be ""page turners."" This one actually delivers."

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9781956470307

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Reviews

Michael Wolff may have been the first true jazz genius I met in my career. I got to know him on tour with the great Nancy Wilson. Michael helped teach this young, very green Cleveland comic the show business ropes! He was as bright and savvy a man as he was a musician! I'm so very glad he wrote this book because I want the world to know this unique musician who stood by my side through every night of The Arsenio Hall Show. The story of his life has been a wild, amazing, and emotional ride! -Arsenio Hall Michael Wolff is one of the greatest musicians and storytellers in the world and an inspiration for so many musicians, myself included. His journey has been unique and spans many worlds. Congratulations on your memoir, and thank you for taking us on a trip to experience that journey, which continues. -Christian McBride, Seven-time Grammy Award-winning jazz bassist Pianist Michael Wolff has had a remarkable career performing and recording with jazz legends such as Cannonball Adderley, Cal Tjader, and Sonny Rollins, as well as leading his own groups. In On That Note, his profane and profound memoir, Wolff writes colorfully about overcoming adversity and about the rewards of a life in music. It turns out that the pianist is also a writer. -Lee Mergner, JazzTimes I met Michael Wolff more than fifty years ago. We were rehearsing with the Berkeley High Stage Band, and I was having some issues blowing over rhythm changes. I asked Michael for advice, and he said: 'Just play the blues. . .' It all fell into place. They say that in jazz, there are no wrong notes. If you trip, you continue and make your misstep look like you intended it. Michael has a true improviser's approach to life and to everything that he does, and his book reflects that sensibility. This book reveals Michael's honest, no-holds-barred attitude. Fortunately for us, his is a history that is still in the process of unfolding. -Lenny Pickett, Saxophonist and bandleader, Saturday Night Live Michael Wolff is a great guy and one of the greatest musicians I ever played with. I hope this book sells because he owes me money. -Sonny Rollins, American saxophone legend Wrapped inside this moving recovery memoir from a dire and rare cancer is a revelatory and deeply American story of a precocious musical prodigy who comes of age in 1960's Berkeley as a white Jewish kid who enters the magical archipelago of African-American jazz and becomes an accepted and admired part of the slipstream of the greatest music made possible by a culturally porous world. -Steve Wasserman, Former literary editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review (LARB) Jazz piano maestro Michael Wolff has written an insightful, honest, searing memoir that moves the heart as poignantly as his piano solos do. This is not only a personal memoir but a history of pop culture, an exploration of race relations, and jazz music's place within society. It is both educational and inspiring. -June Cross, Professor at Columbia and writer/producer of documentaries on race; winner of a 2021 Peabody Award In his rare, guileless, and amazingly symphonic memoir, Mr. Wolff cracks open his soul and deftly melds one kind of keyboard (QWERTY) with another (piano) . . . treating us to his singularly cool, masterfully improvisational style. The music/the voice is one of pure jazz-the message is one of hope, healing, and survival. -Tony Shalhoub

"""Michael Wolff may have been the first true jazz genius I met in my career. I got to know him on tour with the great Nancy Wilson. Michael helped teach this young, very green Cleveland comic the show business ropes! He was as bright and savvy a man as he was a musician! I'm so very glad he wrote this book because I want the world to know this unique musician who stood by my side through every night of The Arsenio Hall Show. The story of his life has been a wild, amazing, and emotional ride!"" -Arsenio Hall ""Michael Wolff is one of the greatest musicians and storytellers in the world and an inspiration for so many musicians, myself included. His journey has been unique and spans many worlds. Congratulations on your memoir, and thank you for taking us on a trip to experience that journey, which continues."" -Christian McBride, Seven-time Grammy Award-winning jazz bassist ""Pianist Michael Wolff has had a remarkable career performing and recording with jazz legends such as Cannonball Adderley, Cal Tjader, and Sonny Rollins, as well as leading his own groups. In On That Note, his profane and profound memoir, Wolff writes colorfully about overcoming adversity and about the rewards of a life in music. It turns out that the pianist is also a writer."" -Lee Mergner, JazzTimes ""I met Michael Wolff more than fifty years ago. We were rehearsing with the Berkeley High Stage Band, and I was having some issues blowing over rhythm changes. I asked Michael for advice, and he said: 'Just play the blues. . .' It all fell into place. ""They say that in jazz, there are no wrong notes. If you trip, you continue and make your misstep look like you intended it. Michael has a true improviser's approach to life and to everything that he does, and his book reflects that sensibility. ""This book reveals Michael's honest, no-holds-barred attitude. Fortunately for us, his is a history that is still in the process of unfolding."" -Lenny Pickett, Saxophonist and bandleader, Saturday Night Live ""Michael Wolff is a great guy and one of the greatest musicians I ever played with. I hope this book sells because he owes me money."" -Sonny Rollins, American saxophone legend ""Wrapped inside this moving recovery memoir from a dire and rare cancer is a revelatory and deeply American story of a precocious musical prodigy who comes of age in 1960's Berkeley as a white Jewish kid who enters the magical archipelago of African-American jazz and becomes an accepted and admired part of the slipstream of the greatest music made possible by a culturally porous world."" -Steve Wasserman, Former literary editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review (LARB) ""Jazz piano maestro Michael Wolff has written an insightful, honest, searing memoir that moves the heart as poignantly as his piano solos do. This is not only a personal memoir but a history of pop culture, an exploration of race relations, and jazz music's place within society. It is both educational and inspiring."" -June Cross, Professor at Columbia and writer/producer of documentaries on race; winner of a 2021 Peabody Award ""In his rare, guileless, and amazingly symphonic memoir, Mr. Wolff cracks open his soul and deftly melds one kind of keyboard (QWERTY) with another (piano) . . . treating us to his singularly cool, masterfully improvisational style. The music/the voice is one of pure jazz-the message is one of hope, healing, and survival."" -Tony Shalhoub"

Author Information

Michael Wolff is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed pianist, composer, bandleader, and now, author. In along-running musical career he has been the musical director for the great Grammy-winning jazz singer, Nancy Wilson, and the award-winning The Arsenio Hall Show. He has also been a member of Impure Thoughts, Wolff & Clark Expedition, and a co-star with his sons on the series The Naked Brothers Band. He is a recipient of the BMI Music Award, the winner of the Gold Disc Award in Japan, and the recipient of the Hamptons International Film Festival's award for best film score for the film, The Tic Code. Wolff continues to compose and perform with his trio and is a professor of music at NYU.

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