Michael Eaton (b.1981) is a NYC based saxophonist, composer, and educator.  He embraces a progressive and holistic vision of jazz but reaches for a personal outlook with an eye towards future possibilities.  His professional career has included performances in jazz, free improvised music, soul, rock, western classical, funk, reggae, brass bands, and beyond.

Michael’s Individuation Quartet has recorded two albums for the Destiny Records label: “Individuation” (2014) with NEA Jazz Master David Liebman and Dialogical (2019) with guitarist Lionel Loueke.  His collaborative ensemble Tenor Triage released “Tenor Triage” (2019) on Ropeadope Records.  His most recent recording as a leader is “The Middle Passage” (2021) on Dialogical Records, with “Paraphrase”, a duo recording due out in 2022 on Steeplechase Records.  Individuation 3, “The Phenomenal”, begins recording in 2021 and will feature trumpeters Dave Scott and Tim Hagans and vocalist Judi Silvano.

Other career highlights include recording saxophone and flute for Doyle Bramhall II’s “Rich Man” (2016) on Concord Records and appearing on bassist Adam Minkoff’s rock octet version of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, released as “Til The End My Dear: Arrangements of Stravinsky”.  Eaton and Minkoff produced “Interstellar Regions” in 2017, a concert of the late works of John Coltrane with David Liebman (saxophones), Marc Ribot (guitar), Jamie Saft (piano), Nick Anderson (drums), and Anthony Cole (drums) at National Sawdust.  Michael has enjoyed an ongoing musical friendship with flutist Cheryl Pyle, including a long tenure in her free improvised chamber ensemble, Beyond Group.  The group’s personnel has included Bern Nix, Judi Silvano, Sam Newsome, Roberta Piket, Daniel Carter, Claire Daly, Jamie Baum, Claire de Brunner, Haruna Fukazawa, Newman Taylor Baker, and Carman Moore.

Michael graduated from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2004.  In his thirteen years living in NYC, he has had the opportunity to teach for a number of schools and institutions.  Five of his woodwind students have been accepted into LaGuardia High School, one into Frank Sinatra High School, one to Talent Unlimited, and one to Mark Twain School.  His primary saxophone teachers include Eugene Rousseau, Tom Walsh, David Liebman, and Tim Timmons. He has also studied privately with James Moody, Tony Malaby, Steve Coleman, Ellery Eskelin, Ned Goold, Doug Webb, and Gary Foster.