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Scroll down for recordings
of Mike Wilcox at the piano.
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Mike
Wilcox
Jazz
Studies Program, Student2Artist Candidate
Above: Rob
Mullins and Mike Wilcox at The Minefield Studio
FROM BRUCE AND NANCY WILCOX
Through referrals, we found Rob as
Michael entered high school and
he has been taking private lessons on a
weekly basis ever since. Rob is a fantastic teacher with a deep
understanding of the fundamentals and
theory of jazz and an unusual
ability to teach it clearly and make it fun. As a
result of Rob’s
teaching, Michael has been the lead keyboard player for
his school’s “A
band” for the past two years and has been asked to
help teach the other
keyboard players in the school’s “B” band. We
consistently get positive
feedback from teachers and judges at
competitions about Michael’s
knowledge of the fundamentals of jazz and his
performing. Michael is
also currently doing an internship with Rob to
produce another jazz
instructional book to be published some time later
this year.
Michael is now in
his
senior year in high school and is applying to major in jazz studies in
college. Rob has provided invaluable assistance in the production and
direction of his demo CDs and DVDs that have been required as part of
the application process. On top of his outstanding teaching and
performing abilities, Rob is fantastic at relating to teenagers and has
been a great mentor and friend to Michael throughout his high school
years. We can’t recommend him more highly!
- Bruce and Nancy Wilcox
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Message from Rob
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During the course of these four years of us working together, Michael
has exhibited strong qualities in many areas. He grasped easily the
mathematic side of jazz piano voicings and compositional structures. He
took my class material many steps further in these areas by studying
jazz history and composition by period and recording, and created his
own analytical charts and documents on jazz which were superior to
anything I have seen any high school student do in the many years I
have been teaching. He also readily assimilated the knowledge I
presented to him about pop music, contemporary church music and jazz
combo playing, and quickly became invaluable in his community by
becoming second in command of the music program at his church provided
many services to the leader. He also was put in charge of the jazz
combo at his high school and has successfully run it for two years and
contributed valuable time and service working along side the school
band director.
Mike has exhibited such strong abilities with the theoretical side of
jazz piano and analysis of intervals and their relationship to the
piano that he became an intern in my program working along side me on a
new piano book of very challenging material that will be presented to
Hal Leonard Publishing upon its completion here. Mike is a great
leader, team player, notator, and organizer. His classical playing is
stellar and he has now been accepted to University of Miami, University
of Northern Colorado, Lawrence University as well as Cal State Long
Beach-home of 88.1 FM KJAZZ. Congratulations Mike!
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