Mike Vax

Mike Vax is a jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, and clinician. A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, he performs exclusively on Getzen trumpets, cornets, and flugelhorns and has the status of an International Artist for the Getzen Company. He has played lead and solo trumpet with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, the Clark Terry Big Bad Band, and the U.S. Navy Show Band. As a recording musician, he has performed on more than 75 albums, including twenty under his own name.
Jazz
Vax has performed and/or recorded with trumpeters Freddy Hubbard, Don Ellis, and Don Jacoby, vocalists Joe Williams, Anita O'Day, Barbara McNair, and The Four Freshmen, and other instrumentalists including Art Pepper, Al Grey, Gene Krupa, John Handy, and Louie Bellson. He has performed and/or recorded with jazz orchestras, armed service orchestras, and Dixieland bands including The Glenn Miller and Jimmy Dorsey Orchestras, The Navy Commodores, The Army Blues, The Army Jazz Ambassadors, The Air Force Falconaires, the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band, and The Dukes of Dixieland in New Orleans.
Symphonic
He has appeared as guest lead trumpet and soloist with symphony pops orchestras throughout the United States, as well as the All-American Collegiate Orchestra at Disney World. He has toured extensively in Europe, Scandinavia, South America and Japan.
Jazz education
He has presented workshops and concerts to music students in over 2500 elementary and junior high schools, high schools, colleges and universities internationally since 1970. He is active as a clinician and soloist in both the classical and jazz idioms.
Current activities
Currently (2012) he leads his own groups: The Mike Vax Big Band, The Stan Kenton Alumni Band directed by Mike Vax, TRPTS (Trumpets), The Great American Jazz Band, the Mike Vax Quintette and the Mike Vax Sextette.

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