Michael F. Patterson

has been involved in music for most of his adult life. While attending high school for a year at Philips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H. in the '60s, he played his first "paid gigs" as a saxophonist in the soul band the "Au Naturelles." After returning to Indiana, enthralled by Jimi Hendrix, Patterson switched to guitar and intermittently played in a number of rock and soul bands for about 10 years before taking a long hiatus from music.
During the late '80s, Patterson's friend --recording engineer and producer--Craig Harding enticed him back into the fold as a guitarist and midi programmer for his Fort Wayne Ajax Recording Team studio. Intrigued by the works of artists from Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Olatunji to Samuel Barber and Karlheinz Stockhausen, he and Harding embarked upon a series of recordings that utilize a wide variety of musical ideas. In addition to recording and releasing seven solo projects and two collaborative projects with composer and pianist Jim Steele (collectively known as the Arkham Chamber Society), Patterson appears on numerous regionally and several nationally released albums, including singer Joyce Lawson's "Chapter III" and the Todd Harrold Band's "Mr. Whatever." He also played on Tony Marino's debut recording, "Havana Heat." He co-produced Santana alumnus Ernie Johnson's R&B release "Squeeze It" on Phat Sounds Records and arranged tracks for former Motown, Malaco and Ace Records staff writer, now record company executive Frank-O Johnson's recently released "Cheating Town" album project on Phat Sounds. He continues to perform with various jazz, rock, R&B groups, but currently spends the bulk of his "musical life" developing and recording his own self-styled "africentric sci-fi sound" projects under the banner of YANMMusic--often foregoing "traditional" instruments to create compositions through manipulating naturally "found" sounds.
He is the former communication director for the Three Rivers Jenbé Ensemble, a youth development program founded by writer and musician Omowale-Ketu Oladuwa. The group is dedicated to studying and playing the music of the Malinke people of West Afrika. Patterson recorded and coproduced the ensemble's recording, "Honoring the Tradition." and formerly played in JATA, the adult adjunct of the Three Rivers Jenbé Ensemble.
Patterson lives on the planet working to do his thing. . .