Australian-New Yorker Jazz Pianist/Vocalist Matt
Baker has performed at jazz festivals, clubs
and concert halls in Australia, Europe, USA and
the Pacific. As of 2010, he is now proud to call
New York City his home.
Baker recorded his 5th album Almost Blue (via
JazzElm Music), with producer Matt Pierson, to
be released in June 2016. The album features
tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm, along with Luques
Curtis on bass, Obed Calvaire on drums and
guitarist Lage Lund. His previous album
‘Underground’ featuring
Gregory Hutchinson, Dayna Stephens and Jeremy
Pelt received rave
reviews in Downbeat, Jazz Times and Jazz Wise
UK, and reached #26 on the US JazzWeek charts.
Baker’s sideman credits include engagements
with, among others, 7-string guitar icon Bucky
Pizzarelli, tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm,
bassist Marco Panascia, and vocalists Tierney
Sutton and Judy Collins. In addition to refining
his presentation of Oscar Peterson repertoire in
his show ‘An Oscar Moment’, which he has
presented at Birdland and different venues in
North America and abroad along with sidemen Jim
Cammack, Jerome Jennings and vocalist Brianna
Thomas, Baker has played numerous trio
engagements that feature his own repertoire
conception in diverse rooms like Birdland, The
Blue Note, Cleopatra’s Needle, Gin Fizz,
Iridium, Kitano, Bemelmans, Le Cirque, the Zinc
Bar, as well as The Side Door and Scullers Jazz
Clubs.
Matt Baker was an award
winner in the 2003 Montreux International Solo
Jazz Piano competition and a semi-finalist in
2004 and 2005. The Montreux Jazz Festival also
engaged The Matt Baker Trio as their exclusive
in-house band 2 years straight, where they
performed 17 nights in the Montreux Festival
Jazz Club, accompanying and supporting many of
the festivals headlining artists. A student of
Taylor Eigsti’s since moving to New York, (and
aside from watching Oscar Peterson perform live
a whole week at the Bluenote, which he recounts
as being as great a lesson as any), Baker has
also studied with Mulgrew Miller, Benny Green,
Fred Hersch, Aaron Goldberg, Jacky Terrasson,
James Williams, Ralph Sutton and Ella
Fitzgerald’s life-long accompanist Paul Smith.
Quotes
“The Australian piano whiz” – Stephen
Holden, NY Times
“Baker has a playful approach to melody,
particularly on the standards that he
interprets with Joe Sanders and Gregory
Hutchinson ... Baker reins the tempo back in
with a lilting, off-handed statement of the
melody that captures the lyric’s enthused
giddiness.”— Shaun Brady, DOWNBEAT Magazine,
March 2012
“Swings confidently ... full of clever
reharmonizations and hip syncopation ... The
threesome demonstrates seamless group
chemistry.”—Bill Milkowski, JAZZ TIMES, April
2012
“Matt Baker is one of the most respected and
versatile pianist composers yet to come out of
Australia ... On ‘Underground’, there’s a
definite nod towards Miles’ 1960s quintet ...
Baker’s playing sounds as though it belongs on
ECM. An exceptional pianist.” — Tony Hall,
JAZZ WISE UK
"This Guy Can Play" —Herbie Hancock
“Baker's piano is the axis around which it all
resolves, with integrity and enjoyment."
—Michael Foster, CANBERRA TIMES
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Copyright
2016 JWP Agency / Jim Wadsworth Productions. All rights
reserved.
Australian-New Yorker Jazz Pianist/Vocalist Matt
Baker has performed at jazz festivals, clubs
