About Mike McGinnis

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Over nearly three decades on the New York music scene, saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Mike McGinnis has amassed a body of genre-defying work that includes seven critically acclaimed albums as a leader, beginning with Tangents (RKM Music) in 2000. Named a Rising Star Clarinetist in every DownBeat Critics Poll since 2014, he has explored a wide range of instrumentation throughout his career: from Mike McGinnis +9 (Road*Trip, Road*Trip II: Outing) to the multimedia landscape tone poem Angsudden Song Cycle (482 Music); from eclectic chamber jazz as co-leader of The Four Bags and OK|OK to lyrical trio exposition with jazz legends Art Lande and Steve Swallow (Singular Awakening, Recurring Dream, both on Sunnyside).

 

In June 2024 McGinnis led his Seneca Sextet at Carnegie Hall, playing original music for the 100th birthday celebration of Nobel Prize–winning Swedish neurophysiologist Torsten Wiesel. Road*Trip, inspired by the underappreciated work of clarinetist and pioneering Third Stream composer Bill Smith, received a 4 ½-star review from DownBeat, and was named one of the 10 Best Jazz Albums of 2013 by The Village Voice. Road*Trip II: Outing was a featured pick on NPR Music’s New Music Friday, co-hosted by Felix Contreras and WRTI’s Nate Chinen.

 

Mike’s recording imprint Open Stream, a mashup of “open source” and “Third Stream,” is envisioned as a label beyond labels, a platform for boundary-breaking work by McGinnis and his colleagues. The inaugural release was Time Is Thicker, an adventurous 2020 trio set featuring McGinnis on Bb clarinet with bassist Elias Bailey and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza. Both Hands Both, an absorbing clarinet duo recorded with Ben Goldberg in 2017, saw release on Open Stream in 2023 (“both of these clarinetists are masters … and often push their partner to come up with some fascinating interplay” – Bruce Lee Gallanter).

 

A sought-after arranger, McGinnis has written charts for Joe McGinty of The Loser’s Lounge, including songs from the 2016 film One More Time (“You Temptress You” and “When I Live My Life Over Again,” the latter featuring Christopher Walken). McGinnis has also enjoyed long-running associations with Yo La Tengo, Stew and the Negro Problem, Brian Carpenter’s Ghosttrain Orchestra, the Bernie Worrell Orchestra, the Erik Deutsch Band, the Lonnie Plaxico Group, the Hank Roberts Sextet, Gino Sitson’s Echo Chamber, the Wildebeest Wind Quintet, Dana Lyn’s Mother Octopus and more. Additional performance credits include Anthony Braxton, Alice and Ravi Coltrane, Ben Goldberg, Peter Apfelbaum, Gerald Cleaver, Steve Coleman and other major jazz artists of our time.

 

As musical director of the Davalois Fearon Dance Company, McGinnis has performed his compositions at the Joyce Theater, New Victory Theater, City Center, Metropolitan Museum, Harlem Stage, Rubin Museum and Bronx Museum. He was the recipient of a 2019 MAP Fund Grant. He has also performed on Broadway in the Tony-winning Fela!, and on film in the Oscar-winning director Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock. He backed Iggy Pop, Jane Birkin and The Roots on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.