Michael is a bassist, composer and educator living in gorgeous Fayetteville, West Virginia. Born in New Hampshire, Michael began his music career as many do: he bought a bass and joined a band! Working with funk, rock and jam bands before falling in love with jazz in his early twenties, he gigged and saved cash for private lessons with the best musicians he could find: Don Williams and George Westbay. He moved to Boston and sharpened his chops in the scene around Berklee at the time, and continued his path of finding a way to afford the best education he could manage by studying jazz privately with Bruce Gertz. Earning his living as a full-time musician in Boston was an enormously beneficial influence on a young bassist: there were so many gigs with so many musicians for so few bassists that Michael found himself constantly playing with more experienced musicians who pushed his boundaries in a multitude of styles: jazz, hip-hop, soul, funk, rock, post-rock, blues, musical theater- and everything else you could imagine.