Mike Eckroth
pianist
Mike Eckroth was born in Bismarck, ND. Raised in a musical family, he started piano lessons at four years of age and continued his studies through high school and college. Beginning to improvise in high school jazz band in Phoenix, AZ, he fell in love with the genre and soon after branched out to multiple other forms of popular music. Eventually studying and performing in Brazil and Cuba, Eckroth’s career, though centered in straight ahead Jazz, has been deeply influenced by Latin American popular music and American music in general. He has spent a lot of time with funk, rock and other popular U.S. genres, devoting equal time to both the acoustic piano and electric instruments.
Earning his master’s degree in piano performance at UNLV, Eckroth stayed on to work in a variety of situations in Las Vegas (Sheena Easton, the Rat Pack is Back, and other shows) until coming to New York City to earn a PhD at NYU in 2006. At NYU and in the area, he has studied and played with the likes of John Scofield, Jean-Michel Pilc, Joe Lovano, Gil Goldstein, Randy Brecker, Chris Potter, Jim McNeely, Kenny Werner, Warren Vache and Brian Lynch while working on his dissertation and staying busy in the New York scene.
Besides working as a sideman to a number of instrumentalists and singers in the city, Eckroth has recently performed as part of the Savassi Jazz Festival in Belo Horizonte Brazil, the International Jazz Festival in Havana, Cuba, the BaranquiJazz and Jazz al Parque festivals in Colombia, and the Jazz Improv festival in New York City. He has also played at a number of important venues such as the Blue Note, the Kitano, the Iridium and Smoke in NYC and The Baked Potato and Catalina’s in L.A.
Eckroth continues to record and perform as both a sideman and a leader in the Jazz, Brazilian and Salsa music scenes, and is currently mixing and editing three collaborative projects: A live DVD with multi-reed player Paul McCandless and Brazilian guitarist Alieksey Vianna, a south american-inspired trio vocal record (the Bernal/Eckroth/Ennis group), and a composition-based, modern Jazz record. As well, he recently recorded two records with the rhythm section of Ron McClure and Billy Drummond. This spring he did a month long tour with the John Scofield Quartet in Europe and will perform with Scofield's group again during the summer at the Iridium and on the west coast in the spring of 2011.
