In 2000, when Matt Savage was just 8 years old, he played piano for Dave Brubeck and jammed at a sound session with Chick Corea and his sidemen, Avishai Cohen and Jeff Ballard. The following year he was invited to a soundcheck to jam with jazz great McCoy Tyner and his sidemen, Avery Sharpe and Al Foster. In 2003, at the age of 11, Matt debuted at the famed Blue Note jazz club in Manhattan and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. The following year he debuted at NY’s Birdland jazz club, performing with the legendary Clark Terry on trumpet, Jimmy Heath on sax, Jon Faddis on trumpet, Marcus McLaurine on bass and Kenny Washington on drums. By 2005, Matt had performed twice with Chaka Khan. In February of 2007, Matt made his first appearance at the prestigious Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Now that it's 2008 and Matt is 15, he has appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman" as the musical act, released his newest CD, hit #11 on the JazzWeek radio charts, garnered the #2 position in LIVE JAZZ sales on Amazon.com (behind only Keith Jarrett) and signed an international sub-publishing deal with SONY/ATV.
In September of 2007, the Matt Savage Trio performed for the first time at Tufts University’s prestigious Distler Hall at the Granoff Music Center. Accompanying Matt on his 9’2” Bösendorfer Concert Grand piano were sidemen Dave Robaire on bass and Joe Saylor on drums. During their two-concert gig, the group recorded a new live jazz album entitled HOT TICKET: Live in Boston. The album was produced by Grammy-nominated Jonathan Wyner and engineered by nine-time Grammy-winner Tom Bates. True to its name, “HOT TICKET” features a number of new upbeat compositions written by Savage, including the Latin-fueled “Muy Caliente,” and the beautiful ballads “Colors” and “Setting Sun.” Popular tracks revisited from earlier albums include “El Fuego” (from their “Chasing Your Tail” CD) and the Caribbean-flavored “Curacao,” performed by the Trio in December of 2006 on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” (from their “Quantum Leap” CD). Rounding out the playlist is a stunning performance of Miles Davis’ “Seven Steps to Heaven.”
Matt has continued to flourish in leaps and bounds as a composer and musician. States Savage, “Early on, I played mostly bebop. Now I like to combine styles, building and diversifying with each song.” Matt enjoys using the full range of the keyboard, balancing Latin and Bossa Nova rhythms, upbeat grooves and radiant, melodic ballads. “El Fuego” and “Seven Steps to Heaven” find the Trio trading solos, building in dynamic intensity. “Father’s Day” finds Matt in the midst of a driving shuffle blues. With the funky “Black-Key Magic,” Matt explores a new playground of black keys versus white keys in a powerful jazz track with hip-hop undertones.
Major 2007 highlights included Matt’s stellar debut at the Ottawa International Jazz Festival and a September 2007 feature in American Airlines’ American Way magazine (“In the Company of Genius”). In November, Matt made two appearances on New England public radio stations: “Eric in the Evening,” Eric Jackson’s live jazz radio show on WGBH-FM in Boston, and WICN-FM in Central Massachusetts. The WICN broadcast presented Matt’s live solo piano concert at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts. A grand finale to 2007 featured Matt Savage on Marian McPartland’s popular “Piano Jazz” syndicated National Public Radio (NPR) series. The interview aired on December 28 and local NPR stations aired the program in the two weeks following initial feed date. A webcast of the interview can be heard at www.pianojazz.org.
“HOT TICKET” follows the Matt Savage Trio’s acclaimed studio album, “Quantum Leap,” released in 2006. Produced by Diane Savage, “Quantum Leap” was the Trio's fifth CD and their first album to receive worldwide distribution via a new deal with Palmetto Records (MRI/RED).
The album reached the top 25 on the Jazz Week charts and received airplay on Jazz stations throughout the country. “Quantum Leap” continued to gain popularity when it was added to Borders Books & Music Listening Stations nationwide throughout January/February of 2007.
Jazziz magazine gave “Quantum Leap” a superb review saying Matt’s “amazing technique shines” and JazzTimes described Savage sounding like a “schooled, seasoned jazz pianist” who is “well on his way to forging an effective personal language.” The All Music Guide also gave “Quantum Leap” high marks, describing it as “absolutely refreshing and engaging.”
“What I love about jazz,” says Matt, “is that you can break all the rules and be free.” Matt took that freedom to new heights on “Quantum Leap,” showcasing versatile techniques on such original compositions as “Curacao,” “Blues in 33/8” and “Serenity.” He also featured several standards on the album, including “All the Things You Are” (Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II), “Monk’s Dream” (Thelonious Monk) and “A Child is Born” (Thad Jones), all delivered in Savage’s unique interpretive style.
Prior to “Quantum Leap,” the Matt Savage Trio released “Cutting Loose” in 2004, which marked their first performance at Birdland. “Cutting Loose” was preceded by “Chasing Your Tail,” “Groovin’ on Mount Everest” and their 2001 debut album, “All Jazzed Up.”
From the very beginning of Matt's music career, despite his young age, the jazz community embraced this amazing talent - who was quickly earning recognition as a certified supergenius. Matt Savage is one of fewer than 100 people known in the world as a “prodigious savant.” Dr. Darold A. Treffert, an internationally known researcher in the field of Savant Syndrome, coined the term prodigious savant to refer to savants whose skills would be considered spectacular even if they were possessed by someone not faced with a disability.
Matt has made an extraordinary emergence from his own disability, having been diagnosed at the age of 3 with Pervasive Developmental Disorder, a high-functioning type of autism. At that age, Matt could not communicate easily or withstand noises, not to mention music. His parents enrolled Matt in a special program for children with autism that involved patient training and a strict dietary and vitamin regime (the DAN Protocol). From age 3 to 7 Matt underwent speech therapy and occupational therapy. At age 6 1/2 he did a special auditory integration therapy to retrain his ears and make them less sensitive to sound. Matt was able to retune his sensory and social perceptions and his musical skills flourished at an accelerated pace. He taught himself to read piano music and immediately began studies in classical piano.
By the age of 7, Matt had switched to Jazz after discovering the music of Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Matt studied for 3 years at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and recorded his first solo album in 1999 in collaboration with the New England Conservatory, becoming the youngest child to perform at the NEPTA "Gifted and Talented" classical recitals in 2000. That same year, Matt performed for Dave Brubeck at WGME-TV in Portland, Maine. Brubeck prophetically said, “I was amazed at how talented he is. Amazing is the word I can tell you. He has such a musical mind that it isn't music that he has to learn. It seems like he's such an advanced musician in so many ways already at 8."
Matt's second solo album, "Live at the Olde Mill," was released in 2001, a year which proved pivotal in Matt's career as media recognition began to accelerate. Sparked by a live radio performance and interview on Boston's WERS 88.9 and an excellent review in The Boston Globe, Matt began selling out concerts.
That same year, The Matt Savage Trio released their live concert album, "All Jazzed Up," and radio stations across the country were broadcasting performances and interviews with Matt. He appeared on “Lifetime Television” and did an interview with Barbara Walters for ABC’s “20/20.”
The media momentum continued in 2002. In February, he received his first album review on the All About Jazz website and was heralded as "phenomenal." National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" aired a detailed piece about Matt that became one of the most listened-to programs of the year and won numerous broadcast journalism awards. The Matt Savage Trio performed at the famed New Orleans Jazz Festival, and Matt appeared on "The Today Show," "The View," "Montel" and “The Discovery Channel.”
In May 2003, The Matt Savage Trio released their third album, "Chasing Your Tail," recorded live at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Matt was signed by Bösendorfer pianos, becoming the youngest person and only child in their now 180-year history to become a Bösendorfer artist. In November of 2003, The Trio made their debut at the Blue Note in New York, documented in a Time magazine article citing Matt as the youngest performer to have played the famed venue. Matt ended the year performing with more jazz greats at the Kennedy Center for NPR's live broadcast, “Jazz Piano Christmas,” sharing the stage with The Bad Plus, Arturo O’Farrill, Jason Moran, Stefon Harris, Karrin Allyson and Lynne Arriale.
Awards for Matt's musical accomplishments have been many. Matt earned ASCAP's 2004/2005 "Young Jazz Composer" award for his composition, "The Wild Rose," from the Trio's CD, "Cutting Loose." He received the award at the ASCAP Jazz Wall Convention in New York, being honored along with living legends Neal Hefti, Shirley Horn and John "Bucky" Pizzarelli. In 2005/2006, he received a second “Young Jazz Composer” award from ASCAP for his composition, "Serenity,” from “Quantum Leap.” He not only received his award in New York at the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame, but performed the song for all the jazz legends in attendance. “Hide and Seek,” another composition from “Quantum Leap,” has garnered Matt his third consecutive award from ASCAP as a 2006/2007 “Young Jazz Composer.”
In 2006, Matt made a special appearance in April at MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, in conjunction with the premiere of the three-part documentary "Ellington by Keys" produced by award-winning filmmaker, Gary Keys. Several of the compositions performed by Matt were from original Duke Ellington manuscripts that had never before been published or performed. Matt's life journey was also documented in a 2006 worldwide broadcast of a film entitled "Beautiful Minds - A Voyage into the Brain," a three-part series produced by German ARD television. In April of 2007, American audiences had the opportunity to see this amazing film when Part II, “Struck by Genius,” featuring Matt, made its debut on the “National Geographic” Channel.
Matt Savage keeps good company with the music of the jazz greats, past and present. His enormous respect for their legendary bodies of work inspires and fuels his own unique jazz compositions and interpretations. As People Magazine astutely wrote in 2002, "...jazz phenom Matt Savage unlocks a door to genius using 88 keys." With the release of each album, Matt has challenged "genius" by exploring and expanding his creative boundaries. At the age of just 15, Matt continues to have vision and technique beyond his years as a composer and musician. The Boston Herald recently proclaimed, “Jazz prodigy makes ‘Leap’ to maturity.” “Quantum Leap” launched another chapter in Matt Savage's musical evolution. Now, with the release of “HOT TICKET,” fans can enjoy a host of familiar songs as well as many new compositions, all enhanced with the energy only a live album can deliver.

1 Muy Caliente

2 Father's Day

3 Setting Sun

4 Quittin' Time

5 Black-Key Magic

6 An Awful Song (That You'll Really Hate)

7 El Fuego

8 A 6/4 Song (That's Also in 6/4)

9 Colors

10 Seven Steps to Heaven

11 Curacao

12 Free and Easy