MICAH, BASS

South Side. Morgan Park. Everywhere he went in Chicago, Micah encountered jazz musicians. At age ten, he started playing bass. By middle school, he was sneaking into Andy’s Jazz Club to receive the tough love from the veteran musicians who taught and inspired him. Despite a thorough jazz education in high school and college, he believes Chicago is just too diverse for any musician to conform to a single genre. R&B. Avant-Garde. Gospel. Chicago House. Hip-Hop. Funk. It all finds a way into his sets at Adorn, where he leads a rotating trio with a piano and drummer who play a “2021 spin on 1962,” with everything from Mingus and Coltrane standards to Stevie Wonder. It’s a room he loves to play, as it’s more relaxed and intimate than a jazz club, giving the musicians the chance to interact with the crowd. And, when he’s not at Adorn, years after a fourteen-year-old had his first glimpse of Andy’s, he now fronts a band every Thursday.