About

Here’s the long(ish) bio

Matt Henson began playing saxophone at the age of 12 and continued to perform throughout middle school and high school. At 15, Matt was invited to audition for the Eastern Washington University Jazz program and successfully joined the Repertory Jazz Ensemble, diving into the world of challenging big band literature. In the following years, Matt performed with his own group called "The Jazz Project," as well as other Spokane area bands.

In 2016, Matt traveled to the University of North Texas in Denton, where he had the privilege of briefly studying with esteemed educator and prolific saxophonist Jim Riggs (Nelson Riddle, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald). During his time at North Texas, Matt debuted a simple arrangement of "Summertime" in the ensemble he played with.

Later in 2016, Matt attended the Inside:Outside Retreat for Saxophonists in Nashville, Tennessee. Hosted by Bob Reynolds (Snarky Puppy, John Mayer), Bob Franceschini (Paul Simon, Celine Dion, Mike Stern, Victor Wooten, Tower of Power), and naturalist, musician and educator Bob Hemenger, Matt participated in the retreat for three years, two as a participant and the last as volunteer staff. During his attendance, Matt had the opportunity to perform with and for musicians such as Roy “Futureman” Wooten (Belá Fleck), The Bob Reynolds Group, Vail Johnson (Mariah Carey), Jeff Coffin (Dave Matthews, Belá Fleck), Victor Wooten, Chris Cheek, and many others.

Matt continued his music education at Eastern Washington University and studied saxophone under Steve Friel and composition under Jenny Kellogg. In 2017, he debuted his first Big Band chart — an up-beat swinging arrangement of Frank Churchill and Larry Morey’s “Someday My Prince Will Come”. In subsequent years, Matt continued writing and arranging tunes for various ensembles and was awarded Arranger of the Year in back to back years for his arrangements of John Klenner’s “Just Friends” and Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust”. In May of 2018, Matt volunteered to review a recently transcribed work called Scheherajazz for an up-coming, department wide concert at the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox in Spokane, Washington. Upon review, he discovered that many crucial parts and compositional elements were missing. In the weeks preceding the show, Matt transcribed the entirety of the four movement piece from scratch in an effort to ensure accuracy to the original recording. After two weeks and roughly 200 hours of work, the piece was performed and was described during the show as the most accurate transcription of the work in the world written and captured at the highest level possible.

During Matt’s time at Eastern Washington University, Matt toured with the Eastern’s Concert Jazz Orchestra and performed throughout the region. He performed with Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, Pedrito Martinez, and was a featured soloist with the New York Voices. During local performances, Matt had the privilege of performing with Julia Keefe (Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band), Blake Braley (Allen Stone), Tristan Hart-Pierce (Allen Stone, Walking Papers).

In 2019, Matt officially incorporated his work under the name Matt Henson Music and in March of 2019, Matt successfully helped facilitate the first American tour for the Bob Reynolds Group and produced a sold out crowd for the band in Spokane, Washington at Terrain. The Jazz Project was officially rebranded to the Matt Henson Group and in early 2020 Matt partnered with North Idaho musician, Branden Cate, and recorded and released a series of songs recorded at Lucky You Lounge in Spokane in March 2020. The songs were released over the course of the following weeks through Facebook and YouTube. In late 2020, Matt started to take on more studio work with the release of a holiday record in December 2020 as well as other projects. In September 2021, he released his first studio project, “First Time Out”, featuring his Big Band and soloists Bob Reynolds, Juan Carlos Rollan, on the label Matt Henson Music. In weeks leading to the holiday season, Matt partnered with Dan and Shelley Powers, of the North Idaho Folk Americana group The Powers, and produced a cross over record called “If Only In My Dreams”. The EP featured the Matt Henson Big Band as well as a full orchestra with musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra, Sarah Bareilles, Maynard Ferguson, the Bob Curnow Big Band and Asleep at the Wheel. During the holiday season in 2021, Matt also partnered with his former saxophone professor, Steve Friel, and produced Dr. Friel’s first studio record featuring the SGT Steve Big Band titles “Merry Christmas!!”. The record featured arrangements from Matt Henson, Vern Sielert, Vince Norman, Zac Lee, Lauren McKinley and Don Goodwin as well as musicians from the Navy Commodores, the Michael Waldrop Big Band, and the Bob Curnow Big Band. During these records, Matt discovered his interest in post audio production and performed mixing and mastering services for both records.

In 2022, Matt began to focus more on production and partnered with Coeur D’ Alene guitarist, Rhys Gerwin and began to co-produce music together with various, simple parameters — the song must be no more than two and half minutes, it must be written on a sticky note, and they had to play every part. In May 2022, the pair released a self titled, full length record of 17 original tracks under the name Sketches. Matt and Rhys began to regularly perform these songs as well as other originals and covers through out the Inland Northwest through the remainder of 2022.

In May of 2022, Matt was asked to be the guest director for the Spokane Area Jazz All Star Big Band for a performance at Spokane’s Knitting Factory. With just six hours of rehearsal over two days, the ensemble performed a 45 minute set of advanced college big band literature that Matt selected for an audience of the students’ peers.

In October of 2022, Matt left Spokane and moved to Wrangell, Alaska to begin to focus on his personal life and faith. He worked as the Marketing and Community Development Coordinator for the City & Borough Wrangell helping develop and implement marketing tactics and strategies around tourism and developing policy for communications and economic development. This position took him across to country to meet with travel industry leaders and agencies as well as to Washington DC where he met with the federal delegation for Alaska, the Department of Homeland Security, the US Department of Transportation and the US Department of Agriculture as well as other members of congress.

In October of 2024, Matt was contracted by the City and Borough of Wrangell to provide entertainment for the Harvest Celebration of the 2024 US Capitol Christmas Tree. Matt brought in musicians from across the US to perform during the official ceremony as well as a range of other community events. As an official local sponsor, Matt Henson Music was listed on the side of the 80 foot trailer that carried the tree from Wrangell, across the nation—stoping 17 times—to Andrew’s Air Force base in Maryland. After arriving in Maryland, the tree was unloaded and escorted through Washington DC where it was displayed for the 2024 holiday season on the west lawn of the US Capitol building.

In early November, Matt made his theater debut as Mr. Anthony Kirby in Wrangell’s production of the Pulitzer Prize winning show “You Can’t Take It with You”.

In November of 2024, Matt left his position with the City & Borough of Wrangell and began working remotely for Utah based marketing agency, Relic Agency + EKR as the Production Manager. Matt opted to remain in Wrangell to continue to focus on his personal development and to continue to serve the community of Wrangell. He continues to develop his production and writing with North Idaho based guitarist Jackson Roltgen as well as saxophonist and band leader Steve Friel.