Michael Philip Mossman

Michael Philip Mossman has had an eclectic and ambitious career for over 40 years as a trumpeter, composer, arranger, and educator. He is best known for his playing and arranging in big bands, and has worked with a who's who of important big band leaders. Mossman is particularly associated with Latin jazz through his work with Machito, Mario Bauza, Tito Puente, Bobby Sanabria, Chico and Arturo O'Farrill, and many others.

Mossman's career had a somewhat unexpected beginning: his first recordings, in the late '70s and early '80s, were on tours in Europe with avant-garde big bands directed by Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell, and Wadada Leo Smith. In the mid-'80s, Mossman was a member of Out Of The Blue, a sextet assembled by the Blue Note label to highlight a new generation of musicians. His earliest recorded composition, O.T.B., became the title track of Out Of The Blue's first album.

Jazz legends whom Mossman has worked with as a player or arranger include Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Joe Zawinul, Jimmy Heath, and Joe Henderson; Mossman both played and arranged for the latter's Grammy-winning big band album. He's also written ballets and film scores, and appears in the Latin jazz documentary "Calle 54." Mossman is the director of the jazz program at Queens College's Aaron Copland School of Music.