Matt Brewer – Bass

Matt Brewer was born in Oklahoma City and grew up in Albuquerque NM, surrounded by a family of musicians and artists. Matt fell in love with the bass at age 10 and began a lifelong study of music. He graduated high school from the Interlochen Arts Academy, and then went on to study at the Juilliard School.

He’s travelled the world playing in the bands of Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Dave Binney, Gerald Clayton, Ben Wendel, Aaron Parks, Vijay Iyer, Dhafer Youssef, Antonio Sanchez, Mark Turner, Steve Lehman, Ben Monder, and Lage Lund, among many others).

He has been a frequent guest lecturer at the Banff Center and is an adjunct faculty member at the New School University. He joined the SFJAZZ Collective in 2018.

The SF Jazz Collective is an American ensemble comprising nine performer/composers, launched in 2004 by SFJAZZ, a West Coast non-profit jazz institution and the presenter of the annual San Francisco Jazz Festival. The SFJAZZ Collective performs a new repertoire each year, one that balances the works of a great modern jazz composer from the post-1960 era and eight new compositions (commissioned by SFJAZZ), one from each band member. In 2018, they featured the music of Brazilian composer Antonio Carols Jobim and, amongst the tunes performed was this one, ‘How Insensitive, in this case arranged by Warren Wolf. The piece is given a very slow feel based around a simple ostinato played by Brewer. Some challenging dots here and there but the tempo means you have room to think.

The $64,000 dollar question on this one, for me, is whether this is an electric bass or a double bass. My money is on an electric but I am not 100% sure.