I really wanted to share this one with you, so here it is. It’s a virtual quartet video (spliced together from four separate recordings) and I am extremely proud of my bandmates’ work on this one. “The Savage Life Chose Me” is what we jazz cats call a “burner” – a very fast tune influenced by the bebop classics of the ’40s and ’50s.

Matt Savage – keyboard; Mark Zaleski – alto saxophone; Max Ridley – bass; Zachary King – drums

This tune is a real “burner,” as jazz musicians like to call the really uptempo tunes…

Matt Savage – piano
Soso Gelovani – bass
Zachary King – drums

We are a jazz fusion collective. Half of our tunes are instrumental, and half are vocal (including some funkified jazz standards). And of course there’s also a tune where the entire lyrics are just “Splash!”

This artistic project has been three years in the making and I am so proud to be sharing the results with you.

My summer tour dates are included on the right side of this newsletter if you would like to attend a show.  But first I should tell you what happened during my big trips to Europe and Canada…

First, on May 23, I flew to Paris and then took a train to Troyes, France in the Champagne region.  This was for a special recording project focusing on compositions by vibraphonist Thierry Collin.  The band is a Franco-American quintet made up of musicians from both France and the Americas.  Drummer Alexis Sereduik organized the recording, and the other musicians who traveled to France from North and South America were Song Yi Jeon (vocals) and German “Choby” Scheufler (bass).

I was so thrilled to have been part of such a unique and free-spirited musical project.  We recorded several tunes in a home studio… these songs feature catchy melodies on top and complex time signatures underneath.  These tunes were recorded on video and will be released in the fall, with additional songs to be recorded in the future.

After that, I did jazz club performances in Paris (with the Song Yi Jeon Quintet) and Madrid (with vocalist Aurora Arteaga, bassist Dario Guibert and drummer Miguel “Pete” Benito).  In Paris I saw the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, as well as many sidewalk cafes.  And in Spain, I did a day trip with Aurora to Toledo – a medieval city on a huge hill with a great deal of religious architecture and art museums.  Toledo, Spain is definitely different from its Ohio namesake…

Then, last week, I traveled to Alberta, Canada for the Medicine Hat Jazz Festival.  This is a very well-attended local festival in a very beautiful and isolated location – Medicine Hat is a prairie city that’s 3 hours’ drive from Calgary.  There aren’t even any direct flights from Boston to Calgary, so traveling to Medicine Hat can take a while.

In Alberta, I saw the Calgary Tower (with views extending many miles through both the Rocky Mountains and the plains), as well as the town of Drumheller in the Canadian Badlands (known for its dinosaurs).

The concert was at Medicine Hat’s Esplanade Theatre – a double bill with vocalist and CBC radio host Tim Tamashiro.  Tim is a charismatic standards singer who knows how to excite crowds and I’m proud to have shared a stage with him.

That’s a lot of travel for the time being, so it still feels good to be back home for a bit… I’ll see you in Massachusetts and New Hampshire this July and August.
Matt

We do lots of covers, but we also do new tunes of mine that are separate from my solo and trio compositions. This is a new original called “Escalator Music” – named because it’s meant to escalate the spirits, but also because the tempo is the opposite of elevator music.

This piece was recorded during our 15th show, at New York City’s Rockwood Music Hall (Stage 3), on February 20, 2017.

This tune is the Beatles classic “Got to Get You Into My Life”; it’s the opening track on Piano Voyages and the first rock cover I’ve put on CD. The concert was at the Regattabar in Cambridge, MA on October 19, 2016… it was the first show on the tour.

On the album, I play solo piano and keyboards; Erena Terakubo is a special guest alto saxophonist on one song.

Matt Savage: Piano Voyages is Matt’s 12^th album, released on October 14, 2016.

Matt’s newest recording project, produced by Grammy-nominee Jonathan Wyner, is a solo piano album featuring eleven tracks.  There are eight new, original compositions including the Keith Jarrett-inspired “Green,” the optimistic Boston-to-New York funk tune, “Southie to Soho” and Matt’s nostalgic ode to his hometown, “Lullaby for Boston.”  For the first time since 2008, Matt has also included a few cover songs including an intense version of Herbie Hancock’s jazz standard, “Maiden Voyage,” and Wes Montgomery’s classic, “Road Song.”

Through natural and seasonal imagery, surprising tempo changes and occasional electronic interludes, the theme of rebirth is developed.   Matt describes Piano Voyages as a reflection on maturity.  “Collectively, each of these songs evokes a new chapter of life,” says Matt.  “And it’s a solo album because many of these journeys are individual experiences.”

Piano Voyages is Matt’s first new studio album in three years, following his acclaimed A Bigger Celebration, released in 2013.   A Live Celebration:  Kobe, Japan was the 2014 companion album to A Bigger Celebration, and it was recorded during Matt’s first tour of Japan.  Also in 2014, Matt scored, arranged and recorded the music for the full-length documentary film, Sound of Redemption:  The Frank Morgan Story, chronicling the late alto saxophonist Frank Morgan’s troubled life and eventual redemption.

On June 8, 2016, I played in Canada’s Yukon for the first time. And it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that this trip changed my life. The Yukon is a truly untouched forest territory- with an exciting little city in the middle.

Things started on Sunday the 5^th, when I flew from Boston to Montreal to Ottawa; I stayed overnight in Ottawa so that I could catch my morning flight to Whitehorse, Yukon. It was an exhausting flight itinerary and I almost missed one of the flights… I had a two-hour layover in Montreal that quickly became one hour when my flight from Boston was delayed. But I miraculously managed to go through customs and security and catch my connection, in time to meet my first roommate from college, who lives in Ottawa. We got some great Vietnamese food downtown and saw a statue of the late Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson.

The next day, I took the Yukon’s own airline Air North to Whitehorse; the plane stopped in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Canada’s northern portion is divided into three territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut), each with a significant portion of the population in the respective capital cities. The rest is wilderness!

Whitehorse is a small capital city of about 27,000 people, located on the Alaska Highway. Despite the fact that it is south of the Arctic Circle, there is still a “midnight sun” effect, with strong twilight even during the few hours of summer night. The temperature often goes above 70 and below 40 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer, so one must prepare to wear different layers. There is not too much precipitation as the Yukon is in the West; however, the snow definitely piles up in the winter.

The infrastructure is quite strong in Whitehorse; the roads are smooth because people drive long distances, and Whitehorse has some of the only grocery stores for dozens if not hundreds of miles. Many people who visit Whitehorse have driven from locations as far away as Ontario and Texas. The Yukon’s capital is an artisans’ town; there are plenty of small music halls, gourmet restaurants, artists’ studios and more. I learned that very quickly from the first meal…

But this trip wouldn’t have been possible without the amazing contributions by everyone in Whitehorse- Hailey Hechtman from the disability support organization Teegatha’Oh Zheh, Leslie Peters from Autism Yukon, and Steve Gedrose from Jazz Yukon.

There was also an exciting interview with Dave White from CBC Yukon radio, who is an avid listener of all genres of music including jazz, and who has lived in the Yukon since 1989.

Other highlights of the trip included a vaudeville revue called the Frantic Follies (check out the Can-Can and the rather silly version of Pachelbel’s Canon), a trip to Carcross (short for Caribou Crossing; the town has fewer than 500 people but it’s home to a great burger joint and the “world’s smallest desert”), a ride on Whitehorse’s downtown trolley (which only goes about 5 MPH, but offers a great view of the Yukon River), and an intense hike by Miles Canyon (up and down, up and down; don’t lose your balance).

With all the sightseeing, it was hard to get into performance mode again… especially since the show was at Teegatha’Oh Zheh’s Inclusion Expo at the Canada Games Centre, a gigantic indoor athletic facility containing two hockey rinks, a soccer field, and a pool with a full-size water slide.

After the workout, however, I went back to the hotel, got dressed, and did a one-hour speech/performance, followed later in the evening by a 30-minute solo piano jazz set. This was definitely the northernmost show I have ever done.

I wish I had more time to spend up north, but I had to head back the next day.

The Yukon will always be in my heart and I will have to come back someday- whether for a performance or just to see the North. I feel like a Yukoner already even though it also feels good to be back home.

But I’m already preparing for another mountain trip- Albuquerque and Denver in July.

It’s going to be a “cool” summer and I hope to see you soon.

Matt

Plus, there’s a new exciting funk project coming up- the Boston debut show of my “groove experiment” (funk project), with an all-star cast of Berklee jazz musicians. I haven’t done “crossover” material like this before, so I’m really excited to be starting this new band. This show is on November 18 at 10 PM, at the Midway Cafe in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain.

I’ve been recording a lot recently. A few months ago, I released a summer “fusion” single called “Go On.” But I also recorded another piece during the same sessions… an introspective ballad called “The Day Before.” This one is a trio song, and it has a totally opposite feel from “Go On.” Both songs feature piano and electronic keyboard solos. “The Day Before” will be released on November 13, 2015.

In September, bassist Shota Ishikawa and I recorded a live duo album (under Shota’s name) in Japan. This album is predominantly standards, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever done. We previously collaborated on our most recent album, A Live Celebration, which was recorded during my 2012 tour of Japan. But we now have a new album, and it’s going to be released in the coming months.

I have to sign off now to prepare for all these gigs in a row (including performances in New Hampshire and Canada during the same weekend). But it’s all excitement from here.

Hope to see you soon,
Matt