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Matt Brewer

Matt Brewer is one of the world’s premier bassists. He was born April 20, 1983, in Oklahoma City but spent most of his youth in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Born into a musical family, Matt was surrounded by music from an early age, both his father and grandfather being jazz musicians, and his mother an avid music lover and radio DJ (who, before Matt was born, would play classic jazz albums for him). He started playing drums at age 3, learning rudiments on a small practice pad, but didn’t take music seriously until the age of ten, when he found the bass during a summer program at the Interlochen Center for the Arts.

There he began studying classical bass from two world renowned bass instructors, Winston Budrow, and Lawrence Hurst, while learning about jazz from his father. Matt started gigging professionally at the age of twelve around the Albuquerque area and was soon winning awards from the top university jazz festivals, twice winning the festival’s highest award which had never before been given to a middle school student. He continued his study of classical bass with the superb principal bassist of the New Mexico Symphony, Jean-Luc Matton, but soon realized that it would be necessary to be in an overall more creative and art appreciating environment. This led to the decision to attend high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Matt continued his study of classical bass, and took jazz performance classes. During his junior and senior years, Matt was selected from applicants across the country, to participate in the Grammy Band. He then performed on the 2000 Grammy Awards telecast in a group that was the first ever to perform on the show without being nominated for a Grammy. After graduating the Interlochen Arts Academy, Matt attended the inagural class of The Juilliard Jazz Program and studied with bassists Rodney Whitaker and Ben Wolfe.

After spending two years at Juilliard he decided to leave school to make time for his busy touring schedule. Since then he has worked with artists such as Greg Osby, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Lee Konitz, David Sanchez, Terence Blanchard, Aaron Parks, Jeff “Tain” Watts, and many others. He is features on dozens of recordings, including two on the Blue Note record label. “Channel Three” by Greg Osby, and “Avatar” by Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Matt has also led bands in New York, performing at venues such as the Jazz Gallery, Fat Cat, and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

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Album Review

Gonzalo Rubalcaba & Trio D'été: Turning Point

Read "Turning Point" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo


Ecco un trio di qualità superiore e magistrale souplesse, in grado di regalare profonde emozioni a chi lo ascolta. Aleggia in questo Turning Point un mirabile magistero tecnico, coniugato a un invidiabile interplay nel valorizzare il magniloquente pensiero compositivo di Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Nelle sette tracce di questo album c'è imprevedibilità, fantasia esecutiva, tensione emotiva. All'interno di un fitto interplay scorre senza soluzione di continuità la migliore essenza del jazz, distillata in cinquanta minuti di musica appassionante: trame eleganti, ...

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Album Review

Reggie Quinerly: The Thousandth Scholar

Read "The Thousandth Scholar" reviewed by Chris May


The Thousandth Scholar is Los Angeles-based drummer and composer Reggie Quinerly's fifth album, each out on his Redefinition label. Quinerly themes his albums. His debut was Music Inspired By Freedmantown (2012), a tribute to the Houston neighborhood where he was born and raised. It was followed by Invictus (2015), a salute to hard bop, Words In Love (2018), which dealt with vocals, and New York Nowhere (2021), a portrait of life in the city (Quinerly studied at the New School ...

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Album Review

Tyshawn Sorey Trio: Continuing

Read "Continuing" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Tyshawn Sorey listeners who were weaned on his Pi Recordings, The Inner Spectrum of Variables (2016), Verisimilitude (2017), and Pillars (2018), were probably unprepared for the swinging trio outing Mesmerism (Pi, 2022). With the multi-instrumentalist Sorey on drums, Aaron Diehl on piano and Matt Brewer on bass, the group delivered one of the best piano trio albums of the year. Later in 2022, they issued a live recording, The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism (also on Pi), adding saxophonist Greg ...

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Album Review

Mike Moreno: Standards From Film

Read "Standards From Film" reviewed by Chris May


At last. An enjoyable alternative to the ghastly albums of “jazzed up" hymns and Christmas carols which spew forth every holiday season. There is nothing overtly Christmassy about guitarist Mike Moreno's Standards From Film, but it is appropriate that the album, recorded in New York in December 2021, was released in the UK in early December 2022 and came out in the US a month or so earlier. It nails the seasonal nostalgia spike and then some. ...

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Album Review

Tyshawn Sorey Trio: Mesmerism

Read "Mesmerism" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is an idiosyncratic and restless explorer. An accomplished percussionist, he is known for blurring, if not completely erasing, the boundaries between the pre-written and the improvised. This has led him to work in a modern, Western Classical, idiom, albeit one rooted in the jazz tradition. After conducting the twenty-piece Alarm Will Sound on his critically acclaimed For George Lewis / Autoschediasms (2021, Cantaloupe Music), Sorey returns to the piano trio format on the accessible yet ...

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Album Review

Tyshawn Sorey Trio: Mesmerism

Read "Mesmerism" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


In the '60s, it was common to criticize avant-garde jazz musicians by saying they could not swing. Drummer and composer Tyshawn Sorey has travelled far beyond mainstream jazz through his “new music" composing and collaborations with other cutting edge musicians such as Vijay Iyer and Roscoe Mitchell. Now he confounds expectations by leading a piano trio which definitely swings but with its own unique way of exploring rhythm and melody. The trio is filled out with Aaron Diehl ...

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Album Review

Tyshawn Sorey: Mesmerism

Read "Mesmerism" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


«Ho sempre accolto con favore l'opportunità di suonare questa musica—dice Tyshawn Sorey-. Dopo essere stato etichettato come un cosiddetto “avanguardista" per quasi due decenni, ho deciso che era giunto il momento di realizzare questa session con musicisti che rispetto e ammiro profondamente». Un piano trio in omaggio alla tradizione può risultare sorprendente per chi ha seguito il batterista e compositore a capo di sue innovative formazioni e in partnership con Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman, John Zorn, Steve ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Thousandth Scholar

Redefinition Music
2024

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Mel's Vision

Criss Cross
2023

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Continuing

Pi Recordings
2023

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Turning Point

5Passion
2023

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Only Now

Self Produced
2022

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