Michael Rabinowitz

Although the bassoon had appeared only sporadically in jazz since Don Redman and Frankie Trumbauer during the 1920s, Michael Rabinowitz became the first jazz musician to make the demanding instrument his primary focus. After beginning on clarinet in junior high school, he changed to bassoon once he reached high school. Rabinowitz performed in local New Haven venues, took lessons from Sal Mosca, and, following his college years, lived in Europe for two years. When he came back to the United States, he contributed to a portion of Ira Sullivan’s 1981 Muse album and also recorded with Eddie Buster. Rabinowitz relocated to New York in 1986, joined the avant-garde ensemble Mosaic two years later, and took part in Gunther Schuller’s 1989 presentation of Charles Mingus’ “Epitaph.” Throughout the 1990s he directed his own ensembles, and his quartet sessions for Cats Paw and Jazz Focus demonstrated that the bassoon could convincingly fulfill the function of an improvising saxophonist.