mattotto.org

Here’s a quartet album we did on Origin Records.   We recorded it in 1999 and released it in 2005.   You can download this for free by clicking on the album cover below.

~Enjoy!

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For his 5th recording as a leader, Los Angeles-based saxophonist Matt Otto teams up with old friends from his years spent in New York to explore a set of 8 originals. Now a regular in Los Angeles clubs, he can be seen there and touring the west coast with Anthony Wilson & Alan Pasqua, and around the country with his own quartet. In the tradition of Wayne Shorter, Joe Lovano, and Joe Henderson, Otto’s close musical relationship with his bandmates allows for music of depth and clarity.

by Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz

Saxophonist Matt Otto is Los Angeles-based these days, but for his fifth CD, Red, he got together with some musical running mates from his time in New York: guitarist Greg Toughy, drummer Qasim Naqvi, and bassist Danton Boller. Considering its standard jazz lineup of tenor sax and a rhythm section, the band has crafted quite an original sound.The set of eight Otto orignals sustains a hauntingly restrained mood from start to finish, churning along in a cool fluid simmer that rises at times toward a slow boil, without ever quite doing so. And that dyamic works very well in this case. The sound, the blend of tenor sax and guitar, the gentle insistence of the bass/drums has a forlorn, restrained midtempo beauty that translates to an insideously mesmerizing listening experience. It’s as if Otto and company have seized upon a series of relatively simple musical ideas and driven themselves deeply into them with a smoldering, frictionless group equilibrium.Otto’s tone has a round, ringing quality, and I get the feeling that on this outing the saxophonist may have been influenced by the trio put togther by bassist Jeff Johnson with sax man Hans Teuber and drummer Tad Britton on the excellent Near Earth (Origin Records, ’04). While it manifests a different collective personality than Near Earth, Red has a similar feeling of tranquility and, also similarly, it enchants, compelling the listener into multiple spins.

by David Franklin, JazzTimes April 2006

If Paul Desmond was, as he proclaimed, the “world’s slowest alto player,” then Matt Otto may be the world’s quietest tenor man. On the eight originals that comprise Red, Otto’s dynamics rarely rise above the level of an intimate conversation. His delivery is so relaxed and subtle that even the intake of breath is sometimes audible. But although Otto doesn’t strut, he does quietly demonstrate an admirable control of his instrument and of chord progressions. And he is given to well-constructed melodic lines that develop organically as they outline a formal dramatic curve. Otto does play fast and high at times, but even then the sound level is subdued. His compositions are subtle as well, often based on simple melodic lines that may or may not involve a rubato tempo.Guitarist Greg Touhey is a compatible partner. His lovely, smooth tone compliments Otto’s approach, and he’s a thoughtful improviser who creates long, well-developed lines. Bassist Danton Boller and drummer Qasim Naqvi masterd the tasks of keeping the subtle time together and adding to the overall texture while maintaining the intimate dynamic level.

by Scott Yanow, All Music Guide

A fluent tenor saxophonist with a cool tone and a relaxed style, Matt Otto is able to glide over the most complex chord changes gracefully. For this pianoless quartet set with guitarist Greg Touhey, Otto creates cool jazz of the 21st century. The music is mostly quiet with its heat being just below the surface. Even “Class Struggle,” which is essentially “Giant Steps,” features Otto’s playing making it sound simple and laid-back. This subtle set, which features close interplay, is worth several close listens.

by Kevin Cox, Jazz Review

This is exercise works as a supplement to my book “Jazz Vocabulary Vol. 1 Harmonic Major” or on its own.  There are three mp3s for this scale practice below, one at 40bpm, one at 80 bpm and one at 160bpm.  The idea here is to use the mp3′s to listen to and sing along with, while reading the music and visualizing the fingerings on your instrument. This is a great method for practicing scales or melodies through keys.  It works much better than merely playing the scales or melodies on your instrument.  The singing makes it valuable ear training and you learn to hear the material deeply and thoroughly and the visualization of the fingerings makes it nearly identical to actually playing your instrument without any hand/wrist use and without the need of a practice space; you can do this at the gym or the coffee shop.  Also, by singing while visualizing the fingerings on your instrument you are telling your brain to sing through your hands and conditioning yourself to understand your instrument as your voice.

~Enjoy!

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Modes of Harmonic Major PDF

Modes of Harmonic Major 40 bpm

Modes of Harmonic Major 80bpm

Modes of Harmonic Major 160 bpm

The chords derived from the modes of Harmonic Major in C could be thought of like this:

C Maj7 (b13)

D-7b5 (nat9, nat 13)

E7 (b9, #9, b13 w nat 5th)

F – maj7 (#11, nat 9)

G7 (b9, nat 13,) also works as V7(sus-b9)

Ab Maj7 (#5, #11, #9, nat 13) !

B dim 7 (b9, no maj7)

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I’ve played with alto saxophonist Andy Ehling since 1983.  Andy and I went to high school together, played in jazz band, and practiced every day under an old railroad bridge in Orange County California, sometimes late into the night. After high school, both of us went to Berklee School of Music, and studied with George Garzone. After Boston, we both moved to Japan and lived in a Zen Dojo practicing meditation under the supervision of Roshi Gudo Wafu Nishijima in the day and playing gigs at night. 13 years later we finally decided to do an album together. We rehearsed and recorded the material with Ryan Doyle on drums, Ryan McGillicuddy on bass and Leonard Thompson on keys. We went in the studio with Engineer/Producer David J. Carpenter (Big As Records) in May 2008 and made an album of original compositions (including 3 contra-facts based on some standard progressions: “Out Of Nowhere,” “Old Milestones”  and ” The Night Has 1000 Eyes”).
Andy is a great melodic improviser, very lyrical and honest with a very original sound. He has managed to maintain a child-like quality and playfulness in his soloing and constructs his lines mostly by ear. As well as a being good friend and player, I’ve always thought of Andy as a sort of musical catalyst; on the bandstand, through his example, he reminds everyone to listen carefully, use space and stay relaxed.
You can download the album here. Or, to buy a hard copy of the CD go to CD Baby.

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I wrote this etude in the late 90′s for a very close friend of mine, Danton Boller, who is a fantastic bass player living in NYC. At that time I was playing this and several blues etudes through all the keys (Ala Jackie McLean). In this lesson we’ll just focus on the exercise in concert Bb.  The melody outlines common chords used in rhythm changes and utilizes mostly eight notes, which can be a bit rhythmically monotonous, but is always good to work on and quite the norm these days (unfortunately?).
I included an mp3 of the line played with general midi sounds (that admittedly sounds poor at best), which I like to use to sing along with while reading or visualizing the fingerings and notes. I always recommend singing whatever you’re learning to play, so you can loop this mp3 and sing along with it for days after which playing it should be quiet easy.

Sing along with this mp3:

Rhythm Changes in Concert Bb mp3

Read along with this PDF:

Rythm Changes in Bb PDF

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“La Commune” is a suite  that I composed as a tribute to the Paris Commune of 1871.  The Paris Commune began as a working class uprising; Paris was seized and controlled by workers for over two months, these events representing one of the first working class revolutions in human history and one of the first working class governments, taking place just 80 years after the French Revolution, which had marked the end of Feudalism and the beginning of Capitalism.  Although the Commune was eventually crushed by the French and Prussian armies, the Commune still represents the potential of the working class to unify and seize control of the productive forces of society and operate them in their best interests.

The compositions feature:

Jason Harnell on Drums

David J. Carpenter on acoustic bass guitar

Joel Peloquin on guitar

Leonard Thompson on keyboard

Storm Nilson on guitar

Mark Ferber on drums

Sara Gazarek vocals on track 3. (courtesy of Native Language Music)

Matt Otto composer/tenor Sax

The album was recorded, engineered and produced by David J. Carpenter (Big As Records) and released under the Jazz Collective Records label.

Mixed By David J. Carpenter and David Issac

Mastered by Alan Yoshida

You can preview the tracks from the CD baby store listing below:

Click here to Purchase Album

Josh Welchez, a fantastic Los Angeles based trumpet player, composer and educator, has recorded and released his debut album.  It was a pleasure to play with Josh and I hope we can record again in the future.

You can purchace the at CD baby here.

The recording was done on the July 30th, 2007 at Nolan Shaheed’s studio in Pasadena California.

Mixing and Mastering was done by Jazz Collective Records engineer Matt Otto.

The album includes:

Josh Welchez: Trumpet

Matt Otto: Tenor Sax

Joe Bagg: Piano

Mark Ferber: Drums

Ryan McGillicuddy: Bass

Track listing:

1.) What Democracy’ 04 (by Matt Otto)

2.) Lost and Found (by Josh Welchez)

3.) Lennie’s Pennies (L. Tristano)

4.) Broken Bottle (by Matt Otto)

5.) Slow Your Roll (by Josh Welchez)

6.) Pannonica (T. Monk)

7.) The Kahns (by Josh Welchez)

8.) Bethany And Alex (by Joe Bagg)

9.) Nobody Else But Me (J. Kern)

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~ Enjoy!

Album Art:

Josh Welchez “Lost and Found” cover

Josh Welchez “Lost and Found” Insert

Josh Welchez “Lost and Found” back

Click Here To Download

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Q trio was recorded over  a three day period in December of 1999 and features Danton Boller on Bass, Qasim Naqvi on Drums and (myself) Matt Otto on tenor sax.  We had just finished the album “Red” the week before with guitarist Greg Touhey and thought it would be nice to document some of our free playing.  The three of us were all living together in a large apartment in Brooklyn and were playing all the time together, nearly every day, mostly free.  I hadn’t listened back much to these recordings since we had done them and engineer David J. Carpenter (Big As Records) and I sat down last summer and went through 10 hours of material,  selecting some of our favorite takes to mix.  Vol.1  represents some highlights from those three days.  All the material is free improvisation save the track titled “Red In Orange” which is based on the chord progression to the Bill Evan’s composition “Blue In Green”. Most of the tracks are dedications to favorite  influential artists.  I hope you enjoy the music!

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~  Click This To Download The Whole Album in a Zip File

Track Listing:

1.) Cecil (Taylor)
2.) Blount (for Sun Ra)
3.) Revolution (for John Zorn)
4.) Fit Reprise  (for Rashid Bakr)
5.) Red in Orange (Based on Blue and Green)
6.) Talking Blues (for Archie Shepp)
7.) Neanderthal (for George Garzone)
8.) No Justice No Peace
9.) Aphotic Lullaby (for Joe McPhee)
10.) Gato (Barbieri)
11.) Halcyon (for Jimmy Giuffre)
12.) 115 Ocean Ave.
13.) Brotzmann and Bennink (Peter and Hans)
14.) Bedtime Story (for Albert Ayler)
15.) Yoga Duets (For Doug Yates)

Matt Otto is the exclusive copyright holder for both the compositions and recordings of the material on this site. No commercial or creative use of this material be undertaken without the express written permission of the owner/author Matt Otto (ASCAP), thank you.

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The Band:

Danton Boller: Bass

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Qasim Naqvi: Drums

A composer and performer of multi stylistic music, Qasim Naqvi has been involved in many musical fronts from free improvisation, to rock and electronica to contemporary classical music. As a composer, Qasim has produced works for The California Ear Unit, The Loos Ensemble of the Netherlands, The New Century Ensemble, Midnight Winds and Others. He is currently musical director for Ensemble Pakistan. He has completed fellowships at Harvest Works, Art Omi, Academie Schloss Solitude and Steim. A native of New York, Qasim’s origins lie in improvised music. While living and studying in New York, he worked as a drummer with artists like Reggie Workman, Don Byron, Butch Morris, Brandon Ross, Shahzad Ismaily, Elysian Fields and others. Heavily immersed in the downtown scene, he felt a growing urgency to broaden his understanding of composition and decided to pursue a master’s degree in composition and performance at California Institute of The Arts. He is currently a member of the Axis Trio, Dirty Squid, The Pleasure Circus Band, The Beggar Collective and Henry Gummer and Friends. Qasim has also produced works for numerous Coreagraphers in New York and Europe including Gabri Christa, Yael Caravan, Tai Jiminez, Tin Pen Chi and Adapt. His film works have been seen on The Sundance Channel, HBO, NBC, PBS, The Tribeca Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Claremont Ferrant and Others. At the moment his time is split between Los Angeles, his hometown of New York and Europe.