Biography

Matt Daniel was born in the small town Hoofddorp, The Netherlands. As a young 6-years old boy, his parents took him to church on sundays. As church service was over, Matt was found regularly improvising on the piano or organ, raising eyebrows already. His passion for improvising and combining genres brought him to the jazzpiano department of the conservatory of Amsterdam. During his first year at school, Matt won the Dutch composition contest called ‘Op weg naar het Nieuwjaarsconcert’, which led to a concert performance of Matt and the Dutch Woodwinds Ensemble in the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam on 01-01-2012. After graduating in 2016, Matt followed the master’s program in scoring for film, bringing him new skills like producing, mixing and virtual orchestration. Matt has written music for several small movies that were broadcasted on Dutch television. During his studies, Matt played a lot of jazzbars and fancy hotel lobbies as well as bluesrock festivals with names like Dave Chavez and Veldman.

During the covid-19 pandemic, Matt practiced the hammond organ for 6 hours a day. And with succes: A theatre tour followed with the name: ”Symphonic Rock Night”, honoring bands like Genesis, Pink Floyd, Rush, Camel. Matt played and presented the 2022 show ‘The Second Chapter’ and the 2023 show ‘The Third Line’ joining bandmembers like Joop Wolters on guitar and Tim de Jong on drums. Also, Matt joined the band of bluesrock singer AJ Plug, touring in The Netherlands as well as in Germany. In 2022 Matt joined the band of theatre artist and performer Tjerk Ridder. Matt plays both piano and hammond at the same time, providing a solid pop groove with gospel fills to support the songs as well as video material. Also, the show consists of improvised music to emote spoken word.

In 2023 Matt recorded music for the French progrock composer LALU. The album features the great Damian Wilson(UK) on vocals, Jelly Cardarelli on drums and Joop Wolters on guitar and bass next to Vivien Lalu himself. Matt contributed on this record with spacy hammond intro’s, ambient synths, and piano parts that lean towards jazzfusion. The record has been released by Frontiers Records Group.

Also in 2023, Matt formed his own group: Soulsmash. The powertrio consists of himself playing hammond, keys and synthbass, plus leadguitar and drums. The group plays exiting compositions that shines a new light on traditional Funk, Disco, Soul and Jazzrock. Soulsmash is Matt’s groove train: Expect an energetic stage performance and big grooves that to dance to.

As you might have noticed already: Matt is known for playing a wide variety of genres. From pop to jazz, rock, prog rock, bluesrock, country, instant improvisation. His playing can be described as tight, steady with a great feel for groove. A harmonically and rhythmically virtuoso. ”Something to use whenever the music or artist asks for it” as he stated himself. His recordings and performances have brought him an endorsement agreement with Hammond Susuki Europe. Besides playing, Matt does lots of studio work for artists who need true analog sounding keyboard parts. That can be synths, real hammond organ/ upright or grand piano. Recordings are made in Matt’s home studio and send via Google Drive link. For more info just send an email.