Mike Wofford

Very sad to hear that legendary jazz pianist Mike Wofford has passed. I didn’t do jazz gigs with him – I’m not in that league jazz-wise.

Big ears. That’s what musicians say when a player has so much command of his instrument that he can interpret a song in many styles or at any tempo. Or instantly respond to the improvisation of those around him. Mike had big ears.

When I got to San Diego I heard about Mike and Bob Magnusson, who had left the grind of LA studio work and moved south. It was easier to be a bigger fish in the San Diego pond. And they were. They played together a lot.

Mike was doing studio work in San Diego but I rarely needed the kind of featured piano he was known for. And I didn’t want to hire him to bang out chords that would be buried in the track. First of all, I can do that. And part of me just didn’t feel right hiring a thoroughbred to pull a beer wagon.

But there was one time when I wanted a nice jazz piano version of a tune I had written. The client was Koch Industries – yeah the Koch Brothers out of Wichita, Kansas. Remember when people thought we had to somehow keep them out of politics or things could get really nasty. Ha.

Anyway, here’s the track that Mike played on my Yamaha KX 88.