Mike LeDonne

Mike LeDonne is a world-renowned jazz pianist and Hammond organist whose career spans over 40 years and is truly unique among today's jazz musicians. No one else from his generation has had the experience of playing with such a wide variety of Jazz Masters. Mike worked with masters from the swing era like Benny Goodman and Roy Eldridge, and then went on to work with bebop masters like Milt Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Farmer, Clifford Jordan, as well as Sonny Rollins, and then modern masters like George Coleman and Bobby Hutcherson. In fact, He spent 11 years as pianist and musical director for vibes legend Milt Jackson, and has also been working with Benny Golson since 1997. Milt Jackson said that “Hearing Mike LeDonne was a revelation.” 

Another aspect of his career that is truly unique is that he has had both a full career (spanning over 20 years) as a pianist, making many recordings and touring as both sideman and leader garnering international acclaim, and then later bursting onto the the scene in 1999, releasing recordings, touring, and becoming recognized as one of the top Hammond Organists in the world (an instrument he had been playing since age 10). He was nominated by the Jazz Journalists Association for “Best Keyboards” in 2012 and won the Downbeat Rising Star Poll for Organ that same year. He became so popular on that instrument that his organ fans didn’t know he was a pianist. Meanwhile, his skills on the piano inspired Oscar Peterson to name him as one of his favorite pianists of this era. Today, he splits his time between the 2 instruments. Mike’s on over 200 recordings and has 20 out under his own name. He co-authored a piano comping book as part of Jim Snidero’s Jazz Conception series on Advance Music and spent 4 years on the faculty at Juilliard.