MICHAEL BLUME PERFORMING LIVE
Blume doesn’t come from a
particularly musical family, and the
Montclair public schools served
as his launching pad. According to
long-time friend Zev Fagin, Blume
was in all the musical productions at
Glenfield Middle School. “Michael,
Emmet Cohen and I were a trio,”
Fagin says. “We woke up early every
morning in middle school and
carpooled to jazz band.”
In high school, the three were in
the marching band together, where
Blume played trumpet and also
directed the a capella group “The
Passing Notes.” (Fagin is now a
filmmaker and Cohen a well-regarded
jazz pianist and composer, and the
three are still friends, living near
each other in Harlem.)
Music also shaped Blume’s educa-
tion at Yale, where he sang with the
a capella group The Whiffenpoofs.
He’d entered the university think-
ing he’d become a lawyer focusing
on foreign affairs, and that music
would be just a hobby, he says. But
his mind changed his senior year
during a 35-country tour with the
Whiffenpoofs.
“Performing night after night
around the world really sparked my
re-connection with my artistry,” he
says. It also helped him move away
from a dependence on “capitalism’s
rewards — good grades, money,
Instagram likes,” he says.
Fagin says that Blume’s openness
to other cultures and ways of life,
which began in his public school
days in Montclair, shaped his musi-
cal style. “Michael always had a lot
of friends, and a lot of close friends,
spanning multiple countries, and has
been influenced by a lot of differ-
ent musical styles from around the
world,” he says.
That includes Jewish music
— Blume’s father was president of
Temple Shomrei Emunah in town
— and the black musical tradition
he discovered through friends in the
Montclair public schools, Fagin says.
These days, Blume is trying to fig-
ure out “how to get music to pay for
my life for the next 50 years. I’m real-
izing how much needs to happen to
get to a sustainable level of success,”
he says. “What sacrifices am I willing
to make and not make?”
Another journey has been finding
and embracing his sexual identity.
When Blume came out as gay after
high school, he says, he viewed the
world, and sexuality, in a binary
way. Now, he identifies as queer —
that is, he sees two genders as divid-
ing people into these “very boring”
categories. “I’m interested in break-
ing down gender binaries, making
space for all of us to be who we are,”
he says. “To me, there are as many
genders as there are people.”
Before the coronavirus, Blume was
writing and taping songs, with an
eye toward paying back his record
company’s investment in him,
through streaming music, touring and
“syncing opportunities” with TV
commercials and movies. He was also
singing at weddings, something that
he misses not just because it helps
pay the bills, but also because it
energizes him.
He’s staying home for now, doing
some writing, and “honing in on
the sound and message and color of
my next project,” he says. “I’m very
excited to put on new music. I’m at
this beautiful moment where I don’t
know pretty much anything. And
I am learning to be OK with that
uncertainty.” ■
MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE MAY 2020
17