About Mike Vax

Mike Vax is very active in the music education field. He has done concerts and workshops in both the classical and jazz idioms at over 3000 high schools, colleges and universities all over the world.

Mike Vax has played lead and solo trumpet with the Stan Kenton Orchestra, the Clark Terry Big Bad Band, and the U.S. Navy Show Band.  He is a Summit Records recording artist.

Mike has also performed and/or recorded with such greats as Art Pepper, Gene Krupa, Cab Calloway, Al Grey, Freddy Hubbard, John Handy, Don Ellis, Don Jacoby, Louie Bellson, Joe Williams, Anita O’Day, June Christy, Barbara McNair, the Four Freshmen, The Glenn Miller, Harry James, and Jimmy Dorsey Orchestras, the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band, and the Dukes of Dixieland in New Orleans.

He has appeared as guest lead trumpet and soloist with symphony pops orchestras around the United States, and in Europe, as well as the All-American Collegiate Orchestra at Disneyworld.

As a recording musician, he has performed on more than 80 albums, including 30 under his own name. 

He is the founder and Chairman of the Board of Friends of Big Band Jazz, a 501c3 nonprofit corporation that has given over $65,000 in scholarships to jazz camps, funds to jazz programs in schools, donations to help musicians in need, and a donation to Habitat for Humanity for the Musicians Village in New Orleans.  Mike is also founder and director of the Prescott Jazz Summit, an annual jazz festival in Prescott, Arizona.

Currently he is leading his own groups: The Stan Kenton Legacy Orchestra, The Mike Vax Big Band, TRPTS (Trumpets), The Mike Vax-Ron Romm Collaboration, The Great American Jazz Band, and the Mike Vax Quartet, Quintet and Sextet.

Mike has done workshops and concerts for over 3000 high schools, colleges, and universities all around the world over the past 50 years.  He has presented clinics at many state music conventions including California, Oregon, Arizona, Washington, Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, Idaho, Utah, Arkansas, and Texas. Mike as also done clinics at such national conventions as: MENC, International Trumpet Guild, IAJE, JEN and others. He is very active as a clinician and soloist in both the classical and jazz idioms.  He has written articles for such magazines as: The Instrumentalist, The Brass Herald, The ITG Journal, The IAJE Journal, and the Texas Jazz Educators Journal.