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Bill Holman is an American songwriter, conductor, composer/arranger, and saxophonist working primarily in the jazz idiom. Although he has performed and recorded as a tenor saxophonist, Holman is best known as an arranger, one of the finest in jazz history. He has provided charts for, among others, Stan Kenton, Woody Herman, and Gerry Mulligan's Concert Jazz Band. He has also led his own band over the years.Born Willis Leonard Holman on May 21, 1927 in Olive, CA, near Santa Ana, Bill Holman took up clarinet in junior high school and tenor saxophone in high school by which time he was leading his own band. he decided in the late '40s that he wanted to write big band music and studied composition privately with Russ Garcia and saxaphone with Lloyd Reese. In the 60s, he widened his writing associations, and eventually contributed pieces to libraries and recordings of bands led by Louie Bellson, Count Basie, Terry Gibbs, Woody Herman, Bob Brookmeyer, Buddy Rich, Gerry Mulligan, Doc Severinsen and others. Holman started The Bill Holman Band in 1975. The band has made three albums, all for JVC: 1988's “The Bill Holman Band”, 1995's “A View From The Side”, for which Holman won a Best Instrumental Composition Grammy for the title track; and 1997's “Brilliant Corners: The Music of Thelonious Monk.” Since 1980, Holman has been increasingly and is still very active in Europe. website | Hear music samples
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