Mike Fauré has been paying saxophone for around five decades. At the age of ten he heard Glen Miller’s “In The Mood” on the radio, and he knew he wanted to pay a horn. In his mid-teens he played trumpet for three years, then switched to sax.
Before moving to Chicagoland, he was based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area where he worked with several different blues and R&B bands, including his own corporate band. Besides his work in the US, he spent many years overseas, performing in the UK, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, the Caribbean, South Africa and various African countries.
He has toured extensively, working with soul-man Arthur Coney ("Sweet Soul Music"), also with Albert Collins. Janis Ian, Peaches & Herb, Della Reese, Percy Sledge, The Commitments - with Andrew Strong, Oscar Tony Junior, Inez Foxx, Buddy Whittington, Dave Millsap, Johnny Clegg, Bakithi Kumalo, opened for Jimmie Vaughan and many others. During the early years, he co-founded the band Hammak along with drummer Anton Fig of the David Letterman Show. Shortly thereafter he attended Berklee College of Music.
During his time overseas, the distinctive sound of Mike's saxophone has been heard on hundreds of television and radio commercials, movie and television soundtracks and on other artists' records in just about every genre imaginable. He plays with restraint and taste, his seasoned, warm tone and innately easy style result in the type of sax that most people enjoy hearing. He has had five solo albums on the market and is currently preparing material for a new album.
Mike has always considered himself more of an R&B, rock, blues and soul player, even though his early influences were all mainstream jazz players. Later, it was saxophonists, mainly in the so-called Texas Tenor style, that really grabbed his attention. Then, when King Curtis' sax hit the airwaves, he knew he'd found his niche!