Matt Parker

Matt Parker is a tenor and soprano saxophonist, woodwind player, composer and producer with more than 25 years of performing and more than 40 album credits, from Maynard Ferguson's big band to New Orleans R&B to music written for resonant rooms. His newest project is the quietest thing he has released. 432 Hz Piano & Winds I, released August 28, 2026 on BYNK Records, is the first single in a new series of ambient music tuned to 432 Hz. Parker plays piano under his own bass clarinet, clarinet and flute, with no synthesizers, and lets the acoustic instruments resonate. It is available name-your-price on Bandcamp.

The series grows out of Enigma (2022), his collaboration with Echoes of Starlight, and out of Living Sound, his site-responsive solo practice in which the space becomes the second performer. Living Sound has taken him to St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University, Guild Hall in East Hampton, the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, and Cape Town, South Africa.

Parker was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1979 and was playing professionally as a teenager, mentored by Jimmy Cavallo and playing alongside Ira Sullivan and Dr. Lonnie Smith. After the New World School of the Arts in Miami, he moved to New York in 1999 to study at The New School with Jane Ira Bloom, Reggie Workman, Junior Mance and Charli Persip, and privately with Barry Harris and Gary Campbell. That year he won The New School's Zoot Sims Award, which came with a concert alongside Phil Woods. He went on to spend two years in Maynard Ferguson's Big Bop Nouveau, making his debut as a soloist on M.F. Horn VI: Live at Ronnie's, recorded during a two-week run at Ronnie Scott's in London.

Since 2010 he has toured and recorded with Hess Is More, on albums including Creation Keeps the Devil Away and Apollonian Solos, and he has toured with Postmodern Jukebox. He plays lead tenor in the Sean Nelson Jazz Orchestra, has played with the Mingus Big Band, and has performed with Ariana Grande, Orrin Evans and Bridget Everett. He spent more than a decade playing weekly at New York's Duane Park supper club, where he was musical director from 2016 to 2020, and works with Murray Hill. He plays viper songs with The Candy Shop Boys and old-school New Orleans R&B with Tubby, and he has made appearances (both musical and on-screen) in the hit action film John Wick.

As a composer, he scored the Chris Pine film Poolman (2023) with Alan Hampton, as the duo Pat & Tap, and has written for the immersive theater show MidSummer: A Shakespearience, the graphic audio drama Brother, Mine, and the sound walk Kierkbride. He was a featured performer in Dorrance Dance's 45th & 8th on its 2022-23 national tour.

As a leader, Parker debuted with Worlds Put Together (2013), which DownBeat called "restlessly inventive" and named one of the best albums of 2014. All About Jazz heard "a fully formed artist, one with his own unique voice and singular vision." Present Time (2016), a trio record with bassist Alan Hampton and drummer Reggie Quinerly, includes the first recording of Charles Mingus's "Song to Keki" and was among DownBeat's best albums of 2016. The Ottawa Citizen called it "a warmly swinging showcase for his breathy, Ben Webster-esque flow." Hot House has heard the gruff-yet-sensuous lines of Ben Webster in his tenor, JAZZIZ says he "welcomes listeners with warmth and wit," and The Village Voice called him a "tenor and soprano sax whiz."

With pianist Richard X Bennett he co-led Parker Plays X (2023) and played on Bennett's albums Experiments with Truth (2017) and, on Ropeadope, SCAVENGER and Love & Forgetting (both 2024). With trombonist Reggie Watkins, a collaborator since 2003, he released First They Came: A Performance in Three Movements (2025), recorded live at Carnegie Music Hall in Carnegie, Pennsylvania. He also produced Watkins's Avid Admirer (2016), a DownBeat Editors' Pick, and Rivers (2025).

Parker founded BYNK Records (Because You Never Know) in 2013 with Shana Parker and has produced every release. The label is based in Simsbury, Connecticut, and distributes through The Orchard. He is a Recording Academy voting member, an ASCAP writer and publisher, and a D'Addario Woodwinds artist of more than 20 years, and he mentors The Hall Monitors at William H. Hall High School in West Hartford. "I'm always chasing sound as story," he says, "something felt, something unexpected."

Awards

Named One of Best Albums of 2014 by Downbeat Magazine Names One of the best Soprano Saxophonist in 2014 - The 36th Annual Jazz Station Awards Album of The Year (2013) - Something Else Reviews