Michael Leonhart

A trumpeter of exceptional range who also plays multiple instruments and arranges, Michael Leonhart has earned recognition both fronting his own groups and contributing as a sideman across pop, jazz, and hip-hop circles. Attention first arrived during his teenage years after he captured the 1992 Grammy for Best High School Musician and issued Aardvark Poses in 1995. Since 1996 he has maintained an ongoing role touring and recording with Steely Dan while collaborating with Vinicius Cantuaria, El Michels Affair, David Byrne, Yoko Ono, and additional artists. Although his foundation lies in post-bop jazz, Leonhart has ventured into neo-psychedelic rock and funk, notably on the 2010 release Seahorse and the Storyteller. He further directs the large Michael Leonhart Orchestra, which has issued The Painted Lady Suite in 2018, Suite Extracts, Vol. 1 in 2019, and Normyn Suite in 2022.

New York City born in 1974, Leonhart was raised in a musical household as the child of vocalist Donna Leonhart and bassist Jay Leonhart, with his sister Carolyn Leonhart likewise pursuing a singing career. Already a skilled jazz trumpeter at seventeen, he received the Grammy for Best High School Musician in 1992. Two years afterward he stepped forward as a bandleader on Sunnyside with Aardvark Poses, an album that prompted Steely Dan to bring him aboard for live performances. In subsequent seasons he traveled with the veteran rock band while simultaneously joining projects alongside Vinicius Cantuaria, Arto Lindsay, and others. Leonhart revealed expanding musical interests on his 1997 follow-up Glub-Glub, Vol. 11, where he performed on trumpet, organ, and guitar within fusion and psychedelic-rock settings. The next year he appeared with Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, and further rising jazz figures on Perico Sambeat’s Ademuz. Continued association with Steely Dan included work on their Grammy-winning Two Against Nature, released in 2000.

Leonhart teamed with guitarist Jon Herrington for the understated 2002 album Slow. He simultaneously entered studio and production roles, assisting Nanny Assis, Alice Smith, Jens Lekman, and others while serving in the house band for Leon Michels’ Truth and Soul Records imprint. Further neo-psych-folk explorations surfaced on 2006’s The Ballad of Minton Quigley, followed in 2010 by the conceptual funk album Seahorse and the Storyteller, which featured musicians from El Michels Affair, the Dap-Kings, and Antibalas. He co-produced Donald Fagen’s Sunken Condos in 2012 and has recorded or collaborated with Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, Aloe Blacc, Lee Fields, Rufus Wainwright, Natalie Merchant, St. Vincent, David Byrne, and Mark Ronson, among additional artists.

He also leads the Michael Leonhart Orchestra, first documented on 2018’s The Painted Lady Suite. A subsequent release, Suite Extracts, Vol. 1, arrived in 2019. In 2022 he completed a third large-ensemble project, Normyn Suite, titled for his cherished dachshund and containing contributions from Elvis Costello, Chris Potter, JSwiss, and others.