San Francisco Bay Area based saxophonist and composer Michael Zilber is described by NEA Jazz Master David Liebman as "one of the best players and composers around anywhere. Period!" The Canadian-born ex-New Yorker has 10 albums to his name as a leader or co-leader. He has also performed or recorded with everyone from Liebman to Miroslav Vitous, Mike Clark, Dizzy Gillespie and Bob Berg, to name just a very few.
Zilber co-led a band with drumming great Steve Smith for eight years, releasing the top 20 recording Reimagined: Jazz Standards, Volume 1 in 2003. For the past decade, he has teamed up with guitar virtuoso John Stowell, most recently on 2016's Basement Blues, which All About Jazz's Dan McClenaghan calls "as compelling and modernistic and compelling as any group out there," hailing Zilber as "soulful and flawless". Their 2015 Origin Records recording Live Beauty, made DownBeat magazine's "best of the year" list for 2015, as well as garnering rave reviews from JazzTimes and All About Jazz. This was a follow-up to the group's Shot Through With Beauty, which NPR jazz critic Andrew Gilbert picked as a top 10 record of the year. On Turning Ten: The Billy Collins Project, providing musical settings for the American Poet Laureate's poems, was hailed by famed jazz journalist Bill Milkowski as a "work of art of the highest order." Zilber currently leads his "Originals for the Originals" project, with an upcoming 2017 Origin album release of the same name to feature high-profile sidemen Dave Kikoski, James Genus and Clarence Penn. Zilber also leads a project called Weather Wayne, his electric jazz homage to Wayne Shorter, recently playing to a sold out house at SFJAZZ.
Zilber is also a sideman in various projects, playing in and writing for SF-based Electric Squeezebox Orchestra. This highly acclaimed composers' big band recently released Cheap Rent, receiving 4.5 stars in DownBeat. In Berkeley, California, he leads the multiple DownBeat award-winning Jazzschool Jazz Workshop, as well as overseeing the composition program and teaching ensembles at the California Jazz Conservatory. Zilber holds a Doctorate in composition from NYU.