This video of Chick Corea’s famous tune was from my second gig at Heineken Jazzaldia, an amazing jazz festival in San Sebastian, Spain. This concert was a solo piano gig at Club Victoria Eugenia in the Victoria Eugenia Theatre.
Japan Tour (Blog- September 2012)
Hi everyone! I’m back from my trip to Japan and have two special concerts I’m playing on September 21 and 22 at the Monterey Jazz Festival. I’m co-leading the Berklee Monterey Sextet with alto saxophonist Erena Terakubo. The other band members are Nick Frenay, John Egizi, Hoo Kim and Anthony Fung. We’re all friends from Berklee. It’s going to be a big deal. Check it out here.
Special trips deserve special blogs, and my trip to Japan last week was one of the best trips I’ve ever had. I played four sold-out concerts in western Japan with two amazing Japanese sidemen (Shota Ishikawa on bass and Tatsuhiko Takeda on drums). And I also did a lot of sightseeing in between. I was in Japan for a total of nine days… nine very fun days.
As everyone knows, getting to Japan is an adventure in itself. I took the brand-new (as of 2012) 13-hour direct flight from Boston to Tokyo. Then I took a 1-hour flight from Tokyo to Osaka. Because of the rotation of the earth, there was daylight the entire time! So I was very tired at the end…
I met my Berklee friend Shota Ishikawa (who is from Kobe) at the Osaka airport. He was with his friend Dai Murata, who promoted the tour. Together, the three of us embarked on many awesome adventures.
When I woke up after the first night in Osaka, we went right to the rehearsal space, where we met Tatsuhiko Takeda, the drummer for the tour. We rehearsed over two dozen tunes in one long afternoon. By the end of the rehearsal, we knew it was going to be a fun and musically great tour.
That night, Dai and I went to a concert given by one of my other Berklee friends, alto saxophonist Erena Terakubo. Erena is very famous in Japan and has Ron Carter, Kenny Barron and other legendary musicians on her albums. She’ll be performing with me at the Monterey Jazz Festival. The jazz club where she played was a hidden place called the Green Note, in Higashiosaka (East Osaka). The place is almost impossible to find. It’s about 2/3 of the way down a residential side street, 10 minutes’ walk from the train and almost 1 hour from the city! But it’s a very fun and intimate venue. Erena’s sidemen were Takeshi Ohbayashi, Yasushi Nakamura, and Mark Whitfield Jr. (Takeshi and Mark are from Berklee). I saw the band backstage between the sets. The members of her band are some of the funniest people on the planet.
For the next two nights, Shota, Tatsuhiko and I played gigs at Mrs. Dolphin in Osaka. Mrs. Dolphin is located in the vast underground city under Osaka’s central Umeda district. And when I say “vast,” I mean vast. You might have seen underground mall cities in Canada, but the ones in Japan are even bigger and can extend for 10 blocks or more. And in the middle of that, there’s Yodobashi Camera, which is like Best Buy, but it’s 10 stories tall and has a jingle based off of “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I love Japan…
Okay, back to Mrs. Dolphin. Mrs. Dolphin is an upscale jazz club, with a great piano and a great crowd. We played two long concerts and really got to develop our sound. And some friends were in the audience as well. So it was fun.
September 1 was Kobe day. In the morning, Dai and I took a high-speed train to Kobe and I checked in at the hotel (which is literally above the train station and has amazing views of Kobe’s equivalent of Times Square). Then we went to Chuka-Hall, a 200-seat concert hall located on the 7th and highest floor of a building. Our concert that day was part of Dai Murata’s twice-yearly “Kobe Modern Jazz Club” series. Dai is from Kobe and has a coffee shop there, so it was exciting to get to see Kobe and to play a concert in Dai’s and Shota’s home city. The concert was literally overbooked; we squeezed 264 people into a hall with approximately 200 seats! And many of the people at Mrs. Dolphin wanted Kobe tickets as well, but we couldn’t sell any because Kobe was sold out. So it was madness. The concert’s theme was “The Matt Savage Trio Plays Innovation,” so we played exclusively my original compositions. The first set ended up being really upbeat, and the second set a lot darker. So the three of us got to expand our sound at that gig.
Our last concert was in Kizu, Kyoto Prefecture, at Yagi Tei. We took a bus to Kizu that took us through the longest road tunnel I have ever seen (seriously, it’s about 3-5 times as long as any of the longest tunnels in the US, and it’s only a medium-size tunnel in Japan). Then we arrived in Kizu, which is a suburb in the countryside. Yagi Tei is a large and old house that is owned by a very important person in Japan. This concert was a special event; tickets for the concert were 5000 yen (about $65), and the 51 tickets sold out in June! So we were all very excited. Before the concert, the owner made sukiyaki (beef dipped in egg) for the band and for Dai and his friends. It was very delicious and we thanked him immensely for the meal. And the mayor of Kizugawa (a new city formed by the merger of Kizu and two other cities) was at the concert as well. In short, it was a very special day. The only part that wasn’t so great was that we had to say goodbye to Tatsuhiko, who had to go back to Osaka after the concert.
For the next two days, Dai and Shota and I and the Kizu owner and many other people went sightseeing around the Kyoto area. Basically, we went everywhere. We met Dai’s friend and his father, and visited their house on the top of a hill. We ate at this amazing seafood restaurant located a couple of miles down the craziest and narrowest country road I have ever seen. We shopped at a Japanese record store and found my album Hot Ticket (the Kizu owner actually bought it!)
And, during the last day, we tried on geisha costumes. Yes, Shota, Dai and I are all male, and we tried on maiko (geisha-in-training) costumes and put on the makeup. It was a really silly afternoon. You have no idea how heavy the costumes are. They look so light and pretty, but they are painful! It was all in good fun though.
The next day, I woke up at 5 in the morning to meet Dai and his girlfriend and catch a 5:50 bus to the airport. We thought the bus would be at one end of the enormous station, but it was actually at the other end, and so we arrived at the bus at about 5:51 (but they still let us depart). Musician life is crazy sometimes… But the flights went perfectly.
So now I have to thank Dai-chan Murata (everyone calls him “Dai-chan”) and Shota Ishikawa and Tatsuhiko Takeda for all the awesome things that happened. It was one of the most amazing tours I’ve ever done, and I definitely want to come back to Japan in the future.
Matt
Blog- August 2012
Blog- August 2012
This summer has already been one of the best summers I’ve ever had. I’ve already had gigs in Maine and Spain that basically became full-blown vacations. I just had a private gig at a beautiful house in the middle of the woods in New Hampshire. And on the 19th, I will play a long solo piano concert on Spectacle Island outside of Boston.
But at the end of August, I will conclude the summer with something I’ve wanted to do all my life. It’s a four-concert tour of western Japan. After that, I will go back to Berklee for my last semester, although during the second week of the semester, I will play two concerts at the famous Monterey Jazz Festival in California. So it’s intense!
On August 4, my neighbors (who live up the road from my family’s farm in New Hampshire) hosted a special 25th wedding anniversary party. But this wasn’t just any party; it was a huge jazz party. The couple’s wedding 25 years ago featured a top jazz band from Boston, so a jazz band was needed for this event as well. We created a special quartet for the event. I played two keyboards, Mark Zaleski (an awesome young Boston alto and soprano saxophonist) played two saxophones, Bruce Gertz played bass, and Yoron Israel played drums (both Bruce and Yoron are amazing professional musicians and respected professors at Berklee). We played entirely standards, including fun renditions of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon”, Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”, and Ramsey Lewis’ “The In Crowd”. So it was a big jam, basically.
On August 19 from 1 to 3:30 PM, I will play a long solo piano concert on Spectacle Island outside of Boston. I’m going to play new originals, old originals, standards and maybe some pop tunes as well. More info here.
And a week after that, I will go to Japan. It’s going to be a very exhausting trip, as the flight time is about 14 hours (a 13-hour flight and a 1-hour flight) each way.
And I’ll be going by myself, but I won’t be alone. I’ll meet the bassist (Shota Ishikawa, a Berklee friend from Kobe) and the tour’s promoter (Dai Murata) in Osaka. The band for the whole tour will be a trio with Shota on bass and local jazz great Tatsuhiko Takeda on drums.
On August 29, we’ll rehearse all afternoon. I have over two dozen tunes planned for the tour, so it’s going to be a long day.
Then, on the 30th and 31st, we’ll play two nights at Osaka’s respected jazz club, Mrs. Dolphin.
On September 1, we will go to Kobe and play an afternoon concert at Kobe’s Chuka-Hall. The concert will be part of Dai Murata’s twice-yearly “Kobe Modern Jazz Club” series. Our concert will be the first concert in the series since the earthquake and tsunami of 2011. I think it is wonderful to be part of the rebuilding of Japan in this way.
The last and most mysterious gig will be on September 2nd at Yagi Tei in Kizu near Kyoto. Yagi Tei is a large and old house that is still owned by a very important person. Concerts there are special and expensive events; tickets for this concert sold out in June!
And then I have a couple of days to take time off in Kyoto before my flight back to Boston.
But five days after Japan, the Fall 2012 semester at Berklee will start. So basically, from the time I write this blog until December 21, 2012 (the last day of the semester), I have nonstop craziness. I won’t even have time to prepare for the apocalypse! Hahaha…
Matt
“Spain” by Chick Corea (Live in Spain)
Time for another Spain video… except this one is literally “Spain.”
This video of Chick Corea’s famous tune was from my second gig at Heineken Jazzaldia, an amazing jazz festival in San Sebastian, Spain. This concert was a solo piano gig at Club Victoria Eugenia in the Victoria Eugenia Theatre.
Spain Trip (Blog- July 2012)
This was my very first gig in Europe!
I’m already excited for August, because I have three cool gigs then. There’s a private party in New Hampshire (with a quartet that includes two faculty from Berklee), a solo piano concert on an island outside of Boston, and… the biggest and most intense gig of the summer, a four-concert tour of Japan. I’ll write another blog soon with more details.
But the reason why I wrote this blog is that I just came back from my first ever trip to Europe. I went to Spain and France, and played at my first ever European jazz festival… Heineken Jazzaldia in San Sebastian, Spain, which is basically a huge jazz party. It was fun!
This trip was different from most in that my entire family went (my mother, father, sister and I). Only my mother had been to Europe before.
San Sebastian is a beach city in the Basque region, which means that lots of languages are spoken. The Basque region is on the border between Spain and France, but the indigenous Basque people have a (very complex) language of their own that predates all other European languages. So in San Sebastian (or Donostia, which is the city’s Basque name), 99% of the people speak Spanish, about a third speak English, about a third speak Basque, and there’s some French as well because the city is so close to the border! And this is not even to mention the fact that it’s a popular tourist destination all over the world, which means even more languages.
The flight to San Sebastian (through Paris) was an overnight flight, which was intense; the nights are shorter when you fly east! And after I arrived at the hotel, I had an interview right afterward with El Diario Vasco (The Basque Diary), the major newspaper there. So it was great to get a good night’s sleep afterwards.…
Friday, July 20, 2012 was one of the craziest days of my life. I started by rehearsing with my sidemen (Javier Mayor de la Iglesia on bass, and Hasier Oleaga on drums). Both of them are incredible musicians; check them out. After the rehearsal, I had to hurry back to the hotel to do two interviews. All this time, I was speaking a lot of Spanish. Then I did some sightseeing all afternoon, had dinner, and played the concert.
The concert was at the Coca-Cola Stage, one of the outdoor stages of Heineken Jazzaldia. There are a total of 13 (yes, 13) stages of many different sizes at Jazzaldia. The largest stage (on the beach) features famous rock acts and often draws tens of thousands of people for a single concert! But next to that big stage are three medium-size stages, each of which seats about 500 people. I played on one of those stages (the Coca-Cola Space) with Javier and Hasier. It was a huge 90-minute concert, in front of a packed house, with a whole bunch of loud intense songs (including and some new ones). In short, it was awesomely awesome.
The next day, I played a noontime half-hour solo piano concert at the Club Room of the Victoria Eugenia Theatre. The concert was for the local autism society, GAUTENA (the wonderful organizer of my trip is from GAUTENA). There was supposed to be a small crowd, primarily composed of kids with autism (noon is early for a concert, especially in Spain). But due to heavy promotion, the number of people who showed up was twice the capacity of the room! So I played two half-hour concerts for two different audiences.
The second concert was also the last concert of the trip, so then I had a couple of days to do the fun stuff. San Sebastian is a beach town, and there’s not just one beach; there are multiple beaches covering the whole length of the city. I went swimming in the water, which is nice and cold, as the northern coast of Spain has cool summers. There are two mountains on the coast (Monte Igueldo and Monte Urgull), both of which are gorgeous and have incredible views at the top. Igueldo has many fancy houses, a railway to the top, and an amusement park at the top that includes an extremely old roller coaster with no seatbelts (yes, I rode it). Urgull was used as a fort in the 1800s, and you can climb to the top of the fort (it’s an intense hike). There’s no development on the mountain, which creates a great contrast.
And next to Urgull is Parte Vieja (Old Part), the best party neighborhood in San Sebastian. Everyone eats pintxos (Basque tapas) and gelato, with some wine to drink. There’s a lot of old Spanish architecture. My family went to Parte Vieja almost every night. Parte Vieja is also where I saw Ninety Miles (Nicholas Payton, David Sanchez, Stefon Harris), Al Di Meola World Sinfonia, Hasier Oleaga, and the concert “An Evening with Two Pianos” (Kenny Barron, Mulgrew Miller, Eric Reed, and Dado Moroni). All the Jazzaldia musicians stayed at the same hotel, so I saw many of these amazing musicians in the lobby.
On Sunday the 22nd, we were supposed to go to Bilbao and the famous Guggenheim Museum (designed by Frank Gehry), but the wake-up call didn’t come through and I slept until 2 in the afternoon! But on Monday the 23rd, my whole family went to Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Biarritz in France. They are both very beautiful seaside towns, and the food is incredible. It was very hot, so everyone was on the beach. And I practiced some French as well, but my mother is the real French expert in the family. There’s a bit of a culture shock when you go across the border; the signs on the Spanish side are in Spanish and Basque, but walk a block and the signs and architecture are all French!
I flew back to Boston on July 24th and rehearsed on the 25th for my upcoming private NH gig. It’s nice to have a week or so of downtime, but the second half of the summer has started, and it’s going to be even more intense than the first.
I’ll see you this August in New England and Japan.
Matt
Blog- June 2012
Blog- June 2012
I am now officially a graduate of Berklee College of Music. Time has flown so fast. Wow. It’s truly a great honor to have graduated from a school as prestigious as Berklee. But I still have one more semester (Fall 2012, my seventh semester) before all my classes are done.
The graduation ceremony was on my 20th birthday (May 12), and I celebrated my birthday later that day with a concert at the Acton Jazz Café, the very first venue at which I ever played in an ensemble. The concert and my graduation were featured in an amazing front-page article in the Boston Globe.
My 20th birthday was the best one I’ve ever had!
I have two gigs in July. The concerts will be in two completely different places whose names just happen to rhyme… Maine and Spain!
The Maine concert will be on July 5 in Freeport, ME. If Freeport sounds familiar to you, it’s because the town is known worldwide as the headquarters of L.L.Bean. L.L.Bean will celebrate its 100th anniversary this year with a series of free concerts in Discovery Park on Morse Street in Freeport. My trio will be one of the bands featured; we’ll perform on July 5 at 6:15 PM. John Funkhouser will be on bass, and Steve Silverstein will be on drums. The L.L.Bean celebration is a big multi-day event; for more details, check out this article from the Portland Press Herald.
Two weeks after that, I travel to Spain.
I’ll be playing at Heineken Jazzaldia in San Sebastian, Spain on July 20 at 11 PM. What is Heineken Jazzaldia? It’s a humongous jazz party! Massive doesn’t even begin to describe this festival. There are eleven stages, and the festival lasts for five days. The largest outdoor stage also features rock and pop-oriented acts; that stage alone draws tens of thousands of people every year. I’ll be playing at the Coca-Cola Space at the Terraces de Kursaal, a gorgeous outdoor venue on the beach that accommodates about 400 people. I’ll perform in a trio with amazing local sidemen (Javier Mayor de la Iglesia on bass and Hasier Oleaga on drums). The concert is free of charge. Again, it’s July 20 at 11 PM (that’s not even late, by the way; that’s when the real party starts over there!)
The day after (July 21), I will play a concert for children with autism at the Victoria Eugenia Theatre. The concert will be for the local autism society, GAUTENA. It’s going to be wonderful to reach out to these kids.
I’m looking forward to seeing San Sebastian as well; San Sebastian is a gorgeous beach city on Spain’s northern coast, right next to the border with France. It’s in the famed Basque country, which has a unique culture and language of its own that’s unrelated to any other in Europe. Lots of languages are spoken in San Sebastian (but Spanish is still the primary language).
(Y sí, voy a hablar mucho español en San Sebastián, como Costa Rica en el año pasado. I’ll speak lots of Spanish, just like in Costa Rica last year…)
I’m on the farm in New Hampshire right now, but I’ll be going to many different places in New Hampshire and Maine over summer vacation. In August, I’m playing some more concerts around New England. I’ll keep you posted about those. But best of all, I’m going on another big international trip. It’s a four-concert tour of Japan. Check out my TOUR page on my web site for more detailed info. That trip will be another blog by itself.
See you soon,
Matt
Blog- April 2012
It’s been a very busy time for me (possibly the busiest period of my life so far). I’ve had some really cool gigs and radio appearances, and I just added a bunch of new tour dates for the summer and fall. My 20th birthday concert is May 12th in Acton, MA. And, I’m in my sixth semester out of seven at Berklee College of Music, taking 16 credits of courses. The graduation ceremony is on May 12th, which is my birthday and the same day as my concert. I’m writing new songs, thinking about graduate schools, and traveling to many different places. And I haven’t even mentioned the most amazing opportunity yet…
First, however, I’ll tell you about the concerts I just played.
On March 21, the Matt Savage-Erena Terakubo Sextet (co-led by me and the amazing young alto saxophonist Erena Terakubo) played at Worcester’s Mechanics Hall for WICN 90.5 FM’s “Brown Bag Lunch” series. The concert was broadcast live on WICN radio and online. All six members of the group represented Berklee, which I thought was really cool. Not only are they all amazing musicians, but they’re all my friends from college. Mao Sone was on trumpet, John Egizi was on trombone, Hoo Kim was on bass, and Willy Rodriguez was on drums. I chose half the tunes, and Erena chose the other tunes. Let’s just say that there was a lot of awesome jamming…
On April 4, I played for the American Ethnic Studies Student Association at Kansas State University. It was a solo piano concert and my first ever gig in Kansas. (I’ve played in Kansas City twice before, but only on the Missouri side.) This concert was in a totally different city (Manhattan, KS) on a beautiful college campus (with great food!), so it was a very nice change.
And this May 12th, I will play a very special concert that is literally a once-in-a-lifetime event… because it will be my 20th birthday concert!
The concert will be at the Acton Jazz Café in Acton, MA from 4-6 PM on May 12th. It will be a trio concert with bassist John Funkhouser and drummer Steve Silverstein (I’ve played with John and Steve ever since my very first gig as a bandleader in May of 2001, when I was 9 years old.) We’ll play brand new tunes as well as songs I wrote when I was very young. Tickets are $12.50 at the door and $10 for advance online tickets. You can buy tickets at http://actonjazzcafe.com/ or call (978) 263-6161 after 5 p.m.
There’s something else that’s awesome about the 20th birthday concert… it’s the day I graduate from Berklee! Well, officially at least. My last semester is Fall 2012, but the graduation ceremony just happens to be on May 12, 2012. I’m literally going right from the graduation ceremony to the Acton gig…
And with the end of the Spring 2012 semester comes the start of summer. I’ve already confirmed a couple of gigs, including: L.L. Bean’s 100th Anniversary on July 5 in Freeport, ME; Boston’s Spectacle Island on August 19; and Stow, MA on September 29. But I still haven’t mentioned one of the most exciting opportunities I’ve had in my entire life…
From August 30 to September 2, I will be going on tour in Japan for the very first time ever. The concerts will be with Berklee alumnus (and friend) Shota Ishikawa on bass, and one of Japan’s best jazz drummers, Tatsuhiko Takeda. We will play four concerts. The first two shows will be at Osaka’s Mrs. Dolphin jazz club on August 30 and 31. Then, I’ll play at Chuka-Hall in Kobe for the Kobe Modern Jazz Club series on September 1. And finally, I’ll play at this gorgeous old house called Kize Yagigura in Kizu, Kyoto Prefecture on the 2nd. I’ll also have a couple of days to see the sights in Japan as well. Let’s just say that this is going to be one of the best summers ever…
I have to study now, but I hope to see you at any one of these concerts. And I’ll keep you posted about my new compositions, which I’m playing more and more at my recent shows.
See you soon,
Matt
Blog- January 2012
Wow, it’s 2012 already… I can’t believe I’m turning 20 this year!
I’ve got two concerts and two radio interviews coming up. And they’re all major events…
On Wednesday, February 1st is my big Boston concert. It’s with bassist John Funkhouser and drummer Yoron Israel at the Regattabar (in the Charles Hotel) in Cambridge, MA. This concert marks our return to one of the Boston area’s greatest jazz clubs; we performed at the Regattabar in November 2010 for my Welcome Home CD Release Concert. We’ll be playing tunes from that album and from previous albums. And I’m premiering two brand-new tunes. It will be so much fun. Hope to see you all there! More info HERE.
I’m doing two radio interviews in the Boston area to support this concert. The first one is on Emerson College’s online radio station WECB, on Sunday, January 29 from 6-8 PM. It’s an interview and performance for the jazz radio show “Reeds and Deeds II,” hosted by Lydia Liebman. Lydia is a good friend of mine who also happens to be the daughter of the legendary jazz saxophonist Dave Liebman. The performance will be with some awesome Berklee musicians; Hoo Kim will be on bass, and Patrick Simard on drums. You can listen live online at: http://wecb.fm/ For archived performances and more info about the show, visit this website.
The second radio interview/performance will be on Worcester’s jazz radio station WICN (90.5 FM) on Monday, January 30 from 2-3 PM. The show is “Jazz New England” with Joe Zupan. You can listen to this interview live here. I’ve been on WICN many times, and the station has been incredibly supportive of my music. Thank you WICN!
On March 3rd, I’m playing a totally different kind of gig. This one is in Elizabeth, IN (near Louisville, KY) at the “Imagine Awards,” a fundraiser for Rauch, Inc., an organization that runs a school for children with developmental disabilities. I’ll start off solo piano, but then I’ll be joined by none other than Jamey Aebersold! Jamey Aebersold, in case you don’t know, is a world-famous saxophonist, educator, and Louisville area native. He is best known for his series of Aebersold Play-A-Longs, a series of jazz play-along records that currently stands at 129 volumes. I have played along with Aebersold’s records since I was nine years old, so to play with “the man himself” is a great honor. And, I’ll be playing for an awesome organization and a great cause as well. For tickets, visit this website.
At the end of this month, I will head back to Boston to start the Spring 2012 semester at Berklee. This will be my sixth semester out of seven, so I’ll sort of be a third-year student and a senior at the same time. It will be my busiest semester (or at least my busiest undergraduate semester!) because it will have the most classes. Even though my last semester will be Fall 2012, I’m participating in the graduation ceremony this May.
I’m still on winter break right now and I’m going on a 3-day, 2-night ski trip to Vermont this month with some Berklee friends. I’m hoping for snow…
See you all sometime soon in this beautiful, not-so-apocalyptic year!
Matt
