Brian Lynch Musician - All About Jazz

Updated: March 27, 2023

Born: September 12, 1956

MULTIPLE GRAMMY© AWARD WINNER; 6 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS; JJA (Jazz Journalists Association) TRUMPETER OF THE YEAR & RECORD OF THE YEAR

“This is a new millennium, and a lot of music has gone down,” Brian Lynch said a number of years back. “I think that to be a jazz musician now means drawing on a wider variety of things than 30 or 40 years ago. Not just to play a little bit of this or a little bit of that, but to blend everything together into something that has integrity and sounds good. Not to sound like a pastiche or abruptly shifting styles; but like someone with a lot of range and understanding.”

Multiple Grammy© Award Winning trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Brian Lynch brings to his music an unparalleled depth and breadth of experience. A honored graduate of two of the jazz world’s most distinguished academies, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and the Horace Silver Quintet, he received wide acclaim during his long tenures with Latin Jazz legend Eddie Palmieri and straight ahead master Phil Woods. He has been a valued collaborator with jazz artists such as Benny Golson, Toshiko Akiyoshi, and Charles McPherson; Latin music icons as diverse as Hector LaVoe and Lila Downs; and pop luminaries such as Prince. As a bandleader and recording artist he has released over 20 critically acclaimed CDs featuring his distinctive composing and arranging, and has toured the world at the helm of various ensembles reflecting the wide sweep of his music.

Voted Trumpeter Of The Year and recipient of the Record Of The Year Award by the Jazz Journalists Association, Lynch’s talents have been also recognized by top placing in the Downbeat Critics and Readers Polls (#3 Trumpet Critics Poll); as well as feature stories and highly rated reviews for his work in the New York Times, Jazz Times, and Downbeat. He has received multiple Grammy Award nominations - and garnered Grammy wins in 2020 for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album and in 2007 for Best Latin Jazz Album. He is also the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Knight Foundation, Chamber Music America, and Meet The Composer.

Professor of Jazz and Studio Music at the Frost School Of Music, University of Miami, Lynch has also conducted clinics, workshops, and residencies throughout the world, including at the Stanford Jazz Workshop, Harvard University, Dartmouth University, Michigan State University, Senzoku University (Japan), Yamaha Artist Services Taipei and Moscow, and the Rotterdam Codarts University. Before joining the faculty at the Frost School, Professor Lynch was on the faculty of New York University from 2003 to 2011. He has also taught at the Prinz Claus Conservatorium (Netherlands) as Visiting Professor (2002-07), Long Island University, and The New School.

Born September 12, 1956 in Urbana, Illinois, Lynch grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he apprenticed on a high level with such local residents as pianist Buddy Montgomery; while located in San Diego in 1980-81, he gained further valuable experience in the group of alto master Charles McPherson. Towards the end of 1981, Lynch moved to New York, and soon linked up with the Horace Silver Quintet (1982-1985) and the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra (1982-1988). Simultaneously, he played and recorded on the Latin scene with salsa bandleader Angel Canales (1982-83) and the legendary cantante Hector LaVoe (1983-87). He began his association with Eddie Palmieri in 1987, and at the end of 1988 joined what turned out to be the final edition of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. He began his tenure with The Phil Woods Quintet in 1992, which continued until Woods’ death in September 2015.

Lynch’s artist owned and operated record label Hollistic MusicWorks has released a series of critically acclaimed recordings under his name since its inception in 2010, including the Grammy Award winning Omni-American Book Club (2019), the Grammy Award nominated Madera Latino (2016), Questioned Answer (2014), and the Unsung Heroes series of recordings (2011-13), awarded a 5 star “masterpiece” rating by Downbeat magazine. His latest albums, the Songbook series Vol.1 and 2, made best of the year lists in both Downbeat and Jazz Times magazines.

Lynch also has released 17 albums as a leader between 1987 and 2010 on the Criss Cross, Ken, Sharp Nine, Cellar Live, Nagel Heyer, EWE, Zoo’t Jazz, Artist Share, and Venus recording labels. Notable albums from this series include his first album as a leader, Peer Pressure, for Criss Cross; the 1997 Spheres of Influence [Sharp Nine], which earned a 4-1/2 star Downbeat rating and was Lynch's first project to reflect the panoramic range of interests that influenced his working life as a musician; and Simpático (2006) in collaboration with Eddie Palmieri for ArtistShare, a Grammy Award winning document of the deep musical and personal friendship between Lynch and Palmieri, as well as the first completely self-produced effort by Lynch leading to the establishment of the Hollistic MusicWorks label.

Lynch’s discography as a featured artist and sideman runs to over 200 recordings, including 9 albums with Eddie Palmieri, 13 albums as part of the Phil Woods Quintet, and 3 albums with Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, all featuring his contributions as arranger, composer, and featured soloist. Other notable recordings include albums with Prince, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Issac Delgado, Donald Harrison, George Russell, Tito Puente, and many other artists representing diverse genres of Jazz, Latin, and popular music. Lynch has also arranged and produced for numerous artists, including Lila Downs, Conrad Herwig (the Latin Side series of albums), Mondo Grosso, and Yerba Buena.

Lynch now devotes the majority of his performing and creative time to his own musical endeavors, centering around his own groups and recording label Hollistic MusicWorks.

Brian Lynch is a Yamaha Artist and endorses the Lefreque Sound Bridge.

Awards

Grammy© Awards

Best Large Ensemble Album, 2019 (Brian Lynch Big Band, The Omni-American Book Club)

Best Latin Jazz Album, 2006 (The Brian Lynch/Eddie Palmieri Project, Simpatico)

Grammy Award Nominations

Best Instrumental Composition, 2019 (Crucible For Crisis)

Best Latin Jazz Album, 2016 (Brian Lynch Presents Madera Latino), 2008 (The Latin Side Of Wayne Shorter), 2004 (Another Kind Of Blue: The Latin Side Of Miles Davis)

Jazz Journalists Association Awards

Trumpeter Of The Year and Record Of The Year (Madera Latino), 2017

Gear

Yamaha Performing Artist

Trumpet: Yamaha YTR 9335 NY-3 (New York Artist Model); Mouthpiece: Bach Mt Verson 1C; Lefreque Sound Bridge.

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This article was first published at All About Jazz in March 2000.Though many of his peers have received far more attention from the public and press, the fact is that Brian Lynch is one of the most experienced and talented jazz trumpeters of his generation. Growing up in the Milwaukee area, Lynch took advantage of a healthy jazz scene there that found him playing professionally at the age of 16 and gaining valuable knowledge and seasoning through his ...

Liner Notes

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Album Review

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Read "Caribbean Blue" reviewed by Jack Bowers

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Pleasant music with ample color and variety--that's an apt description of Caribbean Blue, the latest albulm from California-bred, Florida-based guitarist Russ Spiegel, who has surrounded himself with world-class musicians and given them rein to canvass ten of his generally engaging compositions and bring them admirably to life. While everything on offer is respectable, it is the album's midsection--tracks 3-8--that rise above the others and lend the session much of its vitality and charm. After harmonica virtuoso Hendrik ...

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Michael Eckroth had clear goals in mind for this project--"to create music that was lyrical, modern, true to its Afro-Latin roots, but never purist in its approach"--and he's accomplished his mission with gusto. Through Plena, this Grammy-nominated pianist/composer delivers a program of original music that, while acknowledging folkloric traditions, doesn't buy into their formal strictures and structures. Instead, Eckroth deals in forward-thinking offshoots and branch realities that beautifully extend on--and past--those points. Essentially working with two different ...

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Read "Songbook Vol. 1: Bus Stop Serenade" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi

by Angelo Leonardi
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Con Bus Stop Serenade Brian Lynch inaugura una serie di album che raccolgono il suo intero songbook, scritto in quarant'anni di carriera e disseminato in numerose incisioni. Da alcuni anni il trombettista ha varato una propria etichetta (la Hollistic MusicWorks) e iniziato a reinterpretare le sue vecchie composizioni: “Ho sentito che avrebbero beneficiato di un po' d'attenzione sotto forma di nuove versioni—ha detto—presentate ad ascoltatori contemporanei, che potrebbero non conoscere il mio lavoro precedente. Sono poi diventato un po' testardo ...

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Read "Cheap Thrills: The Music Of Rick Margitza" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
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In 2019, the acclaimed Michigan-bred, Paris-based tenor saxophonist Rick Margitza thought he was being asked to contribute a couple of charts to the University of South Florida Jazz Orchestra's fifth recording in its fifteen-year history as a working ensemble. But when SFJO founder and leader Chuck Bergeron looked at the charts he had an even better idea, and asked Margitza to write and / or arrange everything on the album, which thus became Cheap Thrills: The Music of Rick Margitza. ...

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Read "Cheap Thrills: The Music Of Rick Margitza" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

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Recording

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Source: Jim Eigo, Jazz Promo Services
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A world-class guitarist by anyone’s definition, California-born Russ Spiegel is also a composer, arranger, big band leader, mixing engineer, educator and much more, including a world traveler. Though not entirely, much of the music in Caribbean Blue is a tip of the hat to some of his destinations and the cultures he’s experienced, and homage to many of the genres of music he loves, and, perhaps most importantly, a reminder of just how small the world really is. Throughout his ...
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