Nonesuch Records just released a digital edition of the music from Natalie Merchant’s Cabinet of Wonder project. I had a great time recording acoustic guitar on this music (you can also find me in a few bits of the video component, featuring amazing work by the Chicago Children’s Theatre and Manual Cinema). Lots of fun to work on such a large-scale project, with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a great rhythm section of Megan Gould (music director, violin), Tom Vaitsas (piano), Rob Kassinger (bass), and Jeremy Cunningham (drums). Engineered and mixed by one of the best in the game, the amazing Ryan Freeland. Highly recommended for anyone with young kids!1

Speaking of Jeremy Cunningham, he’s got a new record coming out in October; I played some guitar, bass, and percussion on it — look out for Passing Fires on Northern Spy Records.

The last two weeks have been filled to the brim with shows, and I’ll be pushing thru the weekend before the live dates slow down a bit this coming month and tip the scales towards some recording and teaching. If you’re in Chicago this weekend do come out to RIPLEY, a new show from Alex Grelle full of incredible choreography, puppets, ‘80s dance music, and more. Thursday through Sunday at the Empty Bottle.

Some Upcoming Shows:

8.27 - 8.30 // Alex Grelle’s RIPLEY @ the Empty Bottle

9.5 // Paul Dietrich Elemental Quartet @ Riverfront Jazz Festival (Stevens Point, WI)

9.6 // Paul Dietrich Elemental Quartet @ Fox Jazz Festival (Menasha, WI)

9.11 // Makaya McCraven @ Plantasia (at Garfield Park Conservatory)

9.20 // Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Consigment Lounge

9.26 // Greg Ward “Held Together” @ the Logan Center (for Hyde Park Jazz Festival)

For this month’s subscriber section, I’m sharing a bootleg recording (and accompanying sheet music) from a recent duo concert I played with saxophonist/composer Greg Ward, and writing a bit about how the piece came to be. For anyone curious about what’s beyond the paywall, consider dropping $5 in the hat and getting the full works each month. Thanks and see you on the other side! — M

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Will and I each brought a tune to the table — he selected “Ela,” by Mario Adnet, and I chose “Lua, Lua, Lua, Lua” by Caetano Veloso. These were fun, fast and intuitive sessions at my small studio. We recorded “Ela” as a live take with nylon guitar and EVI before I added some bass, pedal steel, and small percussion; a few weeks later, we got together for another half-day session to record “Lua,” which received some more involved production with some drum programming, electric guitars, synths, processed vocals, and more. Still, at its melodic core, is the acoustic guitar and EVI. I mixed the tracks in a similarly fast and intuitive way; these were mastered by Dave Vettraino, and Tim Nagle took the cover photograph. Check out ELA / LUA, out now.

These tracks celebrate and roughly mark the one-year anniversary of our collaborative record Horizon, and it’s been a treat stepping back into the recording flow together, leaning into some musical traditions that inspired some of our writing in the first place.

I have some fun shows coming up, including the Chicago premiere of some new music I’ve written with saxophonist/composer Greg Ward, as well as a special double-bill in the Twin Cities in support of Devotional Fade, my new record in collaboration with saxophone/synthesizer extraordinaire Dustin Laurenzi. Hope to see you somewhere:

7.23 w/ Alex Santilli and Cole DeGenova @ Dorian’s

7.25 w/ Lenard Simpson Quartet @ Back Alley Jazz Festival

7.28 Mike Harmon, Matt Carroll, Dustin Laurenzi, and Matt Gold @ the Whistler

7.31 Matt Gold & Greg Ward @ the Red Room

8.7 Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Cedar Cultural Center (Minneapolis, MN)

8.18 Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Fitzgeralds

8.20 w/ Quin Kirchner @ the Hungry Brain

8.21 w/ Clark Sommers @ the Green Mill

8.22 w/ Clark Sommers @ the Green Mill

8.23 w/ Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade @ Palmer Square

8.26 Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Simon’s

I’ve been digging back into the guitar playing of Albert Lee — particularly on Emmylou Harris’ 1977 appearance on Old Grey Whistle Test. This month’s exploration section looks at some of his ideas as a starting point for bringing some banjo- and pedal steel-esque sounds to the guitar….

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6.12 w/ Sidepieces @ the Hungry Brain: reporting for monthly telecaster duties at the Brain, tonight.

6.14 Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Middle Brow: Dustin and I are teaming up with the good folks at Middle Brow to throw a party on Sunday, in celebration of our new record Devotional Fade (which is out now, btw). We will play two sets of music, Quin Kirchner will spin records for a bit, and there will be a *themed pizza* in honor of the record. Dustin and I developed this band (and subsequently, the record) out of many improvised sets at Middle Brow so it feels like a homecoming to do this all together. Free, 6pm, come hang out.

6.17 - 6.19 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Blue Note (Tokyo, JP): back at it with the quartet of Makaya, Junius Paul, and Marquis Hill in Japan for a short run of shows.

6.21 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Takasaki City Theatre (Takasaki, JP)

6.28 w/ Dylan Ryan @ the Hungry Brain: jumping in with Dylan’s quartet for the first time.

7.12 Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Cosmic Country Cookout

7.19 Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Consignment Lounge

Thanks to everyone who’s listening to Devotional Fade — if you haven’t already, you can pick up a copy via We Jazz Records.

This month, I have some more open-ended thoughts on making new things that I’ll share below, along with a mixtape of what I’ve been listening to a lot lately. Hope everyone is well, finding time to ride a bike, jump in a lake, eat something fresh, etc.

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I had the pleasure of recording two cover songs for Aquarium Drunkard’s Lagniappe Sessions with my bud Will Miller (aka Resavoir); we had a breezy and intuitive time arranging and recording “Ela” by Mario Adnet and “Lua, Lua, Lua, Lua” by Caetano Veloso. The session is currently for AD subscribers only, but stay tuned for a possible broader release…

Much gratitude to everyone who has been listening to Devotional Fade, my new record in collaboration with the brilliant saxophonist/synthesizer-er Dustin Laurenzi. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, you can do so here.

I played some concerts last week with Natalie Merchant and members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, presenting her Cabinet of Wonder project (we also made a short duo appearance on NPR). The project brings together some recordings we made back in 2024 (beautifully engineered and mixed by Ryan Freeland) with a video component (featuring some incredible work by Manual Cinema, alongside the Chicago Children’s Theatre) and is available now in website form. Lots to explore there — recommended if you have young kids!

Upcoming shows:

5.21 - 5.24 w/ Makaya McCraven @ SF Jazz (San Francisco, CA)

6.4 w/ Edith Judith @ the Hideout

6.7 Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Simon’s Tavern

6.9 Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Fitzgerald’s

6.12 w/ Sidepieces @ the Hungry Brain

6.14 Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Middle Brow

6.17 - 6.19 w/ Makaya McCraven @ the Blue Note (Tokyo, JP)

6.28 w/ Dylan Ryan @ the Hungry Brain

For this month’s subscriber section, I’m looking at Ravel’s Mother Goose — it was a weird coincidence that my copy of this record stuck out from the shelf during the week I was performing the aforementioned Cabinet of Wonder (itself a reworking of many Mother Goose rhymes, with music quite different from Ravel’s). I was drawn to the fourth movement of Ravel’s piece (originally written for two pianos, then orchestrated later on) and found some nice compositional and harmonic moves in there. Hope to see you over there and thanks for tuning in.

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Devotional Fade, my new record in collaboration with the inimitable Dustin Laurenzi, has been out for a few days now. We had a super fun show in Chicago last week and have some more things brewing, do stay tuned. This was an especially intuitive record to make; we were talking recently about how beautiful it is to make it all the way to the release of an album and feel like the music still has a lot of mystery in it. LPs are available in stores as well as via Bandcamp.

I played some guitar on a new release from Bay Area pianist Ian McArdle — check out Halcyon Week.

I’m heading back overseas tomorrow, playing just the first two dates of Makaya McCraven’s tour before scooting back to Chicago for some other shows and recordings next week. Here’s where you can catch me this coming month or so:

4.30 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Salon IKSV (Istanbul, TK)

5.1 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Donaufestival (Krems, AT)

5.8 w/ Natalie Merchant @ Chicago Symphony Center

5.8 w/ The Oh Yeahs @ Studio5

5.9 w/ Natalie Merchant @ Chicago Symphony Center

5.15 w/ Sidepieces @ the Hungry Brain

5.17 Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Consignment Lounge

5.21-24 w/ Makaya McCraven @ SFJazz (San Francisco, CA)

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My duo record with Dustin Laurenzi, Devotional Fade, is still up for preorder here. (We’re releasing one more single later this week, keep your ears out.) The album drops in full on April 24th, on We Jazz Records, based in Helsinki; we’ll be playing a Chicago release show on Sunday, April 19th at Color Club, with an opening set from our bud Lane Beckstrom.

I put some guitar on the new record from Marquis Hill, (Beautifulism) Sweet Surrender. Give it spin here.

I was happy to play some pedal steel guitar on the new record from Will Miller (Resavoir), Themes for Dreams. Check it out here. There’s a tiny little something extra coming down the line from Will and I, stay tuned…

I’m heading to Steamboat Springs, Colorado this week with Greg Ward to work with some students; we’ll also have a first run-thru of some brand new duo music we’ve written. I’m excited about this batch of songs and I’m sure we’ll be doing something in Chicago before long with this project.

Other upcoming shows:

4.11 with Edith Judith @ Constellation: Joining my friends Katie Ernst and Dustin Laurenzi for a stripped-down trio set of their perfect songs

4.12 with Matt Ulery’s Sifting Stars @ SPACE: The vocal quartet rides again, here in a double-bill format opposite Matt’s much louder (and equally sublime) band, Mother Harp

4.19 Matt Gold and Dustin Laurenzi @ Color Club: Devotional Fade record release show

4.22 Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Simon’s: with Gus Martini on bass and Quin Kirchner on drums — if you know, you know!

4.23 with Peter Manheim @ Barzakh Cafe (Brooklyn, NY): Sitting in with my old bud and brilliant drummer Peter Manheim and his band. Check out Pete’s new record Early Waves.

4.24 with Makaya McCraven @ 92nd Street Y (New York, NY): The very large ensemble version of Makaya’s band (strings, harp, etc, etc) gets back together for this one-off.

4.25 with Makaya McCraven @ Jimmy’s Jazz Club (Portsmouth, NH): Quartet with Marquis Hill, Junius Paul, and me.

4.26 with Makaya McCraven @ Higher Ground (Burlington, VT).

This month’s subscriber section looks at a Kenny Burrell recording, a solo guitar interpretation of “But Not For Me” from his 1957 self-titled record. It’s been knocking me out lately, the subtlety with which he covers so much range and color on the instrument while staying melodic, intuitive, and clear. I’ll break down some of the moments I’m paying especially close attention to, and share my transcription of it too. I’ll also take a look at the original published sheet music for the song, which has some interesting movement in it. If you’re curious about joining the paid tier of Grapefruit Moon but aren’t sure what’s going on behind the paywall, there are a few non-paywalled posts in the archive you can check out. For the price of a coffee you can get into the deep end of some music with me and support the newsletter. Thanks! See you…

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Proper “singles” will be coming in the weeks ahead; for now, there is one track streaming exclusively on Bandcamp. This is also where you can preorder a vinyl and/or digital copy of the record:

Preorder Devotional Fade and listen to “Clown Car” here.

This record was made over the course of four afternoon-long improvised sessions, during which we gravitated pretty instantly toward longer-form, rhythmic, repetitive, slowly evolving spaces. You can read more about the music on the preorder page; we like to say that it oscillates between patient, sacred minimalism and wild, dancefloor-worthy combustion.

Upcoming shows:

2.25 // Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Simon’s Tavern (my bar band plays music for dancing and crying, two sets, no cover)

2.26 // with Matt Ulery’s Sifting Stars @ Epiphany Arts Center (as part of the Chopin in the City festival; Katie Ernst opens with a solo set)

2.28 // with Neil Hemphill @ Cary’s Lounge

3.6 // with Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade @ the Green Mill

3.7 // with Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade @ the Green Mill

3.13 // with Sidepieces @ the Hungry Brain

3.16 // with Sam Taylor @ Stola Art Gallery

3.18 // with Sam Taylor @ the Jazz Showcase

3.19 // with Sam Taylor @ Bar Centro

3.21 // with Devin Drobka’s Bell Dance Songs @ the Estate

For this month’s paid subscriber section (below), we’re going a little more broadly into some thoughts I’ve been having about how we learn things, and how we can break some barriers when it comes to finding and incorporating new sounds. See you down there, and thanks for tuning in. - M

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I produced, engineered, and mixed the track; I’m also on guitars, bass, pedal steel, Wurlitzer, synthesizer, drum machine, percussion, and a little harmony vocal. Elizabeth’s vocal, though, steals the show.

Elizabeth sent me the original recording of this song sometime last year, not too long after we met — recording a cover seemed like the perfect entry point into seeing what a collaboration might feel like. This session was a complete breeze, truly. We convened at my home studio around mid-day, talked about the song a little, did maybe two or three takes with Elizabeth’s vocal, my acoustic guitar, and a drum machine. I believe we kept the second take; I recorded some more instruments on it, we cut some harmony vocals, we took a walk across the park to get some tacos. We came back, added a few more instruments, and by the following morning I just about had a final mix completed. I think that the breeze and lightness of the session is something you can hear and feel in the track, despite the subject matter having more to do with concern for the past; we made decisions quickly, didn’t belabor any of the elements, and basically tried to get out of the way of the music as it came rolling through.

Dave Vettraino mastered the track; Gus Martini took the cover photo of us on my porch (Peroni, if you’d like to sponsor our next session, drop us a line). Hope you dig it!

A reminder that the new SUN SPEAK record Probiotic Orchestrations is out now on Whirlwind Recordings. You can get a copy here; you can also drop me an email directly to order a copy, as I’ve just received a stack of records and discs from the label. This option might be nice for some of you stateside readers, as the label is based out of the UK and shipping can be a bit expensive. Sun Speak is my longest running band, and the project I hit the ground running with when I moved to Chicago just over twelve years ago. We are now spread out between cities but hoping to present this music in 2026; despite the distance I think this is far and beyond our most exciting, fun, and wild music to date.

A few shows around Chicago this month:

1.18 // Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Consignment Lounge // Dustin and I have been improvising in this duo format for the last year or two, bringing the electronic realm into our vocabulary of rhythmic, trance-oriented, long form explorations. A record is coming this year, stay tuned. MG on bass, drum machine, percussion; DL on processed saxophone, synthesizers.

1.22 // with Makaya McCraven @ Fitzgeralds // Joining Makaya for a short set as part of The Interview Show, on this occasion also featuring chef Noah Sandoval and a tasting menu.

1.25 // with Living Bridge @ the Green Mill // I’m also be playing bass for this set, a reunion show of sorts for Living Bridge. This band — co-led by Artie Black (saxophone) and Jeff Swanson (guitar) — made a great record about ten years ago, and I’m looking forward to participating in the new version, with some new music in the mix as well. Like the record, the wonderful Marcus Evans will be playing drums.

1.30 // with Ana Everling, and with Matt Ulery’s Sifting Stars @ the Red Room // I’ll be playing two sets of vocal music — first with Ana Everling, and then with Matt Ulery’s art song quartet (with Jim Tashjian on guitar/voice, Katie Ernst on bass/voice, and Matt on Wurlitzer/voice).

Thanks for tuning in, hope you’re hanging in there! For the paid subscriber section this month, I’m looking at two ways I’ve been generating new music lately as well as sharing a playlist of current listening. See you — Matt

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The year is quickly winding down, and I totally missed my chance to tell you about some fun shows that happened in December now that I’ve been back home for a few weeks. If you happened to make it to one of them, or make it to anything at all lately, thanks for supporting music in the fine city of Chicago. I look forward to seeing you all somewhere in the physical world in 2026.

Without taking too much reflective stock of the past year, I do want to highlight the four records I released this year (links included in the bulleted titles below). I appreciate how totally different these records are from each other, and feel very lucky to be surrounded by wildly brilliant musicians, engineers, and visual artists who have lent their ears and eyes to these productions and helped bring them to life. Lots more to come next year! For now, I hope you’ll enjoy visiting/revisiting these:

• Sun Speak, Probiotic Orchestrations (Whirlwind Recordings)

• Tin, A Grounded Cloud (Flood Music)

• Resavoir & Matt Gold, Horizon (International Anthem)

• Storm Jameson, Roll On Buddy (Flood Music)

I’ll also give a shout-out to this record by singer-songwriter Olivia Flanigan, which I had the pleasure of producing, engineering, mixing, and playing guitars/bass/keyboards/drum machines.

Coming around the bend in January, here are some shows I’ll be playing in the new year:

1.3 with John Christensen @ North Street Cabaret (Madison, WI)

1.7 with Gustavo Cortiñas and Artie Black @ the Whistler

1.8 with John Christensen @ the Estate (Milwaukee, WI)

1.16 with Sidepieces @ the Hungry Brain

1.18 Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Consignment Lounge *stay tuned for some news from this project real soon*

1.30 with Matt Ulery’s Sifting Stars @ the Red Room

For this month’s paid section, I’m looking at a handful of orchestrated intros from Joao Gilberto (by way of Claus Ogerman), Frank Sinatra (by way of Nelson Riddle), Chico Buarque (by way of Rogério Duprat), and Duke Ellington (who of course did his own dang arranging). As I’ve written about before here, taking something written for a number of instruments and attempting to reduce it down is, I think, such a valuable practice in listening deeply, adapting, extrapolating, and ultimately discovering new colors and possibilities. For those who haven’t joined me over the paywall, I hope you’ll consider the $5/month to dig deeper into the music this coming year.

Before getting into all that, I’ll close the newsletter section for the year by sharing this bootleg from my every-other-month gig at Simon’s Tavern with my band Matt Gold & Storms of Love. Here is the beautiful tune “You Don’t Know Me,” written exactly 70 years ago and, for me, still a total banger. Happy new year, and please enjoy:

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My long-standing band SUN SPEAK has a new record out, entitled Probiotic Orchestrations. This is our sixth release and I really do believe it reaches a new level of drama, intensity, groove, humor, vulnerability, and honesty from top to bottom. The record is out on London-based Whirlwind Recordings, the same label that released my first solo record, Imagined Sky. Please do pick up an LP/CD/digital copy via Whirlwind’s bandcamp page:

October began with a string of east coast shows with Makaya McCraven, including a surreal and special gig in Philadelphia featuring Marshall Allen. At 101 years old, his energy and flow are resonating with me still, giving me lots to think about. Later that week I stayed in NYC for an extra day to play with vocalist Ana Everling at Lincoln Center — if you’re unfamiliar with Ana’s beautiful music, I encourage you to check it out.

[with Marshall Allen, after the gig, Philadelphia, October 2025]

Before heading overseas, I was able to squeeze in a few shows of my own in Chicago: I presented my trio music (this time with Bryan Doherty on bass and Devin Drobka on drums) at a sold out show opening for The Bad Plus; my “bar band” Matt Gold & Storms of Love (with Gus Martini on bass and Quin Kirchner on drums) also closed out our residency at Simon’s for the year. I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who has come out to these Simon’s gigs — we’ve been having a lot of “pure fun” and it’s been beautiful to see an audience grow organically around the music, a real joyful communal listening energy happening there thanks to you. We’re looking forward to keeping it rolling into 2026.

Meanwhile, we’re eight shows deep into the EU/UK leg of Makaya McCraven’s tour, with ten more to go. So far we’ve had some fun dates in Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, and the Netherlands; here’s where we’ll be for the rest of the month (all dates with Marquis Hill on trumpet and Junius Paul on bass):

11.10 // TivoliVredenburg (Utrecht, NL)

11.12 // São Luiz Teatro Municipal (Lisbon, PT)

11.13 // Fernán Gómez Centro Cultural (Madrid, ES)

11.14 // Le Delta (Namur, BE)

11.15 // November Music (‘s-Hertogenbosch, NL)

11.18 // New Morning (Paris, FR)

11.19 // Koko (London, UK)

11.20 // Le Rocher de Palmer (Cenon, FR)

11.22 // Gazarte (Athens, GR)

11.23 // Cosmopolite Scene (Oslo, NO)

** also, on 12/1, I’ll be back in Chicago at the Jazz Showcase with Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade. Ok, more December dates coming in a subsequent Grapefruit Moon.

Beyond the paywall, I’ll be getting into some takeaways from recent encounters with some elder musicians around the idea of longevity, spirit, and the sticking-with-it-ness of it all, sharing some musical ideas related to maintenance, and sharing a mixtape of recordings I’ve been listening to on repeat while on the road this fall. See you in there, and see you out there. — M

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I produced/engineered/mixed/played a ton of instruments on a new record from Bay Area (by way of Chicago) singer-songwriter Olivia Flanigan; It’s Over is out now, and you can order a copy here. Congrats to Olivia for going deep on these songs, and special thanks to the three drummers who also lent their sounds to the record - JT Bates, Quin Kirchner, and Justin Flanigan.

I’ll also drop a link to the recently released record by my collaborative band Tin — especially since this one is decidedly not on streaming platforms for the time being. The album cover (a Gertrude Abercrombie painting entitled “Two Ladders”) is a thing of beauty and I encourage you to scoop a copy to enjoy in the coziest nook of your home.

Speaking of not being on streaming: A number of Chicago musicians, myself included, are committing to removing some (if not all) of their music from Spotify. It is encouraging to see collective action around this, given Spotify’s role in a culture of passive listening, its ties to AI military tech, the abysmal payouts for the majority of artists, and its model of surveillance capitalism. I’m hoping more and more folks will start to turn away from this deeply uncool streamer, both on the artist and listener sides. You can read the open letter here.

SHOWS

I have some super fun shows coming up both in and out of town, including some east coast and EU dates with Makaya McCraven and a set of Matt Gold songs opening up for The Bad Plus here in Chicago. Would love to see you somewhere:

9.25 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Icehouse (Minneapolis, MN)

9.27 w/ Quentin Coaxum @ Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Chicago, IL)

10.1 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Thalia Hall (Chicago, IL)

10.2 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Arts at the Armory (Boston, MA)

10.3 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Bearsville Theater (Woodstock, NY)

10.4 - 10.6 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Solar Myth (Philadelphia, PA)

10.8 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Le Poisson Rouge (New York, NY)

10.9 w/ Ana Everling @ Lincoln Center (New York, NY)

10.10 w/ Makaya McCraven @ Michigan Theater (Ann Arbor, MI)

10.11 w/ Sidepieces @ Judson and Moore (Chicago, IL)

10.17 w/ Anthony Bruno [record release] @ Andy’s (Chicago, IL)

10.22 w/ Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Simon’s Tavern (Chicago, IL)

10.24 Matt Gold [opening for The Bad Plus] @ Constellation (Chicago, IL)

10.27 w/ Resavoir @ City Winery (Chicago, IL)

10.30 - 11.23 w/ Makaya McCraven [EU/UK tour]

For this month’s exploratory section, I’ve removed the paywall and I’m excited to offer something a little different: I’m sharing a transcript of a long-form interview/conversation with my good friend and prolific bassist/composer Matt Ulery.

A few weeks ago, I invited Matt over for a rambling interview of sorts, and we ended up talking on tape for about three and a half hours. We begin talking about Matt’s compositions, his numerous bands and extensive discography, etc; later we get into some more open-ended territory around harmony, form, and simply learning and growing as we move through our lives in music. I transcribed and edited our conversation down to a more reasonable length but I think you’ll find there’s lots and lots to dig into here. For those unfamiliar with Matt’s vast musical world, check out his website here. Hope you enjoy this!

Before we began our conversation, Matt gifted me some homemade hot sauce and was excited to show me a tote bag from the band Twin Talk, signed by its three members. I think this is an important detail to share, given that some of our talk touched on the nature of Chicago’s music community – I think the many overlapping circles of friendship and collaboration that exist in this city are vital to the music that gets made here.

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MG: Well, this feels so right to me, because I’ve been thinking lately about the last 20 years or so of music in this town, and how alive it is, how interconnected it is - it’s a beautiful thing.

MU: People like to ask me, “what’s the Chicago scene like, how’s the scene?” and I go - “You mean, how are the dozens and dozens of colliding spheres?”

MG: Colliding spheres, and relationships and friendships, and life partnerships, all kinds of stuff…and also far as your music goes, some cyclical collaborations – you’ve put a lot of bands and ensembles together over the years, and you’ve made enough solo records to have certain collaborators come in and out of your work.

One place I wanted to start, especially on the heels of this show we just did the other night (arranging and playing a set of some older vocal music of yours, along with some new pieces) is your relationship to the Wurlitzer. I understand you kind of write all of your music on that instrument.

MU: When I was in high school in Rockford, some good friends of mine who were a little older than me starting going to Columbia College, so I was coming up and going to the south loop to play music with these guys…and I met a drummer there, Nick Alvarez, he was a freshman or something and had just acquired that Wurlitzer from a classroom in DeKalb; I would play it, I was already writing music at the time, but I was like, this thing is magical. This instrument is magical. I played it on and off for a few years, just kind of envious of it, and I had hoped to have a real keyboard instrument at some point - all I had for years was this little Casio - anyway, years later, I heard that he was selling his Wurlitzer…I’ve had it ever since, maybe twenty years or so now. It’s been the instrument I’ve written most of my music on. Or at least, toiled on, to find some good seeds…

MG: Do you think there’s something about that sound that affects your writing? As opposed to writing on the piano.

MU: Maybe there’s something about having had the option to play this acoustic instrument at a very low volume, at night, living in apartments – something about having the quality of the real instrument while having the ability to dig into it...could be.

MG: in your own schedule, in those hours that are a little dreamier, producing those kinds of tunes.

MU: The range on my Wurlitzer, before I had it overhauled, the low end was a little muddier than I would have wished – I think a lot of my orchestration and voicing concepts came from that keyboard. Like, “Oh, this voicing sounds cool on this instrument, let me see if I can make it work with other instruments,” including the high register being particularly magical.

MG: I think, going back to some of your early recordings – I think it’s that same Wurlitzer on those records?

MU: Definitely.

MG: And in particular, the upper register of that instrument is all over those records. And it gives a kind of “celeste”-like quality to them…it’s really interesting, how the limitation of the instrument pushed you into the upper register; a lot of that music is really living up there.

MU: Totally, which is maybe why I ended up at least for a time writing more for violin, because they can easily play up there…trumpet and tenor saxophone don’t easily play up in those registers.

MG: So along with that celeste-like sound, you start to use a lot of accordion around that time too, and i’m kind of drawing a line in my mind from there to Eastern Blok and playing in that band - I wanted to ask you about playing in that band and coming out the other side of that making your own records…just chronologically how that all fits together, and what informs what. And timbrally as well, and working with Rob (Clearfield), who could play accordion –

MU: Well, after I asked him to play it! (laughs)

MG: Oh wow, so that was the beginning of him playing accordion, it was for your music? That’s interesting, it was really in your mind first, before it was in Rob’s hands.

MU: I saw the movie Waking Life, there was one scene with a rehearsal, a chamber ensemble.

MG: It’s like a Piazzolla kind of thing, right? A tango group…

MU: Yeah, there was a bass, cello, piano, violin, accordion or bandoneon, and they were just rehearsing some composed music – I just thought it was so cool.

MG: I totally agree, and I remember that scene similarly made a big impression on me too. I think because at the time, around when I was in high school, I was playing classical music on one side and then rock music with bands, or more improvised music and such on the other. And the worlds didn’t seem connected; the classical music world didn’t seem like that much fun, it didn’t seem like people were having that much fun! But in that scene, it’s night time, they’re rehearsing in someone’s living room, they’re drinking some wine, they’re talking about how to collectively adapt the music…

MU: And because they’re not playing wind instruments, they’re able to talk about the music while they’re playing it, laughing…and something about the visual animation, it gave it a lot of effervescence.

Around that same time, in the late 90’s or so, I found out about all these Dave Douglas records, he was making all these different types of records – I liked some of the harmonic sensibilities he was bringing in to new composed music that had an improvisational element to the compositions, and it being triadic. I was into that. I love the blues, but unofficially decided I would go the Euro-centric route in some of my earlier music.

MG: I’m kind of jumping ahead, but that hits on something I really want to ask you about, which is just your harmonic world. One thing that stands out to me is how your music sort of avoids the sound of a dominant chord; there’s a lot of parallel minor triadic movement, and there’s obviously like, this major #5 sound that feels like a huge piece of what glues your world together…did that come from somewhere in particular? How do you think about those sounds, how do you organize them?

MU: The more kind of musics you learn how to play, the more informed you are when it comes time to make the decision of what you don’t want to do, because you understand those vocabularies, like, “ok well, this is decidedly not coming from bebop, or blues, or 1930’s American pop music,” with its cadences; and obviously rhythm has everything to do with it…if you look at some of my older sheet music, you might see a major7#5 chord symbol, but I’ve mostly re-thought a lot of that stuff. In most cases I’ve realized that if I’m dealing with, not just triads but, if I’m dealing with an augmented chord…a lot of times I like to resolve to a major augmented chord, that brightness feeling like home.

MG: Right, that’s a total Matt Ulery I-chord.

MU: or even like, I-chord, then resolve the one-chord by raising the 5th. At this point, I don’t even know how much I’d make that decision anymore, but I do like the idea of making similar decisions over time – because you came to the same conclusion that “that is the right chord.” and that chord is harmonizing the melody in a way that I find interesting, and deciding on what it’s not; it has its own fresh sound.

MG: where do you feel like that lightbulb went off for you, what were you hearing?

MU: I don’t know if i heard it - I definitely couldn’t give you a proper noun - but studying harmony, messing around with melodic minor, and that sound does come up. With the creative limitation of any given 7-ish notes, you can play around with it, open up your ears…if you’re hearing minor chords with major 6ths and 7ths, then you’re more likely to come across the sound of its III-chord and embrace it. Maybe earlier in your life you don’t hear those kinds of intervals, those stacks of 3rds, so if you come across it on a piano, you hear something and you revolt against it, you’re not ready for it. Like with Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring or something, at first everyone is furious about it, and then within a year everyone loves it, now their ears are attuned to that tonality. The major7#5 chord that I dealt with in the past, really it has the natural fifth above it in the voicing too. Which means nothing just to say it out of context…

MG: Yeah, but to listen to your music and think about it, it’s meaningful. In a similar way, when you’re modulating by way of parallel minor chords or minor-major7 sounds, it feels like they’re functioning as the upper extension of a dominant sound – allowing you to cadence or modulate with these less conventional root movements. But you’re really just following your ear and thinking about framing melodies.

MU: Yeah - just as I think anyone who can write a decent song would hopefully be doing. “This sounds right…” I mean, the fact that we’re even talking about it, obviously we speak the same language, but the fact that we’re talking about how we’re thinking of these sounds, is only because we’ve come up with names so that we can play each others’ music…otherwise, it’d just be like, here’s a set of pitches with a bass note, this is the sound, that’s it. But if you have to call it something and ask somebody to improvise over it, you have to know what to give them. And if you give them the wrong information, it won’t sound right, which is…classic.

MG: Which gets us back to your ensembles. What changed for you through being in Eastern Blok? What was your music like before and after being in that band?

MU: That band, which ultimately played all original music – though we did study folk musics of the Balkans, Bulgaria, Greece – my ability to feel all the odd meters intuitively and deeply, that was my training. All the combinations of 2’s and 3’s, up until a reasonable number…

MG: And your music wasn’t doing that, before being in that band?

MU: It might have if I wrote it – “here’s an idea, this odd meter situation is learnable, we can play it” – but my ability to start internalizing it really leveled up during 10 years of playing in that band, touring all the time. I did write a lot for that band, but in such a stylized way – that music has just flown away with that band, it was for that band alone. I generally try to think that way through all my projects as well; each band project gets its dedicated book of music.

MG: When I moved to town, Rob Clearfield was at the center of so much of your music; maybe you can talk about Rob’s impact on your music.

MU: I was in college, and Rob was a couple years behind me, coming out of high school; I definitely heard something special about him right away when we met. We started playing, and did a lot of free improvising together. When I formed my very first group – as an adult, I should say; I was playing ska and punk and all that as a kid – I had a band with Frank Rosaly on drums, Thad Franklin on trumpet, and Tim Haldeman on tenor, my first quartet. I think that’s how I got Rob involved on accordion actually…I was writing music that was harmonically complex enough to benefit from a chordal player, which we didn’t have in that band.

MG: So why accordion, and not piano?

MU: It was something like, “well, what if we just got someone to sometimes play just a couple of the notes…” (laughs) I liked the freedom of a chordless quartet; “maybe just like a couple notes…” Something horn-like, without having a guitar player or something.

MG: You were looking for air, sustain.

MU: Air, sustain, and harmonic capabilities.

MG: So, nothing about the sort of cultural associations or musical histories of the accordion as a musical instrument –

MU: No way. Also, from playing ska and reggae, I knew all about the melodica, but that was not going to be an option. I don’t know why – aesthetics, I guess? What’s wrong with the melodica? It’s actually more expressive than an accordion, or it can be…

MG: It looks kind of funny.

MU: It looks kind of funny. I don’t think it was ever going to be a good option…

MG: So at that point, no piano – exclusively accordion. Did that band make a record?

MU: No, but my first release was technically a Live at the Green Mill bootleg, from 2005. I put together an octet – and Rob played piano on that. When I asked him to play my music, I think the way that he phrased things and approached the sound, his voicings – it inspired me to keep writing more stuff like that. So, thanks Rob, for playing my music to inspire me to write more of it. And since he’s left Chicago, that’s probably why it’s changed or expanded as much as it has.

MG: Yeah, because I remember – I mean, many times I've talked to you about your music over the years, and you’ve said something to the effect of, “I’m writing the same song, again and again and again.”

MU: It’s the same waltz.

MG: It’s the same waltz! I’ve always found that really beautiful – when I first moved here, I’d come hear your bands and you’d play a whole set of music that really inhabited a single vibe; a whole record or really years of music where you’re mining these materials. I think it’s so much more common in the visual art world, where someone’s going to iterate an idea like 50 times, and then the public presentation of the work might even be a room full of the same painting, done a million different ways. And through all of them hanging together, you get something that’s bigger than each one. But in music we don’t see that as much – you’ve so beautifully doubled down on that notion. I don’t know if you have any perspective on it…

MU: Not objectively. I see a musician like Phillip Glass, who I really admire, he’s made a career of “a study on this texture,” like a visual artist would do…as for my music, it’s really not intentional. It’s more about decidedly what it is not. And I keep coming to the same conclusions. And by conclusions I mean, decisions in composition.

MG: But those choices keep seeming to offer infinite possibility to you, where it can be years of certain raw ingredients generating multiple records of music, multiple bands – there’s a really strong compositional identity because of that.

MU: I think coming to similar compositional conclusions like melodic tendencies, phrase structures, certain harmonic devices, the more times you make similar decisions – because it’s just up to your taste – it helps you come to your compositional voice.

MG: You would never encourage someone to look at something they’re working on and recognize the similarities that it may have to what they’ve done before and say, “oh, I should change this just to change it.”

MU: I would tell somebody to change it until it’s right. And only you will know when it’s right. And for whatever reason, for some things, I’ve made similar decisions, similar edits.

MG: What does editing look like for you?

MU: Here’s a melody, an improvised melody, transcribed; here are some ways to contextualize it with harmony – a bass note, some other floating notes around it. This chord’s not quite right; change it until it’s right. That kind of editing, real nose-to-the-grindstone kind of stuff.

MG: A lot of your stuff has taken really ambitious shape in terms of form; when you describe that revision process, I”m picturing phrases in the abstract before you’re stringing things together and making broader compositional shape; talk to me about creating these bigger forms.

MU: I was just talking to our good friend Bryan Doherty about this the other day. Basically just about the two main differences of either conforming to a form, a classic form, a set form…which, as people who play jazz, we use a lot of 1930’s song forms; when we’re playing European classical music we’re learning those other forms…one could take a form of music that’s been popularized and use that as a limitation for their music. And I think that’s cool. Forms are popular, they work, they reach people, the energy flows. But I never really thought too much about that, because I’m trying to resist the urge to write a piece of music from start to finish. It helps me be more productive, it helps me make more musical decisions.

MG: Do you mean that your compositional process is not linear in that way, where you’re starting writing from the beginning of the piece and making your way to the end? Instead you’re like, here are these ideas, let’s see how they interact?

MU: Right - here’s a seed or a spark, which most likely for me will be a melody. And everything is going to be derived from that seed, somehow. So if I can resist the urge to write a piece linearly, I don’t know if I’m writing the intro or the chorus, or some textural accompaniment material.

MG: What you start out with, the main idea, may not even be the primary melodic line.

MU: That idea may even go away at some point, completely, but will have sort of been the “mother”...every musical phrase wants to be its own length, so I imagine I’m creating these puzzle pieces and then figure out a way to find what sort of puzzle it is I’m going to make when I start putting the pieces together. And then, you do have to figure out a way – it’s not really a puzzle analogy, it’s more of a woodworking analogy – you have to dovetail the sections together sometimes, interstitial music, which might be, you need a bar or two of breath because you’re imagining the energy flowing to the next moment in time. So then your phrase might be a little longer or shorter. You piece those things together, and there’s your big form. And it works – you hope it works – because you’re imagining, ok, here’s the beginning, the middle, the end, just like in forms you can study, but at some point, somebody just decided it was the right thing to do because the musical phrases wanted to do it. And because typically dance isn’t involved. If it’s dance music, then you’ve got to consider those dancers.

MG: Right, without any external imposition on the form, it’s free to be what it wants to be.

MU: You’re not going to mess anybody up; no one’s expecting anything.

MG: Speaking of dance music, I understand you’re making some more electronic-leaning music right now.

MU: I’m messing with an analog drum machine. So far just P-bass and drum machine…have I played you some of that stuff?

MG: I haven’t heard it yet! You told me you’re making sort of house music-adjacent stuff.

MU: I’m making music where I’m not writing anything down, or conceiving of any harmony or thinking of anything like that, just recording, recording. I would say it’s actually very similar in a way to the scores I’ve written, where I’m coming up with puzzle pieces, chunks of musical phrases, and long or short as they need to be, and then figuring out a way to arrange them so that the flow from left to right does make energetic sense, ultimately.

At this point, I’m thinking about: why would I make something, why would I write some music? Not “what’s the point,” but “what should I do?” What should I write, what purpose should it serve? And right now, I want to write dance music.

I’ve been thinking about how, if I’m lucky enough to live to, say, 86, then I’m halfway there. And that seems reasonable – you’d be lucky, if you lived to 86. But if I did, I'd be zero years old right now (I’d have just as much time left in my life as I’ve had up until now). I can still have decades more of experiences – start learning something now, start doing this now…

And so while I think anyone in their so-called mid-career might think, “Is this it? Should I just wrap it up, or…what do I do?” But I like to think, all of that, yes, but also make some different stuff. Who cares anymore?

MG: Your only responsibility is to actually follow your intuition.

More recently, between this bass/drum machine music and your newest record Mother Harp, I feel like there’s a new “no fucks given” energy that’s entered your compositional zone, in a way that’s really cool. That energy in your output as a side musician/electric bassist has maybe preceded these records a bit – but in the context of your music, I think it’s a new character. The electric bass at all, but also the dynamic, the volume of it. Well, actually, dynamic intensity has surfaced in your music a lot, maybe nowhere more so than in your orchestral music. But the rawness maybe, this feels like a new zone for a Matt Ulery record.

MU: Definitely – I don’t know why it took me so long to record myself playing electric bass on my own music. Well, we haven’t talked about my band Pollinator, where I play sousaphone, but this is a similar thing – I mean, my favorite music, undeniably, is swing. Jazz, swing, walking bass, all the varieties of it, all the tempos, and everything that comes with it. But a lot of my music is decidedly not swung, and certainly not blues based, so it took this project Pollinator to even start writing music with a swing feel. And for me to play it on the tuba. And also my favorite music, undeniably, is rock music. I don’t know why it took so long to make a rock record (Mother Harp), more or less.

MG: how did you decide to play sousaphone instead of bass for Pollinator?

MU: Tuba was my first instrument, along with electric bass – I fell off for a while, didn’t play it, then I went to New Orleans and was thinking, why don’t I still play this instrument? Guys told me, when I was a teenager, “Don’t stop playing tuba. You’ll see, don’t stop playing it.” I'm talking about older, professional musicians I knew when I was a teenager – they were composing, writing orchestral jazz music that I was playing a little bit of, in Rockford. I did stop playing it, but then I realized I needed to start playing again, because it’s the original American jazz bass instrument. I wanted a reason to practice tuba and get better at it…what better way to play harmonically complex music on tuba, than to just write it yourself? There are so many things it doesn’t do – but what does a tuba do? It plays two-beat. The classic joke, you know, “it’s not called a four-ba.” It does two-beat quite well, and as much as I like one chord funk jams, it’s decidedly not that.

MG: Right – the sound of that instrument as the bass, and in a two-beat swing feel, really locates the sound of that band. More a product of what that instrument wants to do than how you were conceiving of the writing.

MU: I think at least at first. This instrument does that well, and I want to play that instrument, so let me write some melodies….

Then with the electric bass, when I wrote the first tune for what would become the Mother Harp record, it was like, oh, the bass wants to be driving eighth notes. What does the upright bass not really do that well? So it was kind of the other side of the bass – upright bass is in the middle, tuba’s on one side, electric bass is on the other side, as far as the ability to play fast.

MG: Density…well, it seems like it’s always some kind of parameter – “I want to play the sousaphone again, here’s a book of music that accommodates that. This piece I just wrote is asking for this fast bass rhythmic information, so it has to be the electric.” Did the mother harp music have that attitude as well, compositionally, right out the gate?

MU: I think so, the “zero fucks given” attitude – one day, I was writing something fast, and because i thankfully found myself in that rare special place of not caring about writing a great composition, i did end up writing something I ended up really liking, and it was high energy, with an attitude, and electric bass made sense – it was like, there could be a whole book of music like this. It’s nice to have a creative limitation. Which is partially why I make so many different bands – you see some people over their career, they have their one band, and they use that to express themselves with all their music…everything gets filtered through that, which is cool – but then you realize, you can’t keep a band forever, people go and do other things, which is great, so why not have some different projects? Thankfully people are generally down to give some time and energy…

MG: You mentioned you were "fortunately in a headspace where you didn’t feel pressure to write a great piece of music, and therefore you did.” I love that.

MU: Resist the urge to write a great piece of music – a piece of music at all, even. It’s a trick; eventually you will finish something, if you decide to sit down and do the work. But imagine trying to sit down and write your greatest piece of music….man, give yourself a deadline and a fuck-it attitude, and if you have good taste…

MG: Well, the deadline is easy, but how do you get out of your own way?

MU: I'm super slow, honestly.

MG: I think we’re all slow, at the end of the day. Everyone I talk to…I mean, that’s what it is, right? It’s slow.

MU: I hate to even say this out loud, because we all have very powerful imaginations – being careful what I manifest – but right now I feel especially slow. The question of why has been creeping in. Of course I'm lucky to get to play other people’s music all the time, I get to just chime in on bass, that’s the best – that’s definitely the most satisfying thing, being able to just work and play.

MG: Well, let me ask you a different way. I mean, how many Matt Ulery records are there?

MU: I think 16.

MG: Ok, and from the outside – I don’t know that you can see this and can comment on it, or even need to, but – you have had a beautiful ascent in the public eye around your music, and at some point along the way, there were people listening to your records. And yet, you moved forward and made new work. And I think those are the times when it’s hardest to get out of your own way, when you know that anyone is paying attention to what you’re doing. So I wonder if you can at least look back on the aftermath of a record that got an especially large number of ears on it, and how you made the step towards writing afterwards.

MU: I had made two or three records on my own, in deep obscurity (laughs)...then i got hooked up with Greenleaf, who I had been sending all my records since my first one, and they wanted to put it out; it was By A Little Light, a double CD, which I feel like reached more people than anything else I did, by far, and I don’t really know why, other than being fresh to the fans of the label…

I did three records with them, I did a Tiny Desk, and I felt like, this is my chance to do more? Reach more people? None of that informed the actual music that I wanted to make, it was always just, whatever the next thing is. But if I understand your question – after that period of three records, mutually agreeing to not work together anymore, I never felt like I failed or succeeded in any way that I thought I would, or that my music was trying to live up to any expectations. I think it’s probably good for my artistic output that I never really hit the gas super hard on a performance-based career; I stuck around Chicago, I wasn't able to take my show on the road, you know? Because my show keeps changing all the time…so there’s no show! Every show I do sort of feels like a one-off. In hindsight I love that, I get to do a lot of different stuff.

MG: They all feel special, for that reason – you see a weekend at the Green Mill of your music, it might be one of four or five times that music gets played.

MU: Or the only time! It’s not smart, as a performance career where your name is on the bill…

MG: But it’s nourishing in terms of longevity, compositional output…

MU: I have a question for you, now. We did a gig a long time ago, that Grateful Dead thing at the Field Museum – all these Chicago improvisers were set up throughout the museum and playing through interpretations of the same Grateful Dead songs. I’ve been asked to learn Dead songs along the way here and there…it’s great. And of course we had to do something cool, do something different with these songs. Makaya McCraven put together this band, who else was on it again?

MG: I think it was a quartet, with you, me, and Justin Thomas on vibraphone.

MU: And we had to do something with the songs, arrange them – I just remember, I did a lot of work, like, I have to learn all these songs. And I went into the rehearsal, where we were going to put something together, and you clearly knew all the songs. And I asked you, “How do you know all these songs?” Because I did a lot of work…and you said, “Oh man, my dad listened to the Grateful Dead a lot,” you brushed it off as if you’d heard these songs your whole life, and maybe you had…my question is, did you practice them and learn them for that rehearsal?

MG: No.

MU: And how do you do that, remember all the songs? All the songs that you play – how do you memorize everyone else’s music, your own music, all the standards and jazz repertoire I've heard you play over the years, all the Beatles songs, all those country songs, deep cuts…is there a method?

MG: I don’t know, I’m just a lifelong listener and…you know what it is, it’s just constantly going around in my mind. I think there’s a lot of unconscious reinforcement happening – like, i don’t think my mind is ever really that quiet of a place, and whether it’s just a tonality and a sound, or a musical idea that hasn’t been born yet, or it’s a record I’ve known my whole life, or it’s my friend’s music, these things are just constantly on play in my head, so – you were talking earlier about just hearing stuff and digesting it, and having it be part of your musical lexicon – I think that’s just always happening with stuff that I like (and stuff that I don’t like, too)...but I think my dad’s record collection was the first area where that was being reinforced, so I feel always really lucky that he had such sick records around the house, stuff that’s still really meaningful to me today. Along with a ton of different instruments just lying around all the time.

MU: I called you the other day to tell you I was checking out [Wayne Shorter’s] Atlantis, and you’re like "I have my dad’s copy of that!” and I only just started checking that record out recently.

MG: Ever since I started messing around with instruments, which is really as long as I can remember being alive, there’s been a very…not explicitly visual, because it’s kind of abstract in my mind, but…in the headspace of my imagination, there’s like a drawing of what those songs are made of, and what the harmony is doing in all of those tunes.

MU: So could you take a tune that you’ve heard, something you know, and obviously you have the muscle memory to play it on a guitar, but could you go ahead and play it on a keyboard as well? Because you have a picture of how the harmony sounds and looks?

MG: Yeah, I think I'm always thinking in terms of function, harmonic function. But when it comes to memorizing something like Greg Ward’s music, I don’t know that I have any kind of…

MU: Do you sit down and try to memorize his music, like I do?

MG: Yeah, I do. Tricky passages in Greg’s Rogue Parade songs, I absolutely have to look at it, commit it to memory, repeat it, check it against the record, etc.

MU: If it’s not a “total” earworm…

MG: if it’s not a total earworm, or honestly, if it’s not a Beatles song (laughs)…But I do think, if I’m hearing something a little bit simpler than Greg’s music, a little more in the tonal universe than that, then in real time I”m organizing it as I”m hearing it, whether or not my intention is to remember it. Like the emotion of harmony and its function are very connected in my mind, ever since i was really young.

MU: Pre-theory?

MG: Absolutely – and there was an interesting moment in my life, because I came up playing viola and playing guitar kind of at the same time, starting when I was around 9 years old…and guitar was really the arena where I was making sense of everything in terms of harmonic function. Playing viola in an orchestra or string quartet or chamber ensemble, I'm just reading the ink and participating in the sound, you know? But playing guitar was like, it felt like I was looking at the building blocks more before I had language to say what it was – V of V or whatever.

And then I got to college, after already having a visual/aural relationship to those structures, the ways that tonal music fits together, and I went to school decidedly not to enroll in music school. But after being there for a year, I was really still feeling the pull of music, and there was an amazing music school right there where I already was – I thought, let me see if I can really immerse myself in what’s happening here. But I was losing connection with the viola, it didn’t feel like an exciting path for me, so the guitar presented itself – I felt like I could involve myself in music in so many different ways with it. Maybe that would be my path forward. I was coming at it from a more intuitive place, I just wanted to play it more. But what I want to get to here is that, then I’m enrolled in my first theory class, and it’s only there that I have to give an organizing principle and name things in the classical way – I mean, i had some of that in terms of roman numerals and such before then – but writing counterpoint, it was new vocabulary but not new sounds, right? Like, ok you want me to call that this, sure.

I don’t know, what was that for you? Is it similar? Like, you know what a sound is, and then you have to start to define it…I can picture myself as a little kid listening to Beatles records, and it was like, pillars of a building to me, the different chords, the parts of the chord progressions – putting them in their place, just seeing it like blocks of sound.

MU: I think we experience what music sounds like first, and we’re affected by what we’ll eventually call cadences, key changes…I feel like I learned that stuff because people were asking me to play bass with them. Jazz bands, small groups, with grown-ups…even though I did know about roman numerals and stuff from studying Beatles songs, I definitely did not equate the feelings that I had around cadences and such with these terms.

MG: Were you playing any piano at that point?

MU: Not really. But then when someone first gave me a lead sheet, i think it was a Duke Ellington song – I was playing with this old guy, a big rehearsal big band at the community college, and I wasn’t really sure what I was doing with all the slash chords…I didn’t know how to deal with that stuff yet, but after the rehearsal I asked the guy, “What do I do, it says F6, what is that?” And he sort of showed me how to navigate harmony from the bass.

I’m just now really starting to figure it out (laughs). I feel a growing sense of understanding now, of the true emotional function of things. But everyone’s different because they understand the functions of music in different ways – it’s all pretty abstract, except for what someone might call a Perfect Authentic Cadence, really that’s powerful…when there’s been some voice leading happening that has directed our attention to what ultimately sounds like a key, because of certain notes not being involved, and the musical phrase ends and the melody and bass notes are playing the same note, in the home chord, we all know what that feels like.

MG: What a feeling. Let me ask you this, I think this comes up a lot in your music…plagal cadences, maybe even especially the minor iv to I. What comes to mind for you around the emotional function of a plagal cadence?

MU: I know people might call that an “amen” cadence, a IV to I, though it can also be borrowed from another realm…I know that’s in my mind somewhere, but I also know that’s certainly never ever why I made the decision to use that device….the easy answer is, in the moment of composition, that was just the right choice.

MG: And let’s not forget that the two chords, minor iv and I, overlaid on top of each other – they sort of create that chord, the Ulery-ian major#5 sound. Do you know what I mean? Like, if they are one sound, together, you’re dealing with that major#5.

MU: That blows my mind – that makes sense.

MG: See, that’s a good example of this visual pillar thing I'm trying to describe – for me, that’s a very visual association that’s not on a staff, but is almost an architectural expression.

MU: What it means to me is, when given the option to make something up, I like to be obvious enough so that it creates an emotion in me, but not super obvious. V to I, that feels obvious.

MG: V - I, obvious. IV - I, subtle and clear. Isn’t it crazy though, the feeling is so strong but we can’t really describe it?

MU: I've heard people talk about the minor iv to major I as a “nostalgia” chord, but I think that’s weird…since most music is derived from other music, it’s all kind of nostalgic. When it comes to making up new music, it’s all based on your own nostalgia.

MG: Do you think that minor iv to I “nostalgic” connotation is because of film music at all?

MU: I think so – when it’s used whether straight up in that cadence or snuck in somewhere, film composers have used that device to tug at the heartstrings in a really specific way. I can’t imagine operating in a way with music where it was up to me to make someone feel a very specific thing. For me, it’s selfish really, it’s all about, I'm feeling something, and I want to share it. The film composers who can take a scene…I could probably come up with something that would live in certain moods if you asked me to, but…

MG: But I think any sort of “emotional manipulation” in a film score is by default leaning on our collective memory of functional harmony…no score that’s so abstract and experimental could really do that, because it’s not as referential.

MU: I wonder if someone from Java, who has only heard Gamelan music, I wonder if they would have a similar reaction to these harmonic devices that we allow ourselves to be manipulated by constantly – I feel like the special emotional pieces of scales, they exist in nature kind of all over the place…I’m assuming in some weird way it exists in space too, outside of our planet…

MG: By definition, something “universal” would stretch beyond the Earth, into the universe…

MU: I'm just assuming that’s where we get our cadences, our scales from – math equations, physics…there are obviously rhythmic cadences as well. I just wonder if someone who didn’t grow up ever knowing a notion of our western tonal palette…but apparently mothers all over the world, they use the same tones with their newborn babies.

MG: Back to our plagal cadence idea, a long time ago I had this notion about IV to I and why it felt so much, I don’t know, more human than V to I…like, V to I feels like a power dynamic to me, like something swallowing something else, where IV to I feels like a mirror image of itself, because there’s more overlap of tones – the root is within the IV chord, so it’s almost like it’s turning, instead of one thing swallowing the other. Regardless of what we choose to call it, the feeling of the difference is real, and so it’s just interesting to speculate as to like, why I want to cry when IV goes to I back and forth, back and forth, and V going to I sometimes doesn’t do that?

It’s two things, V to I, and IV to I is one thing, to me. Like one foot stays in place while the other moves, it’s of itself; whereas with V to I, I walk from here to there. It’s more of an event, and IV to I is more of an experience.

MU: I wonder if that has anything to do with being this “amen” chord in some relatively modern Christian music.

MG: As in, it’s like a holistic moment? Yeah, wow. Actually, last night a few friends came over, we had some drinks and played some fiddle tunes – and those forms, they’re mostly AABB, AABB forever…there’s something infinite about that. It feels almost like more of a plagal cadence of a form, it’s symmetrical – and maybe AABA is more like a V-I form, because it’s weighted…

MU: That would be interesting, imagine if our song forms were just like ABB. or ABBB.

MG: I would be down to start that band, where we mine that form.

MU: I guess rock songs, pop songs, they do get the ABAB treatment, but then they do succumb to the power struggle: ABAB, sometimes C once, and then B over and over.

MG: Very true – B comes to outlive A at the end of the day.

MU: It does – but only when you get ABAB first, does it seem normal to live in B. But if you do ABBB as a cycle…could be interesting. No hot middle eight needed.

MG: No hot middle eight needed! That pop form really is like the V to I cadence – we travel somewhere new through the A, to the chorus, and then that new place becomes home, repeating B again and again as an arrival. Or when we play standards, we’re really just playing “B,” if you think about it. The chorus. “What’s the form? B.” Every once and a while, you play the A as an intro…

Ok, final question: what is your favorite name for the electric bass, that isn’t “electric bass?”

MU: Sidewinder. Let it be known that Milt Hinton referred to the Fender bass as a Sidewinder. And a pork chop is for eating.

Tin is Katie Ernst (voice, bass, banjo), Artie Black (clarinets, shruti box), and myself (acoustic guitar); we started getting together around 2018 or so, and I basically wrote a bunch of music just to facilitate getting the three of us together more regularly to hang out and play. Gradually each member of the group started bringing in compositions and we arrived at a sort of chamber music / folk music thing that’s been a lot of fun.

We made the record in an air bnb tucked in the woods near Racine, WI. I’ve long been a fan of getting out of town to make records, being somewhere with no other obligations, where no one has to watch the clock or run off to another gig (my records with Sun Speak lean heavily on this approach). Friend-of-the-band Dustin Laurenzi came along and engineered; we recorded these songs sitting in the living room, close together, with no headphones, captured between walks, meals, a bottle of wine, an hour of playing Beatles songs, etc. Connecting back to last month’s subscriber section of this newsletter: headspace really is one of the most powerful musical tools we have — when you feel free, flowing, intuitive, connected, the music tends to come out the same way.

A couple fun shows of note coming up this week and next! Hope to see you:

8.27 Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Simon’s Tavern: my bar band is back for our residency, playing hits and deep cuts from the country/surf/soul/film/etc spectrum. Featuring Gus Martini on bass and Quin Kirchner on drums. Two sets at 8:30pm.

8.29 with Sarah Marie Young @ Pritzker Pavilion: Joining one of my favorite singers in the world for an early set as part of the Chicago Jazz Festival down in Millenium Park. SMY on voice, Marcin Fahmy on keys, Bryan Doherty on bass, Neal Wehman on drums, me on guitar.

9.4 with Matt Ulery @ Judson & Moore: This quartet played a special show last year of Matt’s vocal music, here arranged for wurlitzer, guitars, bass, and four-part singing (I’ll also play a little bit of keys). A real joy to live inside these incredible compositions. Matt Ulery on wurlitzer and voice, Katie Ernst on bass and voice, Jim Tashjian on guitar and voice, myself on guitar, organ, and voice.

Thanks for being here — a friendly reminder that a paid subscription ($5/mo) gives you access to the rest of this newsletter: an exploration of what’s happening in the studio/practice room, some ideas to look at, some music to listen to, some things I’m thinking about lately. There are a few of these available for free in the archive if you’re curious to get a sense. This month I’m diving into some intervallic ideas, pushing at the edges of tonal centers, taking a few notes from Prokofiev, and sharing a Monk-ish tune…hope to see you in there.

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I know I’m a little late in the month getting this edition of Grapefruit Moon out — I’m back in Chicago this week after spending July on the road with Makaya McCraven’s band (Marquis Hill on trumpet, Junius Paul on bass, Makaya on drums, and myself on guitar). The four of us have logged a lot of miles together over the years and I feel lucky to play with these great improvisers, stretching the music and exploring all the time.

We were back on the European festival circuit, playing some places we’ve been many times alongside some new spots; a few highlights included the total inspiration of hearing and (briefly hanging with) Herbie Hancock from side stage in Ghent; an especially memorable meal at A Fornalha in Espinho, Portugal; and the pure beauty of hiking and swimming throughout the basically unending summer daylight way up in Molde, Norway.

I’m excited to be back in town playing music around Chicago; here’s where you can catch me in the coming weeks:

7.27 Matt Gold & Will Miller @ Middlebrow (two improvised sets at 6pm)

7.30 Greg Ward Quintet @ the Jazz Showcase (with Victor Garcia, Runere Brooks, Neil Hemphill, and Greg Ward)

8.3 Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Middlebrow (two improvised sets at 6pm)

8.4 Orchestra Resavoir @ Pritzker Pavilion at Millenium Park (large ensemble iteration of Resavoir, and will also feature adaptations of a few tunes from my recent collaborative record with Will, Horizon).

8.6 Matt Gold @ Fitzgerald’s (two sets at 6:30pm, with Matt Ulery and Quin Kirchner)

8.20 Christian Dillingham Quartet @ the Jazz Showcase (with Julius Tucker, Quin Kirchner, and Christian Dillingham)

8.27 Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Simon’s Tavern (two sets at 8:30pm, with Gus Martini and Quin Kirchner)

8.29 Sarah Marie Young @ Pritzker Pavilion at Millenium Park (for Chicago Jazz Festival, with Amr Fahmy, Bryan Doherty, Neal Wehman, and Sarah Marie Young)

Also giving you all an early-bird heads up here, that a new record is coming on August 22nd from a new band called Tin. Tin is Katie Ernst on bass/banjo/voice, Artie Black on bass clarinet, clarinet, and shruti box, and myself on acoustic guitar — our record, A Grounded Cloud, will be formally announced on August 1st along with a single and vinyl preorder (this record will not be immediately available on streaming). You heard it here first !!

For the paid-subscriber portion of this month’s newsletter, I’m getting into some ideas and practices I tend to lean on for getting my heart, mind, and hands comfortable and loose before a show when there’s not much time to do so. After a few weeks on the road, these are some practices that have been at the forefront of my mind and bring me to a place of centeredness when it’s time to hit. Also including a link to a little mixtape of some recent tracks that have been holding my imagination lately. Thanks as always for being here and feel free to drop a line with any thoughts/ideas/questions you’d like to share. - M

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[thanks to Zhenya Nemirovsky for the recording]

Horizon, my collaborative record with Will Miller (of Resavoir) is available on streaming as of today. Records have been available in stores and online for a few weeks, and we’re excited to now have the music available in all formats for your listening pleasure. We hope you dig it! Big thanks to International Anthem for getting behind this release.

We’ll be celebrating by spinning records tonight (Thursday, June 12) at Dorian’s from 8pm - 12am; the official record release show is on Saturday June 21 at Constellation, with an opening set from our dear bud and incredible songwriter V.V. Lightbody. Tickets here.

Here’s what’s coming up more broadly:

6.12 // Matt Gold & Will Miller [DJ set] @ Dorian’s

6.13 // Sidepieces @ the Hungry Brain

6.15 // Devin Drobka Bell Dance Songs @ Madison Jazz Festival (Madison, WI)

6.21 // Resavoir & Matt Gold Horizon record release @ Constellation

6.25 // Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Simon’s Tavern

6.27 // Clay Schaub Quartet @ the Jazz Estate (Milwaukee, WI)

6.29 // John Christensen Quartet @ North Street Cabaret (Madison, WI)

7.4 - 7.19 // Makaya McCraven European dates:

• 7.4 @ Gent Jazz Festival (Gent, BE)

• 7.5 @ Vijazz Festival (Vilafranca del Penedes, ES)

• 7.7 @ Copenhagen Jazz Festival (Copenhagen, DK)

• 7.8 @ Pisa Jazz Festival (Pisa, IT)

• 7.10 @ Pescara Jazz Festival (Pescara, IT)

• 7.11 @ Auditorio de Espinho (Esphinho, PT)

• 7.12 @ Bilbao BBK Live (Bilbao, ES)

• 7.13 @ North Sea Jazz Festival (Rotterdam, NL)

• 7.15 @ Jazz on the Road (Brescia, IT)

• 7.18 @ Molde Jazz Festival (Molde, NO)

• 7.19 @ Pori Jazz Festival (Pori, FL)

7.27 // Matt Gold & Dustin Laurenzi @ Middlebrow

Hope you see you somewhere !!

For paid subscribers, beyond the paywall I’m sharing a short etude-ish solo composition I wrote some years ago and often come back to. If you’re considering joining the paid tier here, feel free to cruise through the archives and find a few posts I’ve made accessible to all. Thanks for tuning in.

— MG

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The main piece of news is that my collaborative record with friend and great musician/producer Will Miller, aka Resavoir, comes out on May 23rd on International Anthem. We’ve titled this record Horizon — trying to capture some of the beauty/mystery/ephemerality of the last moments of daylight. Two singles are already out, and I’m excited for you all to hear the project in full.

You can preorder LPs and CDs here (including a very cool “lake glass green” color LP).

We’re also excited to announce that we’ll be playing a record release show here in Chicago on June 21st at Constellation. Tickets/info available here.

If you’re late to the Storm Jameson train, I’d like to point you towards the record we released earlier this year, Roll On Buddy (Flood Music).

Speaking of Flood Music, we’ve got a freshly redesigned website going over at floodmusiclabel.com — I encourage you to put your ears on any of the twenty five releases up there. There’s a little label sampler playlist on the site as well, featuring one song from every release in the catalog.

A few upcoming shows this month as well:

5.15 w/ Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade @ Peoria Riverfront Museum (Peoria, IL): Rogue Parade plays in Greg’s hometown for their summer series at this beautiful museum.

5.16 w/ Sidepieces @ the Hungry Brain: I’ll be on telecaster duties for this monthly gig of country covers.

5.28 w/ Sun Speak @ Sleeping Village: That’s right! The duo will make a rare Chicago appearance on the patio, playing a few improvised sets. I’ll have some news very soon about new Sun Speak music coming out later this year, too.

6.5 w/ Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade @ the Hungry Brain: the first week of Greg’s June residency.

The paid section of this month’s Grapefruit Moon gets into a guitar reduction of “Miles Ahead,” and includes a playlist of some music I’ve been loving and think you’d love too. There are two editions of this newsletter I’ve made free to check out in case you’re curious about what kinds of things are going on beyond yon paywall and considering signing up…Thanks as always for being here and hope to see you in the real world soon.

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Thanks for tuning in this month. A quick note to free subscribers here: I’m making last month’s paid section (all about playing harmonized melodies) available for free — if you’re interested in diving in deeper, I hope you’ll check it out (January’s is free as well) and consider dropping five bucks in the hat. It’s been way fun putting these together.

I have a new record, Horizon, coming out soon on International Anthem; this is a collaboration with my friend and great musician/producer Will Miller, a.k.a. Resavoir. The first single, “Canopy,” is out now, and the record is up for preorder as well. Will and I wrote and recorded this record together over the course of about a year, and we’re super excited to see these songs out in the world — give the single a spin and stay tuned for more.

Some gigs in the Chicago area thru the end of the month:

4.10 Matt Gold (trio) @ Fitzgerald’s (with Junius Paul on bass, Quin Kirchner on drums)

4.19 w/ John Christensen @ the Jazz Estate (Milwaukee, WI)

4.24 w/ Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade @ the Fine Arts Building

4.30 w/ Matt Gold & Storms of Love @ Simon’s

I’d also just like to share something that melted me to my core, in case you’re interested in getting melted to your core too: The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France recently featured the legendary Martha Argerich performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2; the whole thing, recorded and filmed beautifully, is available for free here. The paid section of this month’s newsletter, below, is all about operating from a place of intuition and attention; there is a quality in Argerich’s playing that, to me, always makes it feel like she’s discovering every note in real time, believing in every sound completely.

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Thanks as always for diving in with me here. I released some new music last week and have some fun shows coming up, hope to see you somewhere! For paid subscribers, the exploration side of this month’s newsletter looks at a bunch of vocal duet recordings (Ella and Louis, John and Paul, Compay Segundo y Su Grupo) and asks what we can learn about framing melodies from these masterclasses in two-voice motion. Always be singing, no matter what instrument you play.

New record from Storm Jameson, Roll On Buddy out now via Flood Music

My sort-of-traditional-folk music duo, Storm Jameson, has a new record out called Roll On Buddy. An excerpt from our little blurb describes the music well:

Roll On Buddy features gorgeously stripped-down arrangements of traditional and popular songs spanning over one hundred years of music from Ireland, Canada, and the US. Cut in a single day session – then minimally embellished with pedal steel, bass, and fiddle – the emotional intimacy of these takes is fully on display across the record's eight selections.

We love these songs, and the pressing sounds beautiful. The session for this record was swift — no headphones, not many takes, lots of vulnerability. Shout out to Jim for cutting all the vocals live in one day with no edits.

You can pick up a record via Bandcamp; we’ll also be celebrating the release on 3.27 with a show at Judson & Moore here in Chicago.

My partner Anabel released an extraordinary 8-song, 13-minute opus of experimental pop music under the name Tortellini Hot. I produced, engineered, and mixed. Doop Doop Music is out now, exclusively on Bandcamp and YouTube.

Here’s where I’m playing this month:

3.14 @ Studio 5 (Evanston, IL) with the Oh Yeahs (in support of their new record, on which I play guitar and a little pedal steel)

Three concerts with Christian Dillingham’s quartet, also supporting a recent release (and also on which I play guitar and a little pedal steel), all via Rendezvous Arts’ Chamber Music series:

3.19 @ The Next Picture Show (Dixon, IL)

3.21 @ The Gorton Center (Lake Forest, IL)

3.23 @ Artifact Events (Chicago, IL)

3.27 @ Judson & Moore Distillery with Storm Jameson [record release show] and Alta Vista

3.28 @ the Hungry Brain with Sidepieces

I’ll be playing some original trio music (with Junius Paul on bass and Quin Kirchner on drums) out at Fitzgeralds on 4.10, early heads up for that one too.

I’ve also been opening my teaching practice back up this year; if anyone is interested in in-person or remote lessons, feel free to drop a line via my website. The musical exploration section below is a window into some of the things I’m tinkering with in my own practice, so if you’re just looking for some ideas to kickstart your own independent study, please consider jumping onto the paid tier of Grapefruit Moon. Thanks everyone! - M

Two Good Notes

Always be singing — I would say this is one of my most closely held artistic ideals. Always be singing, and always be drumming. If everything we play on our instrument can be an extension of our voice, and we can deliver our ideas with deep rhythmic intention, I think most of our job is complete.

Singing through the instrument can be an elusive notion as a purveyor of mostly plucked strings, where notes go to die (in the sense that they decay — I think most guitarists would love to be able to play a note that gradually moves more air as it goes on).1 But connecting the voice to the hands is at the core of everything I’m trying to do in music, regardless of the situation. And so, I find myself spending a lot of time thinking about the best way to render a melody.

The guitar thrives on dyads — that is, a two-note voicing that registers as melody with a second voice harmonizing it along the way. Some of my favorite guitar playing is built from this idea: much of the west African guitar music leans on guitars playing in 6ths, 3rds, or 4ths (see Franco Luambo’s Congolese rumbas2, Koo Nimo’s palm wine guitar3, tons of soukous, makossa and highlife4, etc); I also hear Cornell Dupree in my mind, or Steve Cropper, or James Burton when I think about playing double stops in a melody-driven way…

It’s an intoxicating sound, that second voice tagging along. And as long as we know where to find those intervals on the instrument, it’s an easy avenue toward filling out the sound. But what if we want to create more variation, more independence, more specificity for that bottom voice? What if we want the second voice to have its own melodic integrity and logic, instead of always following the top line in parallel?

By incorporating other intervals, countermelodies, contrary motion, and suspensions, we can tap into a much more dynamic way of supporting our melodies, helping to make the music feel more like two singers moving together. Which is why I’d like to look at some excerpts of exactly that - a few vocal duets that can show us the way.

Among the most classic vocal duets on tape, “If I Fell” is mostly made of parallel 6ths and 3rds, but occasionally breaks away into contrary motion (mm. 3-4, for example) and uses a static voice against a moving one (mm. 14-15 and 17-18, for example). A little goes a long way — dissecting a passage like this and getting both voices into your ears and hands (or play one voice and sing the other) can start to plant the seeds of finding these sounds in real time, improvising your way through harmonizing a melody with an independent second voice.

Here’s one from Cuban musician Compay Segundo. I’ve been spinning his recordings quite a lot over the last month, and translating a few pieces to the guitar — yet another great example of hearing the second voice following in rhythmic unison and picking its moments to branch off from the parallel harmonization of 3rds and 6ths. Some spots I especially love: the contrary motion in mm. 4 and 14, where the voices start an octave apart and arrive back at that close 3rd; the tritones in mm. 6, 16, and 26; and mm 28, so much in this one bar! Two tritones of D#/A and F#/C, the appoggiatura of the high A to give us a 6th before descending to that second tritone, and finally the outward resolution to G/B. The result is two distinct melodies, rather than the bottom voice blindly tethered to the top, the easy way out.

Again, I really feel like absorbing these gestures in your ears and accessing them on an instrument opens the door to freely playing this way, whatever the piece of music may be.

Another way to approach this type of accompaniment is by allowing the second voice to have a rhythmic life of its own. I love these Ella and Louis recordings; it can be striking to offer your own conversational counterpoint to your melodies, imagining two separate personalities as you play. Louis is the bottom voice here, interjecting phrases and finding landing points to harmonize in a simple but freewheeling way.

I’ll finish this exploration with a quick recording of me playing through “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” using just two voices — trying to hear my way with both lines, trying to build upon some of the wisdom in the above recordings, trying to be both singers in an imagined duet:

Always be singing,

Matt

Big thanks to you all for tuning in. I have some fun shows coming up this month, hope to see you somewhere! Special thanks to everyone who has joined the paid tier of Grapefruit Moon – starting this month, the musical exploration side of things is available only to paid subscribers (keeping it at a very chill $5). It’s been deeply fun and illuminating putting that section together, so I hope you’ll consider coming along for the ramble. This month we’re looking at some Appalachian fiddle music in conversation with a Bach partita.

Here’s where you can catch me through the end of this month:

2.16 // Matt Gold and Dustin Laurenzi at Consignment Lounge (Chicago)

Dustin and I have been making duo music lately for saxophone/synths (him) and electric bass/drum machine (me). I adore this project and Consignment Lounge is really the perfect place to hear it.

2.20 // John Christensen Quartet at Transfer Pizza (Milwaukee)

Playing John’s gorgeous tunes with John (bass), Dustin Laurenzi (saxophone), Devin Drobka (drums), and myself (guitar).

2.26 // Matt Gold and Storms of Love at Simon’s Tavern (Chicago)

My every-other-month bar band rides again, playing two sets of old school country/soul/R&B hits and deep cuts to dance/cry to. Gus Martini (bass), Quin Kirchner (drums), and myself (guitar).

2.27 // Grazyna Auguscik at Copernicus Center (Chicago)

Always a delight playing with singer Grazyna Auguscik – this time as part of her annual Chopin in the City festival. The band features Greg Ward (saxophone), Ben Lewis (piano), Matt Ulery (bass), Quin Kirchner (drums), and myself (guitar), plus special guest vocalists Urszula Dudziak and Dee Alexander.

2.28 // Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade at Chicago Jazz Fair (Chicago)

This band is beyond dear to me, and brings the heat every single time we play. Greg Ward (saxophone), Dave Miller (guitar), Matt Ulery (bass), Quin Kirchner (drums), and myself (guitar).

2.28 // Sidepieces at the Hungry Brain (Chicago)

After the Rogue Parade set, I’ll be scooting over to the Hungry Brain to play in the house band for this monthly gig of casual country covers, featuring a revolving door of guest singers.

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Ok, moving on to some musical tinkering below (If you’re on the fence about joining the paid tier, you can check out January’s newsletter where I’ve made this section free):

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Thanks for getting on board over here. I’m excited to start the year with a new and more personal way of letting folks know where in the heck I’m playing music these days; I’ll also be sharing some sounds and ideas from the practice room, that they might instigate some explorations of your own.

The free newsletter, Grapefruit Moon, is simply a monthly update with some calendar listings, new releases, etc. I much prefer hearing about people’s shows and projects via email rather than via social media, and I’m hoping this is a (grape)fruitful way to keep those who are interested in the loop. The musical exploration side of things will be available for $5 — for the price of a cortado, you can dive into some of the musical materials I’m tinkering with and hopefully find something fresh, useful, and/or beautiful in there somewhere.

Upcoming shows:

I’ll be in New York for Winter Jazzfest this weekend:

1/10 @ Le Poisson Rouge (NYC) with Makaya McCraven, Junius Paul, Josh Johnson, and Marquis Hill

1/11 @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (Brooklyn) with Makaya McCraven, Junius Paul, Josh Johnson, Marquis Hill, and Joel Ross

Later this month I’ll be doing some record release shows with Paul Dietrich’s quartet. Paul’s new record, “A Small Patch of Earth,” is out now on Shifting Paradigm Records and came together beautifully; we cut it in a big empty concert hall, no headphones, really a perfect environment and headspace in which to capture Paul’s delicate writing.

Paul Dietrich Elemental Quartet shows:

1/17 @ North Street Cabaret (Madison, WI)

1/22 @ Constellation (Chicago, IL)

1/23 @ Gibson Music Hall (Appleton, WI)

1/25 @ Bar Centro (Milwaukee, WI)

Hope to see you somewhere!

Let’s get into some beautiful sounds below (Note — I’m making this free and available to everyone for this first edition; going forward, this will be the section for paid subscribers):

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I’m kicking things off here with a journey into some diminished harmony — what better way to start the new year than with a sound that so distinctly signals change, transition, and the possibility of a new future? I don’t tend to think a single chord can resolve the many intersecting global nightmares we’re living through (what would THAT sound like, though) but I do think we can find some beauty here in the music, if not the metaphor.

When I’m looking for some melodic and harmonic inspiration, sometimes I’ll reach for some orchestral music and find a passage that grabs my curiosity. Adapting - and by default, reducing - these excerpts and themes to the guitar is a great way to train your ears, uncover new chord voicings and harmonic devices, internalize some beautiful melodic ideas…the list goes on. My friend Bryan recently sent me a recording of Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra and urged me to check out what happens after the initial theme we’ve all heard a million times. After hearing the second movement I decided to make a small transcription:

Let’s listen to this passage, about one minute of music:

What I’m going for, both in my personal hand-written scribble and the more legible grand staff version below, is a very general approximation of what I’m hearing. I’m interested in the big picture — How is the harmony moving? What is the bass motion? How does the shape of the melody help set up the exciting aspects of the harmony? What inner voice lines might be interesting to try and include, given the limitations of range and available strings/fingers? All of these are just ways of exploring “new-ness,” reaching for things I maybe haven’t tinkered with before, giving myself some fresh problems to try and solve:

Here’s my attempt at getting through it on the guitar, recorded on my phone:

Without going way1 deep into picking this apart, check out how fresh these modulations are. I hear five key centers over these eighteen bars — and all of them brought on by either a diminished sound, or a dominant chord that isn’t the V chord of the new key (I like this move that gets used twice: C7 — essentially an E diminished triad — bringing us to E major; a few bars later, E7 taking us to Ab major).

To get these sounds into your ears and under your fingers, try playing through this passage lots of different ways: just melody and bass, or just blocks of chords, or an improvised line that moves through the harmony and expresses the modulations with fluidity. These ways of exploring help us get to know things “flexibly” rather than specifically — knowing how something works, and what it’s made of, so we can absorb the idea and use it in other contexts.

Lastly, I wanted to share an exercise I’ve been messing around with. This is a nice way to look at some diminished sounds in terms of simple major triads (I am a big advocate for breaking things down to the most fundamental denominator) and also functions as a nice warmup. By alternating between two major triad inversions, moving in a half-step/whole-step pattern (or vice versa), we can touch on a whole palette of harmony and help see the instrument in new ways.

For example, if we take the major triad inversions of “5-1-3” and “3-5-1,” we get this:

I love the contrast of hearing the two alternating inversions, back and forth, while hearing the whole pattern take eight triads to come full circle. A small gesture inside a bigger one2.

Next, try the same thing, but as a single-note arpeggiated idea. Below we see the figure going down the first triad, up the next one, down the next, etc. (Notice how in this example the last note of each downward triad becomes the first note of the one that follows.)

If you’re playing this stuff on a guitar, I think it’s wise to try it both “vertically” and “horizontally” — that is, on a single set of three strings going up and down (or in this case, down and up) the neck, and across string sets while staying in a single position. The latter is probably a little trickier (less “shape-oriented”) for most folks, so definitely recommend getting in there both ways!

Once you have the sound and idea, try it with different inversions, and/or different keys, string groupings, positions, etc. The humble major triad never ceases to amaze.

Thanks for tuning in! I’m looking forward to exploring more music here and letting you know when I’m playing in your town/releasing new sounds. Till then —

M