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Jeff Holmes

Pianist, composer, arranger and trumpeter Jeff Holmes was born in 1955, grew up in Lynnfield MA, and earned degrees from the Eastman School of Music where he studied with Rayburn Wright and Bill Dobbins, among others.

Holmes is a nationally published and commissioned composer/arranger (B.M.I.), and a multiple recipient of National Endowment For The Arts Jazz Composition Grants. He has written music for John Abercrombie, Ernie Watts, Max Roach, Chris Vadala, Doc Severinsen, Paul Winter, Sheila Jordan, Yusef Lateef, Rufus Reid, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Jack’s Mannequin, and the Big Apple Circus, as well as numerous works for professional, military, collegiate, high school and junior high jazz, concert, and marching ensembles.

He has performed around the world including Russia, Japan, and Australia, and was a featured artist on the Jazz at the Kennedy Center series in Washington D.C with the Billy Taylor Trio. Other activities include ongoing appearances with the Paul Winter Consort, collegiate residencies, as well as headlining with his big band at the 2007 International Trumpet Guild Conference. Holmes received the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Massachusetts Association of Jazz Educators. He is also the featured trumpet performer on the soundtrack to the PBS American Experience presentation “A Class Apart”, and his compositions are included as source music in the 2010 PBS series “Circus”.

In addition to his new quartet CD “Of Ones Own” on Miles High Records, Holmes’ recent recording projects include CDs with the New York Latin All-Stars (“Chicago Exitos!” - horn arrangements and trumpet), and the New England Jazz Ensemble (“It’s A Grand Night For Swinging” featuring new arrangements by Holmes for guest soloist John Abercrombie), contributions to CDs by the Paul Winter Consort (“Earth Music” – piano & composer), and Robert Lamm (trumpet), and, a forthcoming Jeff Holmes Big Band release slated for 2013. In addition to the quartet and his big band, Holmes plays lead trumpet with the New England Jazz Ensemble, Earl MacDonald and the Hartford Jazz Society’s New Directions Ensemble, and Rob Zappulla, as well as drums with the Amherst Jazz Orchestra.

Professor of Music and Director of Jazz and African-American Music Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Holmes directs the award-winning UMASS Jazz Ensemble I, and Studio Orchestra, which have been featured in invitational appearances at the International Association of Jazz Educators, the Jazz Educators Network, and MENC/NAfME conferences, as well as numerous collegiate jazz festivals/competitions nationally. Over the years, individual students and ensembles of the Jazz & African-American Music Studies program from UMASS have received recognition from DownBeat in virtually every collegiate jazz and pop category. He is also the Artistic Director of the Jazz In July Summer Workshops at UMASS, a continues to guest conduct Junior and Senior District/All-State jazz ensembles throughout the country, in addition to being in demand as a guest artist, adjudicator, clinician, commissioned composer and lecturer.

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Album Review

Felipe Salles: Home Is Here

Read "Home Is Here" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Home Is Here conclude la trilogia del compositore e bandleader brasiliano Felipe Salles (residente dal 1995 negli USA dove insegna all'Università del Massachusetts Amherst) dedicata al tema dell'immigrazione. Un'indagine musicale e multimediale iniziata nel 2018 con The Lullaby Project e proseguita due anni dopo con The New Immigrant Experience, di cui abbiamo già parlato in queste pagine. Qui Salles focalizza il tema dell'immigrazione nel jazz ed ha invitato otto protagonisti della scena di New York ad esibirsi col ...

3
Album Review

Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: Home is Here

Read "Home is Here" reviewed by Troy Dostert


For the third recording from his Interconnections Ensemble, tenor saxophonist and composer Felipe Salles chose to put the artists first--literally. That is, he had extensive conversations with each of the guest musicians on the record before composing the pieces on which each would be featured, thus highlighting their own stylistic and personal characteristics. The result is a polychromatic, adventurous album that allows Salles' multidimensionality as a composer to flourish. And with top-shelf guests such as Melissa Aldana, Paquito D'Rivera, and ...

1
Album Review

Felipe Salles: The New Immigrant Experience

Read "The New Immigrant Experience" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


The New Immigrant Experience è un lavoro multimediale, che combina musica orchestrale e proiezioni video, ispirato all'esperienza dei Dreamers, persone protette dal programma Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Accanto al compact disc musicale il progetto include quindi un DVD (curato dalla regista Fernanda Faya) in cui Felipe Salles intervista giovani immigrati, raccogliendo storie di vita spesso dolorose. Quelle testimonianze sono servite al bandleader da ispirazione per questo nuovo lavoro col Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble, una big band di 20 elementi ...

5
Album Review

Felipe Salles Interconnections Ensemble: The New Immigrant Experience

Read "The New Immigrant Experience" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Is it mere coincidence, or does the rise in the number of “concept" albums by jazz big bands signal that the trend is here to stay? Trumpeter Brian Lynch won a 2020 Grammy Award for his Journey Through Literature in Music, and there have been other tenet-based enterprises within the past year by Dan Jonas, John Bailey, Eric Weiss, the WDR Big Band, Marcus Shelby, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Chris Jentsch and others. Now comes The New Immigrant Experience, ...

7
Album Review

Earl MacDonald: Open Borders

Read "Open Borders" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Open Borders brings to the fore Canadian-born pianist Earl MacDonald's burnished tentet in a program that consists of eleven sunlit and swinging themes, five of which were composed by the leader. Besides writing, MacDonald did most of the arranging, and he excels in both arenas, as he does on piano (most notably on the standards “Blame It On My Youth" and “East of the Sun" as well as on Percy Mayfield's R&B classic “Hit the Road Jack" and his own ...

4
Album Review

Earl MacDonald: Open Borders

Read "Open Borders" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Not many piano led ensembles finds the pianist laying as far back in the musical dialogue as Earl MacDonald, who doesn't come anywhere near an extended solo until “Miles Apart" and Percy Mayfield's Ray Charles blow- out “Hit The Road Jack" (tracks five and six respectively). But that's just fine given that MacDonald has charted the conversations and man oh man, do these arrangements crackle with spirit.From the high-flying “Dig In Buddy" to the exhilarating Latin flavors “Dolphy ...

4
Album Review

Earl MacDonald: Open Borders

Read "Open Borders" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Politicians might do well to take a few pointers from pianist-arranger Earl MacDonald. As this fine album attests to, it's far better to build bridges than walls, and far more productive to open borders and dialogue than close hearts, minds, and doors. While MacDonald didn't initially set out to make a political statement with this recording, both the events of the day and the make-up of the marvelously tight dectet that brings this music to life got ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Home Is Here

Tapestry Records
2023

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The New Immigrant...

Tapestry Records
2020

buy

Open Borders

Death Defying Records
2017

buy

Meridian 63

From: Home Is Here
By Jeff Holmes

Did You Eat?

From: The New Immigrant Experience
By Jeff Holmes

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