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Michael Mayo: Fly review – a bravura fusion of original work and jazz standards


The US singer-composer’s self-produced follow-up to Bones shifts from soul to a lighter, happier jazz sound

The fluctuating divide between soul and jazz has become more blurred than ever, as this young American singer first attested on his acclaimed 2021 debut, Bones – a set with a foot in both genres and a backdrop of multivocal effects (a possible result of ingesting too much Pet Sounds at college). Classically trained, with musician parents – mother a go-to backing singer, father a member of Earth Wind & Fire – Mayo has brought in an inventive trio of Shai Maestro (keys), Linda May Han Oh (bass) and Nate Smith (drums). He wraps things up with a rap-cum-scat on Miles Davis’s Four, and a bravura two-minute version of Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil.

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Michael Mayo