Vocalist Michael Mayo always knew singing would be his career.
“I didn't necessarily know what it was going to look like, but I knew by the time I was four or five, that I wanted to sing when I grew up,” he said.
Luckily, Mayo had some solid role models. His father, Scott Mayo, is a Grammy-nominated musician, composer, and music director who played saxophone for Earth, Wind and Fire, and his mother, Valerie Pinkston, is a sought-after back-up vocalist who has performed with Diana Ross, Beyoncé, and Whitney Houston.
Impressive resumes aside, Mayo said the most impactful lesson his parents taught him was “that it is possible to have a real, fruitful, meaningful career in music.”
“And for me, that was really powerful because I had a lot of peers growing up who didn't have that example and had to wrestle with a lot of doubt of like, is this something that's even baseline possible?”
Mayo spent a week this summer teaching others what’s possible as a faculty member for the Jazz Port Townsend music workshop. During his latest visit to Port Townsend, Washington, Mayo sat down with KNKX to chat about his parents' influence, his blossoming recording career and his compassionate approach to carrying jazz forward.
Freedom and play
A Los Angeles native, Mayo grew up hearing his parents “riffing” on songs with musical colleagues, giving him a sense for improvisation before he even began to learn it formally.
“The underlying nugget of improvisation was already developing, but once I found jazz, or once jazz found me, that was the thing that propelled me forward to explore it more. And now it just feels like a mode of expression,” he said.
Mayo’s formal education in jazz improvisation began at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. There, he learned the blues and the complex musical theory that helps jazz musicians unlock their improvisational voices.
“We go diving into the theory and the harmony and all that stuff because that can be a source of excitement and fun rather than a scary thing that you have to conquer,” Mayo said.
Mayo went on to attend the New England Conservatory of Music and the Thelonious Monk Institute at UCLA, now called Hancock Institute of Jazz. Along the way, he’s developed an impressive command of his voice, which is rich, dextrous and soulful.
Mayo relates to his voice as if it were tangible, like a piano or a saxophone.
“I found the most benefit by trying to deconstruct any sort of imagined barriers between singer and instrumentalist because the voice is like one of the first instruments,” he explained.
Shortly after graduating in 2021, Mayo released his debut record, Bones, to great acclaim. Then, his 2024 sophomore record, Fly, garnered two Grammy nominations. Both records show Mayo’s command of the jazz language, with the influence of Motown, R&B, and neo-soul; music he grew up listening to.
“I always say that my musical totality would be incomplete if you took any one of those elements away, so I'm a jazz musician, but I also exist in a lot of other spaces as well,” he said.
There’s also a deep sense of freedom and playfulness in Mayo’s music. It’s apparent in his original compositions and his distinctive versions of jazz standards, like Fly’s buoyant, groovy rendition of “Four,” and the jaw-dropping “I Didn’t Know What Time it Was” which features Mayo supporting himself with expansive harmonies and a flawless vocal bass line.
“The way I think about it is, it’s a tradition of innovation, like that is the tradition, right?” Mayo said, adding later that the musicians who’ve made the biggest impact in jazz are those who remember the roots but aren’t afraid to take risks.
Trust the process
As his performing career continues to blossom, Mayo is also becoming a prominent jazz mentor. Currently, he teaches at jazz workshops like Jazz Port Townsend, and is a member of the vocal faculty at The New School.
As a teacher, Mayo is sensitive to the inherent vulnerability of singing and improvising with the voice. To overcome this, he focuses on helping his students find excitement and adventure in their musical journeys.
“If someone puts a tune in front of you and says ‘now go,’ if you've never heard the chords before and you don't have perfect pitch, then it can be really terrifying,” he said.
“So, a lot of what I do when I'm working with singers, is helping them to have compassion for themselves and for the nature of what it is that we do, and to trust in the process.”
So far, the resiliency, exploration and curiosity of his young students has convinced Mayo that jazz is “going to be just fine,” though he has no idea what the music will sound like in the future.
“Jazz is an expression of liberation, community, curiosity, play, exploration, expression, freedom, really, at its core,” Mayo said.
“And I have always really gravitated towards those aspects, just as a human in general, and to see those mirrored in a music so clearly and directly always pulls me back in, and I think that's one of the reasons it has staying power.”
For now, Mayo is gearing up to do some touring in the U.S. and Japan this fall. He’s also working on a new record, still unnamed, that he hopes to release sometime in 2027.
