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Matt Holman

Hailed by the New York Times as a “conscientious” and “perceptive young trumpeter,” and by the great Fred Hersch as “a creative and thoughtful improviser with a world-class sound,” trumpeter Matt Holman has distinguished himself as a composer, conductor, bandleader and top-tier soloist in many of the leading jazz ensembles of our time. Along with his adventurous chamber-jazz recordings, Holman has performed and/or recorded with Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, the John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Fred Hersch’s Leaves of Grass, Bang on a Can’s Asphalt Orchestra, the Joel Harrison Large Ensemble, the JC Sanford Orchestra, New York Voices, Kenneth Salters Haven, the Anna Webber Quartet, Matt Ulery’s Loom, Andrew Rathbun and more. Holman has also composed and arranged works for Stefon Harris, Jane Monheit, Marvin Stamm and university ensembles worldwide.

Holman’s 2013 debut When Flooded (Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records), an ambitious and evocative project with his five-piece Diversion Ensemble, was awarded four stars by Down Beat. The album’s “richly orchestrated tapestries of sound and beautifully developed melodic ideas,” noted Hot House, draw “inspiration from a large gamut of musical sources that stretch far beyond jazz.” Not for nothing does the trumpeter cite Wayne Shorter, Shostakovich and Sigur Rós as key influences. His 2017 follow-up, The Tenth Muse (New Focus Recordings), finds contemporary relevance in the ancient Greek love poetry of Sappho. The album features Holman in an inspired quartet with reedist Sam Sadigursky, vibraphonist Chris Dingman and pianist Bobby Avey.

Holman has earned numerous awards including the International Trumpet Guild’s Jazz Improvisation Competition, the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition, and the BMI Foundation’s 13th annual Charlie Parker Jazz Composition Prize/Manny Albam Commission. An emerging scholar, he received the Institute of Jazz Studies’ Morroe Berger-Benny Carter Jazz Research Fellowship in 2016 to research the work of composer/reedist Jimmy Giuffre. Holman served as Artistic Director of New York Youth Symphony Jazz for six seasons and currently teaches as adjunct faculty at Manhattan School of Music and Hunter College.

Awards

ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award 2009, Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition 2007, International Trumpet Guild Jazz Trumpet Competition Winner 2004


Tags

33
Album Review

Remy Le Boeuf: Architecture of Storms

Read "Architecture of Storms" reviewed by Jack Bowers


It's hard to become bored or complacent when listening to Architecture of Storms, alto saxophonist Remy Le Boeuf's second album as leader of the twenty-member Assembly of Shadows orchestra. Every song is quite different from the others, and every one has its moments of shapeliness and charm. Le Boeuf arranged every number and composed all but Justin Vernon's “Minnesota, WI" and the album's nameplate, which he co-wrote with poet Sara Pirkle, he asserts, “on a brooding stormy ...

Album Review

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension

Read "Dynamic Maximum Tension" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Precursore nel 2009 (con l'innovativo Infernal Machines) del nuovo rinascimento orchestrale nel jazz, Darcy James Argue approda all'etichetta Nonesuch e pubblica il nuovo album in studio: un doppio CD realizzato con i consueti partner della Secret Society più l'aggiunta della cantante Cecile McLorin Salvant e della violinista Sara Caswell. A differenza degli ultimi due dischi, Dynamic Maximum Tension non è un'opera multimediale ma conserva la spinta visionaria animata dalla costante riflessione socio-politica. Spinta che si traduce in ...

6
Album Review

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension

Read "Dynamic Maximum Tension" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright


Darcy James Argue's superb double-album Nonesuch debut offers compositions written throughout his career. He turns to twentieth-century thinkers for “ideas that can help us in the present, that we can reexamine and reconfigure for our own purposes." These include futurist designer Buckminster Fuller, cryptanalyst-computer scientist Alan Turing, composer-arranger Bob Brookmeyer, actress-screenwriter Mae West, trumpeter-mentor Laurie Frink, and musician-beyond-category Duke Ellington, among others. Like West, Argue seems to control his own path. He may not yet be the tycoon she was, ...

Album Review

Remy Le Boeuf's Assembly of Shadows: Architecture of Storms

Read "Architecture of Storms" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Remy Le Boeuf è uno dei nomi emergenti nell'ambito dell'arrangiamento e della conduzione orchestrale. Dopo il sorprendente Assembly of Shadows del 2019, il sassofonista e bandleader californiano (a New York dal 2004) torna con la sua orchestra irrobustita nel numero e nella qualità dei singoli componenti. Tra i nuovi ingressi troviamo in particolare il trombettista Mike Rodriguez e il sassofonista Dayna Stephens, che caratterizzano un paio di brani, anche se il lavoro di Le Boeuf è prettamente ...

Album Review

Remy Le Boeuf's Assembly of Shadows: Assembly of Shadows

Read "Assembly of Shadows" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Dopo aver debuttato in veste di leader nel 2019 con il ricercato album Light as a World (un sestetto con, tra gli altri, Aaron Parks e Walter Smith III) il 33enne sassofonista e compositore d'origini californiane, presenta un ambizioso progetto orchestrale comprendente la suite “Assembly of Shadows," un'altra sua composizione ("Strata") e una riscrittura di “Honeymooners" di Ornette Coleman. Prima di questi lavori ha condiviso la leadership del gruppo Le Boeuf Brothers col suo gemello Pascal. La ...

Album Review

Andrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites

Read "Atwood Suites" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Sassofonista e orchestratore canadese, Andrew Rathbun ha 47 anni e una ricca carriera alle spalle, svolta negli Stati Uniti con studi al New England Conservatory sotto la guida di Ran Blake e dal 1997 professionalmente a New York in vari contesti. A partire dal debutto del 1999 con Scatter Some Stones, ha inciso alcuni dischi da leader, il più noto dei quali è Sculpture (Fresh Sound 2002) inciso in quintetto col suo mentore Kenny Wheeler. Con quest'ultimo Rathbun ha collaborato ...

32
Album Review

Remy Le Boeuf: Assembly Of Shadows

Read "Assembly Of Shadows" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


With his second date as a leader, multi-woodwind artist Remy Le Boeuf performs these largely self-penned comps with an orchestra, featuring notable musicians Anna Webber (woodwinds), Alex Goodman (guitar) and other jazz VIPs. Here, the leader's composing acuity brims with multicolored hues and harmonious arrangements, largely executed with a composite of modern jazz and classical inferences via gradual buildups, brash outbreaks and complex unison choruses that occasionally mimic single note bop lines. Sure enough, this young visionary's unflagging creative spirit ...

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Recording

BJURecords Proudly Releases: "When Flooded" From Trumpeter/composer Matt Holman

BJURecords Proudly Releases: "When Flooded" From Trumpeter/composer Matt Holman

Source: Jason Byrne, Red Cat Publicity

CD Release Celebrations: March 20 @ The Cornelia Street Cafe May 1st @ Barbes “Trumpeter Matt Holman is a creative and thoughtful improviser with a world-class sound. I expect big things from him in the years to come." —Fred Hersch, pianist/composer “There are many prodigiously talented young instrumentalists out there. The ones with something to say - and a clear idea of how to say it - are altogether thinner on the ground. Matt Holman's strikingly beautiful debut ...

“Trumpeter Matt Holman is a creative and thoughtful improviser with a world-class sound. I expect big things from him in the years to come.” -Fred Hersch, pianist/composer

“Matt Holman is a trumpeter and composer with a fresh, lyrical voice. Like his music, Matt is warm, caring, and quietly passionate.” -Pat Harbison, trumpeter/educator

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Dynamic Maximum...

Nonesuch Records
2023

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We Will Find

Outside in Music
2021

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Architecture of Storms

Soundspore Records
2021

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Assembly of Shadows

Soundspore Records
2019

buy

Atwood Suites

Origin Records
2018

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The Tenth Muse

New Focus Recordings
2017

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Two Islands III

From: Atwood Suites
By Matt Holman

Videos

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