Michael Lington

Michael Lington functions as a contemporary jazz saxophonist while also composing, producing, leading bands, and serving as a premier session musician. He relocated from Denmark to Los Angeles during 1990 and spent multiple years alongside Bobby Caldwell before issuing his self-titled debut in 1997. The 2000 release Drift contained a guest appearance from Randy Crawford. Brian Culbertson handled production duties for 2002’s Everything Must Change. Once Heat appeared in 2008, Lington established Copenhagen Music, whose roster generated four charting projects spanning Soul Appeal in 2012 through A Foreign Affair Christmas in 2019. Throughout the pandemic period he broadcast live performances directly from his personal studio, later recruiting additional musicians to create the quarantine-era covers collection Alone Together (The Duets) using remote digital recording methods. Participants on that set encompassed saxophonist Boney James together with neo-soul vocalist Sy Smith. The 2021 album preceded the five-track Looking Ahead EP by two years.

Born in Copenhagen during 1969, Lington descends from the celebrated Danish bandleader Otto Lington, an early advocate for jazz across Scandinavia. He commenced formal music instruction before elementary school and soon joined the internationally acclaimed Tivoli Boys Guard as a performing member, an affiliation that supplied rigorous training later continued at the collegiate level. By age fifteen the combined impact of David Sanborn, King Curtis, and American soul recordings by Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett, and Ray Charles prompted him to adopt the saxophone as his primary instrument. After graduation he opened a recording facility and toured Europe in a supporting capacity. His 1990 move to Southern California, facilitated by musician and producer Mark Schulman, immersed him in the contemporary jazz community and led to steady performances with vocalist Bobby Caldwell.

NuGroove Records issued Lington’s debut album, which included Caldwell on a notable rendition of Aaron Neville’s hit “Tell It Like It Is.” Vivid arrived in 2000 via Gold Circle Records and yielded the charting singles “Twice In A Lifetime” and “Sunset (Por Do Sol),” along with a version of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David standard “Message To Michael” performed by Randy Crawford. Everything Must Change in 2002 likewise produced two charting R&B tracks, “Still Thinking Of You” and “Off The Hook.” During this span Lington contributed to studio and live work with figures such as Dan Siegel, Doc Powell, and Jay Soto. His first Rendezvous Entertainment album, 2004’s Stay with Me, showcased an all-star roster featuring vocalists Michael Sembello and Wendy Moten plus guitarists Paul Jackson Jr. and Chuck Loeb, after which he embarked on a worldwide tour. The label’s second project, 2006’s A Song for You, was co-produced by Randy Waldman, who also supplied arrangements; the eleven-track effort mixed covers and originals performed by guitarist Dean Parks, bassist Brian Bromberg, and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, augmented by strings and woodwinds.

Following additional touring and session activity with Bromberg, Lington returned to NuGroove for 2008’s Heat, a ten-song collection containing seven tracks written or co-written by the artist. Bassist Nathan East and Culbertson joined a cover of Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street,” while Aaron Neville provided lead vocals on Claude Kelly’s “That’s When You Save Me.” The recording received airplay throughout North America and Europe, achieved solid sales, and earned a nomination for Instrumentalists of the Year at the 2009 Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards. That same year Lington appeared on Brian Culbertson: Live From the Inside and on Brazilian guitarist Torcuato Mariano’s So Far From Home; twelve months later he contributed horn to drummer Jonathan Blake’s So Strong.

The saxophonist resurfaced in 2012 with the charting Pure on UK independent Trippin ’N’ Rhythm Records, employing more than a dozen musicians including Michael Bolton, Lee Ritenour, Jeff Golub, and Ray Parker Jr. He launched Copenhagen Music in 2013 to issue his own material, beginning with 2014’s Soul Appeal. Produced and arranged by Barry Eastmond—who co-composed the majority of the tracks—the album honored Memphis soul traditions through covers of Bobby Womack and King Curtis’s “In The Pocket” and Curtis’s “Memphis Soul Stew,” plus “Gonna Love You Tonight,” which featured vocals and lyrics from Kenny Lattimore.

Eastmond also produced the follow-up, 2016’s Second Nature, which included Booker T. Jones, Sy Smith, and Taylor Dayne. Lington maintained an active touring schedule across North America while appearing on releases by Jackson Jr. and Adam Hawley. The Eastmond-produced Silver Lining reached audiences in 2018 on Copenhagen Music; almost entirely co-composed by the artist and producer, the charting album welcomed guests Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, Funk Brothers percussionist Jack Ashford, Parker Jr., William Bell, and additional contributors. Foreign Affairs Christmas became the label’s fourth release, presenting both contemporary and traditional selections performed with Marc Antoine, Dave Koz, Rick Braun, Luis Conte, and others.

Lington had scheduled two 2020 tours—one alongside Vincent Ingala and Paul Taylor under the Sax to the Max banner and another comprising select European solo dates—yet the COVID-19 pandemic halted both. Determined to sustain musical activity under quarantine, he initiated virtual concerts from his studio through StageIt. After several solo streams he began inviting guests, and because simultaneous live duets proved technically unfeasible the performances were recorded separately yet synchronized, establishing the concept behind Alone Together. This approach enabled polished audio and video presentations delivered via the same platform. Peak Records issued Alone Together in March 2021, comprising covers—some previously recorded by Lington—supported by a studio ensemble and vocalists such as Sy Smith, Javier Colon, Lattimore, Nick Colionne, Dorian Holley, Billy Dean, and Chris Walker, with featured instrumentalists Boney James, Koz, and Culbertson. Several of those singers and players later joined him on tour. In 2023 Lington returned to Copenhagen Music for the five-track Looking Ahead EP, consisting solely of original material inspired by his recent marriage and led by the single “Moon Goddess,” a tribute to Ramsey Lewis’s “Sun Goddess.”