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Interviews
Michael Wolff: The Art of Communication
Todd S. Jenkins
I have contributed in varying degrees to All About Jazz, Down Beat, Route 66 Magazine, Signal To Noise and American Songwriter.Tourette's aside, the Wolff family's life is a bit different from other celebrity households. Draper now writes and directs the smash Nickelodeon children's series The Naked Brothers Band, which stars their two young sons, thirteen-year-old Nat and nine-year-old Alex. The series started out as a 2004 TV-movie, the cast of which included several extended family members and bassist John B. Williams (also an actor in The Tic Code). The concept is based loosely upon the kids' real lives as musical prodigies and loving rivals; Draper actually builds each episode around a different song written by the brothers, putting the music almost at center stage. Michael Wolff plays, essentially, himself as a goofball, accordion-pumping dad who is always trying to horn into the kids' band. Michael maintains that the character is nothing like him in real life, although Nat (with a grin) says there is a close resemblance.
Wolff beams when discussing his talented progeny and their future, pridefully noting that Nat's year-end piano recital included a Bach invention and Miles Davis' "So What. He indicates that the series meshes with his vision to bring the joy of jazz to a younger audience. "This next season on the show, I'll be portraying not only myself as the Dad, but as his evil twin, a conniving jazz pianist. It will give us a chance to expose the audience to a little more jazz. And it should be a lot of fun besides! And so the art of prior generations gets communicated to the next.
Photo Credits
Top photo: Michael Wolff
Bottom photo: Todd S. Jenkins
