On Jan. 11, Capital Region music veteran Matt Steckler will be helping to bring in the new year with a display of musicianship at Caffe Lena.
Joined by other jazz heavyweights from New York City -- Yayoi Ikawa on piano, Lonnie Plaxico on upright bass and Tony Lewis on drums -- Steckler is celebrating the release of his latest effort, "Old Friends Beckoned/New Sounds Reckoned." Often recognized for his woodwind prowess, Steckler has cooked up something musically fascinating with the recent collaborative release.
Initially released Oct. 15, the new album is a masterclass in improvisation, with wonderful arrangements dancing along in a panoply of time signatures and syncopations. Whether you listen to jazz as a hobby or study the genre intently, there's something for both camps on this record. Each new listen is bound to offer something new to appreciate.
I recently had a chance to chat with Steckler about the album and the show.
LUCAS GARRETT: I listened to the album and it's killer.
MATT STECKLER: Thank you.
LG: I don't think I've had to count that much in music in a while. You're all over the place and I love it.
MS: Thanks a lot.
LG: Walk us through who's on the album and how it came to be.
MS: I'm based near upstate New York but the other musicians are New York City-based. I used to live there from 2003-2014, and sometimes I make trips and play gigs [there].
I play saxophones and flute in the band. Yayoi Ikawa is the pianist, Lonnie Plaxico is the upright bassist and Tony Lewis is on drums.
[The album] lists all four of our last names as artists on the top. I organized it and I wrote nine of the 10 pieces on the record. Yayoi wrote the other one.
I bill [the group] as a collaborative effort because I see the writing part as 10% of it -- maybe 20%. The rest is the interaction [between us].
LG: How much of the album was improvised and how much was written out?
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MS: It's really that 20/80 divide. In my past I wrote more complicated, through-composed jazz pieces with a lot of interludes and openings -- introductions and that sort of thing. I wanted this to be in the spirit of what a great, small combo could do when they're given as much freedom as possible.
Also, truth be told there's not a lot of time for us to get together always. It started as a reunion of three out of the four of us; it was a trio without drums. We played a Caffe Lena show as the trio, I'm thinking [around] two years ago, and a couple shows in New York City -- Brooklyn.
Some of the same pieces we did are on [the album] and I kept thinking that a drummer would fill them out.
These are all people I know from different points of my life and they know each other -- they play together on different projects in New York. That's how the title "Old Friends Beckoned/New Sounds Reckoned" came about. They're all friends of mine from different times in my life, they're friends with each other and now we're learning to be friends in a quartet.
LG: How has that musical process been for you?
MS: It was really important to me that we knew each other. When I have the opportunity I'd rather know the people well, especially when it's a record I'm recording. It adds more morale to the sound we're trying to create together.
We learned about each other more musically through the project, so that's a way we got closer as friends.
LG: How long did it take to record the album?
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MS: It was really quick. We rehearsed the day before, and we videotaped two songs from that, and used it as promotional material. I asked them if they thought we were ready and they said yes.
I booked two days in the studio, but Lonnie had a commitment the second night back in the city. We recorded upstate in Catskill at Scott Petito's studio. Some of the better-known projects in this area are usually recorded there if it's a jazz or fusion project. He's also recorded a lot of big, heavy names from everywhere.
Lonnie thought we could do everything in one day and we did. We did 10 tracks in one day and I mixed it in another two days or so.
LG: That sounds like quite the workout.
MS: We had the momentum we needed to [get it done].
LG: It seems like playing a reed or woodwind for that long would be exhausting on your mouth and face.
MS: I have gigs coming up playing more musical and pit orchestras where I'm switching woodwinds constantly. The embouchure -- the shape of my mouth on each instrument -- has to change. My mouth can get tired quickly.
It's not as bad as for ... trumpet and brass players have to manage their energy level [well] or they can blow up their lips. If I'm not methodical about playing long tones or having a routine every day my face will fall off.
LG: What's your favorite part about this collaboration?
MS: I love seeing my compositions come to life with people who really know what they're doing, and they transform it into something I didn't anticipate. I think if you're open-minded about the music taking its own shape and ceding control, that can be a pleasant surprise, you know?
LG: For those who aren't familiar with the sound and they see your event advertised on Caffe Lena's site, what can they expect for the Jan. 11 show?
MS: This quartet has played at The Linda at WAMC, which is a larger room, and in [places] with large amplification. Caffe Lena is [much more] intimate. Even though we have a drummer, [people] can expect a sense of intimacy to the music we're playing. We want to play to the room.
There'll certainly be a lot of fire in there as well. It's a bunch of professionals who know the space they're playing in. Those who choose to come out will have a moving experience of communication between the artists and the audience. There'll be a lot of opportunities for us to connect throughout the night.
LG: How long have you been performing as a jazz musician?
MS: I'm 50 years old now and I've been playing jazz professionally since my early 20s, so nearly 30 years.
LG: Have you ever felt when performing that you have a moment of "This is feeling stale?"
MS: Oh, I have plenty of those moments. It's challenging to not feel like I'm regurgitating the same old stuff. Sometimes I have to go back to the well, listen to new music and see what young people out there are doing. Or [find] rare things that I may have missed over the years.
Sometimes I need to clear my head and not listen to music: meditate, enjoy nature, focus on something else for a while. It helps me compartmentalize how I feel about what I'm doing musically versus who I am as a human being overall.
When I get in touch with that side it makes coming back to the music a little more fresh.
LG: Performing 30 years will tell anyone reading this that you're really into what you do. What do you get out of playing music live?
MS: When I'm not doing this particular kind of music -- I perform in other ways like singing, composing computer music and a variety of other composing situations -- with this music it's all instrumental, and the meaning I get from that is that I can communicate wordlessly.
There's a subconscious level of communication that performers and audiences don't have to understand each other through text, though some of the songs may have had text in them. It's always abstracted, in some way, when it's instrumental. Anyone listening to it can treat it the way they treat a piece of abstract art in a museum.
It doesn't have to be literal; it's meant to be experienced and be fun to figure out your own interpretation. It's meaningful to me if the listener finds something else meaningful about the [music] than what I may have found.
LG: Who are some of your creative influences?
MS: Initially in jazz I was listening a lot to Charles Mingus. For saxophonists I lean heavily on people like Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Ornette Coleman. Those three were also great composers. I have a lot of musical interests.
It could be Stravinsky and Bartok in the classical world; it could be Funkadelic, Earth, Wind & Fire and Steely Dan in the soul-jazz-fusion environment. I grew up on a lot of folk and rock 'n' roll as well. It's all fair play to me.
LG: The music on your album is very intense. You can't phone it in, you have to nail it. Sometimes when people get to that level of performance other music, such as folk, can bore them because there's not a lot there musically. It's a great art but there's not nearly as much there musically. Do you ever get bored with simpler styles of music?
MS: Other kinds of music have their own kind of intensity. With some of the great folk music it might have to do with the story being told.
Jazz musicians try to tell a story but we're not doing it often with a set text and we don't want to necessarily act out a fixed set of text. We want the story being told to be generated in the moment -- each moment.
In order for that to happen we have to be on top of our instruments technically. Everyone has to be at or near this virtuosic level to be able to change quickly with whatever's going on and be as spontaneous as possible. I don't look down on other music if the process isn't the same.
I try to understand what the essence of the music is and whatever tools you need to make it.
LG: Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?
MS: If someone wants to purchase the new CD "Old Friends Beckoned/New Sounds Reckoned" they can do so at mattystecks.com.
For information on the concert as well to purchase tickets, visit caffelena.org. Tickets are $28 for general admission, $25 for members, and $1 for students and children.
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