Free Jazz Education and Music
While rummaging through my attic, I stumbled upon a treasure: a cassette tape containing practice sessions recorded during my time at Berklee around 1987 or 1988, when I was about 20 years old. The tape captures a series of short
Here’s the track “Esthesis” from the album: https://mattotto.bandcamp.com/album/notebook This new recording features two groups; essentially two EPs put together. One group is a tenor trio the other a quintet with the members of the band Esthesis. Quintet: Tina Raymond –
Here’s a pdf and video of a contrafact I wrote over the Sam Rivers tune “Cyclic Episode”. I love working on improvising over this progression because it uses all 12 minor 7th chords; making it a lot of fun to
This recent CD is my first standards album. As jazz musicians we arguably spend most of our time improvising over the jazz cannon; old show tunes and jazz pieces written by our mentors and heroes. This album is a collection
Here’s a short tune of mine I recorded on Aug 3rd 2022. It based on an augmented major 7 melody. I wrote the melody from those four notes and harmonized it afterwards. Jeff Harshbarger plays bass and John Kizilarmut plays
My friend Richard Giddens came out to KC for some gigs and recording summer of 2022. Here’s a take of Soul Eyes by Mal Waldon we did with Doug Auwarter on drums. Doug is an amazing drummer steeped in the
I wrote this song in 2001. Wanjiku was inspired by the book Pedals of Blood, recommended to me by my step-father Bruce Baron, who studied with the author while doing his undergraduate degree in education. I recorded the song in
This new CD features some of my favorite musicians playing seven of my original compositions. Each track has a different configuration of players. You can get the CD on Band Camp here. . Alliance by Matt Otto .To support mattotto.org
I wrote a short original piece for my friend and Marimba player Michael Compitello. Mike is an amazing musician whom I’ve had the honor of working with at KU. This is a duo piece which is a study in cycle 5 motion using minor harmony.
The CD is pressed – here are all the tracks on one post. You can also listen to the whole album for free or buy it on Bandcamp here. Matt Otto: tenor sax.Andy Ehling: alto sax.Leonard Thompson: piano.Brad Williams: drums.Ben
I wrote this piece specifically for this recording project. The dedication here is to the Enso Ring which is often seen in Japanese Zen. Ideally the Enso ring is painted by a Zen master while maintaining an empty state of
Azul is the 4th track from the album “Ring”. The piece is a simple blues waltz. The introduction and outro features three short melodic phrases written in rhythmic/melodic counterpoint. The chord progression is a slight variation of a standard blues.
