Michael Lea was raised in Englewood, New Jersey, while regularly commuting to 116th and Amsterdam in New York, where the rest of his family lived after moving from his birthplace, Danville, Virginia.
[8] In 1968, he moved to San Francisco, where he joined Bata Koto, led by Bill Summers.
Among the artists with whom he played were Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner, Randy Weston, Van Morrison, Oscar Brown, Jr. and Mark Murphy.
Lea would ultimately pay tribute to Thomas on his 2009 album, Umbo Weti, which appeared on the Motéma Music label that he founded with Jana Herzen in 2003.
The purpose I try to imbue my music with is that our growth as human beings should strive toward an anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, egalitarian, democratic universal society and I don't care how many lifetimes it takes to get there!