223: Matthew Stevens

The fact that he grew up in Toronto is not necessarily crucial to understanding guitarist Matthew Stevens point of view. He’s regarded to be one of "most exciting up-and-coming jazz guitarists" in his generation, in any part of the world. His songs and guitar playing are featured on albums by the likes of Christian Scott, Esperanza Spalding, Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Douglas, Linda Oh, Harvey Mason.

He has worked as a guitarist with producers Quincy Jones, Glen Ballard and Tony Visconti. As a producer himself, he worked on Esperanza Spalding’s albums Exposure and the Grammy winning 12 Little Spells and on Terri Lyne Carrington’s Grammy nominated album Waiting Game.

In addition to his solo recordings, he has also made three albums with Walter Smith III who I spoke to recently: they call the project In Common, and on each record they call together a different collection of collaborators to round out the group. The most recent In Common project came out earlier this year on Whirlwind Recordings and features Dave Holland, Terri Lyne Carrington and Kris Davis.  

Matthew gets around. I think it’s because he’s so open, and so collaborative. He brings his personality to all his projects, but he’s clearly also very sensitive and empathic. And maybe, just maybe, that has something to do with Canada.

Describing his own musical development, he speaks very affectionately and knowingly about a whole community of guitar players in and around Toronto - a school of playing that I admit, I didn’t know so much about before we talked. So many of the players he named share a kind of gentle, swinging sophistication, elegance but also a little bit of grit. I think Matt has applied some of that to his playing - he’s certainly not afraid of some distortion - his sound is often very gritty - but even when he rocks out, I hope he’ll forgive me for saying this - there’s still a kind of gentleness to it. He’s a nice guy, and it shows up in the music. 

We spoke recently about Canada, how the business of jazz has evolved in his lifetime, how the pandemic reoriented him both personally and musically, gear, practice, teaching, the local scenes in Toronto and Pittsburgh, and one of my favorite topics: what is production?