Neil Carson loves to do music.

Next to bonfires and s’mores during the fall months, it might be his favorite thing in the world.

As a multi-talented, all-around musician, Neil wears many musical hats. While he mainly considers himself a composer, Neil also plays a mean saxophone, leads his own band, mixes/produces records, and teaches lessons. Music is Neil’s life, and has been for a long time.

Neil started taking piano lessons at age 6. He loved playing, but hated reading and practicing music. Nonetheless he stuck with it, and soon discovered he had perfect pitch, a special ability to identify musical notes without any reference pitch. Growing up Neil’s musical heroes included Earth Wind and Fire, Metallica, The Beatles, and Steely Dan.

At age 10 Neil picked up the saxophone, and when his sax teacher first introduced him to jazz music, it sounded like random noise to him. But Neil’s teacher made him keep listening and learning, and he gradually fell in love with jazz through the passionate sounds of saxists like Sonny Stitt, Cannonball Adderley, and Chris Potter.

Neil became a hardcore ‘jazz nerd’ in high school, and went on to study Jazz Saxophone and Composition at University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. While immersing himself in the jazz world, he never lost touch with his roots in rock and pop music, and continues to let all sides of his musical self shine today.

Neil’s compositions have won acclaim from many corners of the music world. His big band piece “Ballad for the Hopeless Romantic” won first prize in the 2017 ASMAC Arranging competition. In 2019 his composition “Listen” was featured at the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers Symposium in Greeley, CO. Most recently, Chicago’s Blueshift Big Band commissioned Neil to arrange big band versions of the music of Koji Kondo, composer of the Nintendo video game franchise.

As a saxophonist Neil performs with Safety Squad, Dan Montgomery Quintet, J Livi & the Party, the Ken Arlen Evolution Orchestra, and other projects. His greatest love is leading his own band New Nostalgia, a Chicago 9-piece instrumental outfit that combines musical threads of jazz, pop, and rock. Neil has also mixed and produced albums by Danielle Wertz, Zach Bartholomew, and DEL Trio among others. Neil maintains an active private teaching and clinician schedule, and in his free time loves to eat deep dish pizza and listen to standup comedy.