Pianist Matt Baker left a successful carrer in Sydney in 2010 to try his luck in New York and so far he’s doing very well thank you!
He has recently released his fifth recording as a leader, but it is only his second since arriving in New York. He said he wanted to have a solid career beneath him when he did his next album and this is it “Almost Blue” recorded in 2015 and released in 2016.
Since arriving in the Big Apple Matt has worked in the bands of guitar icon Bucky Pizzarelli, bassist Marco Panascia and accompanied singers Tierney Sutton and Judy Collins and has played with his own trio in all the major jazz clubs such as Birdland, The Blue Note and Cleopatra’s Needle as examples. He says his biggest influence in his youth was jazz piano great Oscar Peterson and he has since studied with a number of the finest piano players in jazz.
Almost Blue, is 14 tunes culled from the Great American and late 20th Century Pop Song Books and Matt Baker says that each one represents a certain place in his life during the periods that led up the the recording.
The first track on the program is “A Beautiful Friendship” followed by “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” with a vocal. Yes, Matt Baker is a fine singer too.