#Kansas city jazz fest full#

In the summer of 2016 relocated to Tuscon, Arizona to escape the clouds and bad Mexican food, and now makes his home in the Kansas City area working as a saxophonist, clinician, composer and amatuer food critic after finishing his Masters in Music Composition at University of Kansas. After Boston Valdez spent time living in San Franscisco, Santa Cruz, Arcata, Santa Fe and New York City before settling in Portland, Oregon in 2000.

#Kansas city jazz fest full#

David picked up the saxophone at the age of 8 years old and attended Berklee College of music on full scholarship, where he studied with George Garzone, Joseph Viola, Herb Pomeroy, Hal Crook and Jimmy Mosher. See below for a discography of noteworthy recordings.īorn in San Francisco in 1967, David grew up in Santa Cruz, California. Matt has recorded and performed with the Grammy nominated Anthony Wilson Nonet (The Power of Nine, Groove Note 1035, 2006), The Rashid Bakr Quintet, has performed in Los Angeles with the Grammy Nominated Alan Ferber Big Band as well as having recorded on over 50 CD’s as both a leader and a side man. Matt currently performs his original compositions with his Kansas City based septet with members Gerald Dunn on alto saxophone, Jeff Harshbarger on acoustic and electric bass, Shay Estes (vocals), TJ Martley on Piano/Keys, Mike Warren and/or Brian Steever on drums and Hermon Mehari on trumpet, as well as traveling several times per year to NYC and LA to perform and record with various jazz artists. The mission of the collective (LAJC) is to help create opportunities for creative jazz composers and performers to showcase original artistic work and to set up an ongoing Jazz outreach program for young jazz musicians in and around Los Angeles.

While in Los Angeles, Matt co-founded of the Los Angeles Jazz Collective ( ). Having lived in Japan for 5 years, New York City for 7 years and Los Angels for 6 years, he has performed with a variety of artists including Anthony Wilson, Larry Koonse, Rashid Bakr, Ben Monder, Willie Jones III, Alan Ferber, Mark Ferber, Albert “Tootie” Heath, Gregory Hutchinson, Jonathan Kreisberg, Joe La Barbera, Leroy Vinegar, Bob Bowman, Jimmy Smith, Paul Jackson, Ari Honig, Ben Street, Mike Moreno, Sara Gazarek, Josh Nelson, Peter Schlamb, Danny Weiss, Roger Wilder, William Parker, Matt Wilson, Steve Cardenas, Bobby Watson, Bob Weir, Deborah Brown, Larry Goldings, Eric Harland, Sheryl Bailey, Darek Oles, Erik McPherson, John Stowell, Danny Embrey, Alan Pasqua, and many others.

Matt Otto studied music performance and composition at Indiana University, Berklee School of Music, New School Jazz (BFA) and California Institute of the Arts (MFA) during which time he studied under Lee Konitz, George Garzone, Billy Pierce, Charlie Haden, Don Hawkins and many others. Matt was also an Adjunct Professor at the Rutgers New Brunswick teaching online courses in jazz improvisation, theory and performance. at the JEN conference and performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival. Thanks for taking the time and let me know what you think.Matt Otto is currently the Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at Kansas University (KU) teaching Jazz Theory and Performance, Jazz Combo 1 and private lessons. The UMKC Conservatory and Kansas City boast a vibrant jazz and artistic community. Right now there are five compilations, each one focussing on on a major jazz label, so there’s Prestige, Blue Note, Savoy, Riverside and Contemporary for now. Two important notes: 1: there’s absolutely no commercial incentive involved here 2: the podcasts are a hundred percent non stop music, so no talking, jingles or add’s etc. But only if you think that’s appropriate. I thought, if you shared my enthusiasm, they perhaps could be linked somehow to your blogspot. Initially this was a project intended for Izaak, my son, who’s only two years old right now, but I think they’d be quite interesting for any true classic bop and hard bop jazz lovers. (Specifically the recent Roy DuNann piece.) So first of all: thanks for that! Secondly, the reason for me writing you is that I’ve been quite busy organizing my jazz collection and have compiled and uploaded a handful of homemade radio shows on the podcast platform Mixcloud. Hi Steven, You don't know me - and I don't really know you, but I’ve been enjoying your Jazz Profiles blogspot for some time now.