Jazz Articles about Mats Holmquist
Randy Brecker & Mats Holmquist with the UMO Jazz Orchestra: Together
by Jack Bowers
Here's a productive cross-border alliance if ever there was one: American trumpeter Randy Brecker, Swedish composer / arranger Mats Holmquist and Finland's superb UMO Jazz Orchestra, Together for the first time in a recording studio. The versatile Brecker is the featured soloist throughout, while Holmquist wrote five of the album's engaging songs and arranged all of them. As for the orchestra, it is letter-perfect from end to end, performing Holmquist's often strenuous charts with singular proficiency and assurance.
read moreDick Oatts / Mats Holmquist New York Jazz Orchestra: A Tribute to Herbie +1
by Jack Bowers
A Tribute to Herbie +1 is Swedish-born composer / arranger Mats Holmquist's third “tribute" album, following well-received salutes to Chick Corea (2003) and Wayne Shorter (2012). For his encomium to pianist / composer Herbie Hancock, Holmquist called upon two of New York City's most respected sidemen, alto saxophonist Dick Oatts and trombonist John Mosca, known and admired, among other things, for their long association with the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, to assemble an ad hoc orchestra comprised of some of the ...
read moreThe Mats Holmquist Big Bad Band: A Tribute to Chick Corea
by Jack Bowers
Chick Corea has been one of the jazz world’s most prolific and influential composers for more than three decades, and the best one can say about this impressive salute by Mats Holmquist’s Stockholm-based Big Bad Band is that his music has seldom sounded more enchanting. I don’t know if Corea has heard this, but if he has he must be grinning from ear to ear. Simply put, it’s a marvelous salute, teeming with rich orchestral colors, playful rhythms and exemplary ...
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