Home » Jazz Musicians » Michael J McEvoy

Michael J McEvoy

Michael is an award-winning composer with many film, television and pop music credits to his name including the score for Richard Loncraine’s feature Finding Your Feet starring Imelda Staunton, Timothy Spall and Celia Imrie. Other projects of note include the evocative jazz score to the acclaimed BBC/PBS documentary Jazz Ambassadors and Churchill and the Movie Mogul for BBCFour. Michael’s composing credits also include Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles starring Zac Efron and Clare Danes and indie feature Forget Me Not (Winner London Independent Film Festival) starring Tobias Menzies. He is an accomplished arranger and provided string orchestrations for Ricky Gervais’ David Brent: Life On The Road. Michael’s music also appears in films including Wild Card starring Jason Statham, Wild Target with Emily Blunt, plus TV drama, The Wire.

Michael also works in partnership with DJ-producer Paul Oakenfold on film and documentary scores including Overture Pictures’ Nothing Like the Holidays starring Alfred Molina, and the award-winning Japanese anime feature, Vexille. He is also a member of the ZeroVU team with Nick and Mitch Taylor whose credits include Balls of Steel and Risk, nominated in 2019 for Best Music at the Idyllwild Festival, California.

Michael has scored many prestigious long-form documentaries including BAFTA-winning J’accuse, Einstein’s Big Idea and Battle of the Hood and Bismarck and National Geographic’s landmark ocean series Alien Deep and many others. He has three regional Emmy nominations, winning Best Instrumental Music for PBS’s ‘Tennessee Yearbook’ and an Ivors Composer Award nomination.

Michael studied piano and viola at the Centre for Young Musicians and Leeds College of Music. He also plays guitar, mandolin and assorted stringed instruments which often feature in his scores. In 2006 he gained a Masters in Composition for Screen from the Royal College of Music in London and was awarded the prestigious Joseph Horovitz Prize in Composition for Screen. As well as music for screen, Michael has composed for jazz, classical and choral ensembles.

His pop music credits span work with artists from Steve Winwood to Soul II Soul, Ian Dury and many others as a musician, songwriter and producer. As a jazz composer, he has written and produced three albums including The Long Way Home (2014) which received glowing praise and featured a stellar line up of British jazz stars including Nigel Hitchcock, Gerard Presencer, Jason Rebello, Ben Castle and James Maddren. More information about his recordings and live work is available on the Mike McEvoy Band page.

Awards

Emmy award for Best Instrumental Music -'Tennessee Yearbook', narrated by Issac Hayes (2004)

Michael J McEvoy: The Long Way Home

Read "The Long Way Home" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay

by Bruce Lindsay
August 21, 2014

Michael J McEvoy is something of a musical chameleon--a composer, instrumentalist and producer who's played a crucial role in many musical projects without grabbing the limelight. He's composed film soundtracks (including 2008's Me And Orson Welles), and worked as musician or producer with an extensive array of artists including Ian Dury, Sting, Scritti Politti, the Bee Gees and Steve Winwood. On The Long Way Home McEvoy comes back to jazz (the “home" of the album title), with eight stylish and ...

304

Album Review

Atlantis Quartet: Again, Too Soon

Read "Again, Too Soon" reviewed by Aaron Basiliere

by Aaron Basiliere
May 12, 2009

The compositional intensity found in the Minneapolis-based Atlantis Quartet's live performances in and around the Twin Cities have garnered it with praise as being one of the bands to watch on the mid-western modern jazz scene. Minnesota-area critics and fans alike have dubbed the foursome as “the most exciting band in town" and their assessment is far from incorrect, as tenor saxophonist Brandon Wozniak, guitarist Zacc Harris, bassist Travis Schilling, and drummer Pete Hennig work their mojo like free-jazz connoisseurs ...

Recording

Michael J Mc Evoy's "The Long Way Home" Available March 10th

Source: Michael J McEvoy
March 3, 2014

This has got instant appeal. And it’s over far too soon. With a melodic 1970s vibe to start with on the title track opener and Gerard Presencer’s bluesy horn commentary over a strong rhythm section of pianist McEvoy joined by Empirical bassist Tom Farmer and the Golden trio’s James Maddren this is the former musical director of Steve Winwood’s Time to Shine. And shine McEvoy does on an eight-track Kickstarter-funded album where his Bob James-meets-Don Grolnick post-bop into soul-jazz piano ...
read more

"The Long Way Home is a classic mainstream post-acid jazz recording with soul, R&B-funk and latin influences as well as that post-Mile Davis bluesy atmospheric cool, beloved of jazz-loving film scribes...it's certainly one to put you in the right mood before a big night out on the town." (Selwyn Harris - Jazzwise) "This has got instant appeal. And it’s over far too soon. With a melodic 1970s vibe to start with on the title track opener and Gerard Presencer’s bluesy horn commentary over a strong rhythm section of pianist McEvoy joined by Empirical bassist Tom Farmer and the Golden trio’s James Maddren this is the former musical director of Steve Winwood’s time to shine." (Marlbank - Jazz for the 21st century)