The young vocalist Michael Mayo has a malleable, nimble instrument that presents many possibilities. Growing up in Los Angeles, his dad sang and played saxophone with bands you love, and his mom sang harmonies professionally. But he was also educated in jazz at the New England Conservatory and the Monk (now Hancock) Institute. Would he become a jazz singer or try his hand at popular music?
The temptations of the 2020s might discourage a young singer from doing anything too daring or creative, but — pure of tone and pitch and rich in hip ideas and hooky melodic instinct — Mayo is making music that pushes boundaries in both directions. Leaning back into the jazz tradition and but also having a knack for popular appeal, his second full-length recording, Fly, is a cool and high-arcing set that suggests how “jazz” singing can connect again with listeners hungry for both soul and creative challenge.
Mayo’s 2021 debut, Bones, was a strong thesis statement — assured and different but offering grooves so solid that listeners needn’t be scared off. “What’s My Name” is a killer travelogue of off-kilter funk built on a Fender Rhodes electric piano vamp and an irresistible drum track over which Mayo sings portions of e.e. cummings’ “Crepuscule” in combination with his own lyrics, his voice low, reverberant, and cool but then layered in shimmering jazz harmonies, allowing him to show off his angelic falsetto. A slithering synth solo emerges from the song and collapses the groove into hand claps before Mayo builds up the arrangement again to full flower.
Fly lives up to its name. It is more focused than the debut partly because it was recorded with the solid trio of bassist Linda May Han Oh, pianist/keyboardist Shai Maestro, and drummer Nate Smith. The ensemble give nearly every performance the pliant sound of modern jazz, working through standard repertoire and original material. If Bones was largely beyond category (though with hints of Mayo’s influences, from Bobby McFerrin to Take Six, from Herbie Hancock to Gretchen Parlato), Fly is a gloss on jazz and jazz standards that refuses to be contained by the music’s past.
The five standards here are respected but also bent to Mayo’s manner. “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” is the most conventional, with Maestro and Mayo playing as a duet on the song’s verse and the full trio playing with classic grace as Mayo interprets the song with maturity. Is Michael Mayo a straight-up wonderful jazz singer? He utterly is. But he isn’t settling just on that.
On “It Could Happen to You”, the song’s Tin Pan Alley harmonies are fluently rewritten. The band put tempo on a rubber band, and Mayo’s vocal glides in surges and slow-downs, moving from chest voice to falsetto with thrilling ease. “Just Friends” sets up a variant on a “Poinciana beat” and a Philly Joe Jones pop on the fourth beat of every measure but strays further from jazz Main Street. Mayo scats a bit and modifies the melody and phrasing like a jazz singer, but as the performance continues, it morphs outward. Maestro plays piano, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer pianos in a lacey web that presages Mayo layering his vocals in sly harmonic accompaniment at the end.
Other standard tunes veer further from the center pleasingly. Miles Davis‘ “Four” rides over a groove built from highly syncopated piano chords, punched against equally syncopated hand claps and drum punches. It is an ingenious arrangement that is not conventionally funky but, rather, a firm set of interlocking offbeats that eventually become danceable. “Speak No Evil”, the classic Wayne Shorter composition, rides briefly over a skittering Nate Smith drum pattern that pushes through lush harmonies and then suddenly settles into half-time funk.
The five Mayo originals are all the more effective for being set among these classics and with the same band advancing them. The title track, “Fly”, is pure joy — the kind of upbeat and intricate soul-jazz we used to hear from artists such as Al Jarreau and Tania Maria. Featuring Mayo’s talented parents on vocals and alto saxophone, the song packs heaping amounts of melody over a sunny pulse. The opening “Bag of Bones” sounds more like a modern Wayne Shorter tune, with a wistful tune over lush harmonies alternating with a pulsating contrapuntal groove.
My favorite of the original songs is “I Wish”, a wistful lyric about being extremely self-conscious set to a popping piano groove. Smith moves the tune ahead with a snapping snare click backbeat, with Maestro playing an elastic vamp and piano improvisation that might be what Horace Silver would sound like in the 2020s. “Silence” uses a bit more electric keyboard next to May Han Oh’s acoustic bass. More importantly, that tune layers Mayo’s harmonized “ooh” s within the arrangement in a manner that would make Stevie Wonder wistful.
Scores of other jazz singers toggle between the tradition and their own material. Mayo is young, but he has a stunning voice and a unique approach that makes both streams into one hypnotic sound. His vocal tone shines, and his ability to arrange for delicious layers of sound already makes his two recordings immediately recognizable. As he matures, Mayo can become one-of-a-kind — an artist who can’t be replicated.