# Matthew Yeakley says “it’s an amazing time to be in Los Angeles playing jazz”: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/01/11/matthew-yeakley-says-its-an-amazing-time-to-be-in-los-angeles-playing-jazz-video/
- Published: 2018-01-11T13:27:42+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**The guitarist and educator has lived in the city for ten years, honing his instrumental
and compositional talents, teaching jazz privately and at a high school, and sharing
the stage with local artists including Tony Austin, touring drummer of Kamasi Washington,
Jay Jennings, trumpeter of Snarky Puppy, and more. As a city full of studio musicians,
floaters, stadium pros and black-box indie acts, Los Angeles gives people like Yeakley
the opportunity to collaborate with a near infinite combination of artists from 
unique backgrounds who each bring something new to the table when they get up to
play jazz. “There’s so much freedom, artistically, to do what you want here,” says
Yeakley.**

Los Angeles is a city of working artists and entertainers. It is packed with professional
music-makers who, while all having those big, lofty projects in sight, are no strangers
to hard work and keeping alive using their artistic talents. “One of the things 
that’s beautiful about LA,” Yeakley says, “is there are people who are doing studio
work and pop band work and they’re playing in all these different settings but ultimately
are just great players.” Diversity is what keeps LA’s music scene so fascinating
and Yeakley knows and appreciates this. With the likes of Kamasi Washington playing
on To Pimp a Butterfly or Miles Mosley playing on Korn singer Jonathan Davis’ upcoming
solo record, it is clear the LA jazz community is not sacrosanct about the genre.

To Yeakley, jazz is not just one thing. “Jazz is not a specific kind of music,” 
he says. “Jazz means freedom.” This notion rests at the core of Yeakley’s philosophy
about jazz and its place in LA. There is an incredible variety of musical talents
and backgrounds in the city, and a great number of them are—at least philosophically—
jazz musicians. But, “in LA, anything goes,” says Yeakley. “In other cities, they
have vast musical traditions and they say this is what we do here and it’s got an
architecture to it,” Yeakley points out. While LA is plenty storied musically, Yeakley
makes a great point: LA does not have the famous street bands of New Orleans or 
Delta Blues tradition of Mississippi or jam bands of San Francisco. Variety and 
a multitude of musical niches define LA and contribute to its vibrant jazz scene.

Many still do not consider LA to be a jazz hub, but when speaking with someone like
Yeakley, one gets an idea for the impressive scope the city actually has. If you’re
from somewhere like New York City, “you might not think jazz has this vibrant scene
in LA,” Yeakley says. “If you’re in the mecca of jazz, everything else seems like
a step backward.” But this could not be further from the truth.

LA might not have the slew of decades-old clubs like NYC or elsewhere, but what 
it does have is an eclectic and vast mix of clubs catering to everyone from the 
aficionado to the casual listener to those just wanting music to drink to, and there’s
no shortage of any of those groups in the city. Yeakley’s Underground Jazz Series
at The Continental Club in Downtown LA proves that.

Every Wednesday Yeakley throws down with LA-based musicians in the walk-down, red-
walled Continental Club. The constantly varied lineup—rotating almost weekly—never
rehearses or prepares a setlist. The club “lets us really go,” Yeakley says. “It’s
a great place to play more adventurous things.” Sets typically comprise of standards
or tunes the group briefly calls out before or during the show. But while this gig
may not be the testing grounds for new compositions, what it allows is exploration
of group dynamics for future collaboration and free-flowing energy that both entertains
and can result in inspiration for a more strict and taut composition down the road.

Freeform riffs trail off of standards, rollicking along spontaneously and intuitively
as the band intently, but more joyfully, listens to each other for cues. “Someone
could say let’s do ‘I’ll Be Seeing You’ but make the last chord a B major” and then
they just cruise from there, following whatever path they like. What makes Yeakley’s
series special is the appeal to all audience types. Patrons drink and laugh hardily,
letting the musicians set the tone for their night, but there are also those who
watch every lick, roll and arpeggio with intense focus. It’s serious musicians playing
serious jazz but Yeakley and company aren’t austere about it. He points out that
jazz wasn’t born in quiet academic institutions; jazz originated in the bars and
brothels of New Orleans, where most purveyors probably weren’t keeping time or scrutinizing
melody.

“There are two kinds of rooms,” Yeakley says, “listening rooms… which are pin-drop
silent… you paid a cover and you’re there to watch what happens,” and those where
you can “play loud and watch people living—doing life.” He says it is good when 
you can play the Blue Whale or the Catalina—both historic LA jazz clubs—but that
gigs like his series at the Continental Club make jazz more accessible to a wider
audience, and they allow him and his peers to keep making a living off of their 
art. Both types of shows are necessary and have their merits. But for a living, 
gigging musician paying the bills, the weekly, chatter-filled bar shows bring home
the bread and amount to the collection of melodies and pairings that will lead to
those pin-drop gigs where musicians showcase their labors of love.

The series’ concept always starts with one musician, whose style informs the enlistment
of the rest of the artists for the week(s). “If I have a swinging drummer, I might
call a swinging pianist… or if I have a real outside saxophonist then I’ll go that
direction.” This method is applied at the start of every month when Yeakley lines
up his roster and builds his temporary bands around complementary styles. Shuffling
between lineups allows for Yeakley to play with any combination of pianists, bassists,
saxophonists, vibraphonists, and more—there’s no set dynamic. Sets can be groovy,
swinging, balladic or heavy. While usually starting with a standard or tune all 
the players know, that’s really just the starting line to a free-for-all where the
group can foray into more improvisational territory, adding flourishes and taking
new paths.

Yeakley likes to think of playing these different types of rooms as viewing museum
art versus viewing street art. “If I’m going to Catalina’s or Blue Whale to hear
something, it’s like I’m observing art in a museum where it’s supposed to be quiet,
I’m supposed to sit there, I’m supposed take it in, and I’m supposed to think about
what’s happening, and that’s a valuable experience.” The storied clubs and performance-
centric venues greatly contribute to the persistence and appreciation of jazz, and
Yeakley will continue to play shows there. But the real lifeblood of the music, 
what preserves the vigor of jazz is largely its nightly presence in clubs like the
Continental. Jazz is experiential for both player and audience, but that experience
cannot always as academic or stern as listening rooms call for.

“Jazz is not a traditionally classy type of music,” Yeakley says. “It’s just been
vacuumed up by classy institutions and museum-ified and institutionalized by schools.
But that’s not where it started.” Jazz is not just one thing, he says. This tradition
Yeakley refers to—the noisy and raucous late-night joints that housed the energetic
tunes and personalities of jazz players—is one kept alive by these seemingly innocuous
jazz nights that so many working musicians have to thank for letting them perform
for a living. Every night may not be some grand showcase or a tune heard ’round 
the world, but these frequent and cover-free performances keep LA’s jazz players
sharp and give them a consistent audience. And the opportunity to play live so often
and for pay cannot be beat, Yeakley says.

“Live performance is my absolute favorite thing,” he says. While he admits to writing
non-stop and is prepping for a new record, getting on stage is where jazz really
comes alive for him. Being in LA allows him to work with accomplished musicians,
not only to hash out carefully crafted albums, but also to jam nightly with and 
make a living doing what they love for people who love it. Even if the audience 
aren’t strict jazz listeners, Angelenos love live music no matter what, and this
appreciation for live tunes helps keep Yeakley and his peers in business.

While he loves composing and showing off his own tunes, Yeakley says that crafting“
the song, the melody, the chords start[s]. But then you have to have the conversation.”
This conversation is live performance. Music, like conversation, should be natural
and free and not completely bound up by design. There must be a guiding force or
theme, but tangents and asides and new connections are what define the conversation
of music. The band may have a sense of direction at the start, but the music “needs
to be vital and have a sense of urgency,” Yeakley says. This is why he values live
performance so much and why he dedicates so much time to gigging and collaborating
with diverse musicians in live settings, rather than spending all of his time in
a recording studio refining particular flourishes or melodies.

Polished albums and tight arrangements continue to be necessary for jazz, though.
Yeakley writes incessantly and has a couple records out, Clean Numbers and Dirty
Words, and is planning a new album for 2018, set to be more groove than swing this
time around. Yeakley says “the goal with putting a record together is twofold for
me: one, it’s to capture a moment—it’s a time capsule… it’s a statement of a time
and a place and that’s an important endeavor.” While Yeakley’s emphasized the advantages
and passions for live gigs, he naturally has recording goals and will continue to
pursue album projects. But a record, he says, “is also a means to an end. A song
is not a strict, holy book; the lead sheet is not a venerated, holy item—it’s a 
map for communication to happen and that communication can only happen when it’s
done live.” So the record, he says, “is a time capsule, the performances are like
looking inside of it in real time.”

Getting to that point of recording, though, couldn’t happen without Yeakley’s dedication
to live performance. He says “that’s why a place like [the Continental Club] is 
so great because it’s a sandbox for me to try out ideas and different lineups. Let’s
say I know the lineup I want to have on the record, maybe one night i get them in
here… and maybe I make them read some of these charts and just hear how it is. Then
it’s basically a rehearsal in front of the club of something that might eventually
become a record. That’s why these gigs are so important.”

This is the wonderful aspect of the LA jazz scene that may go unseen or unrecognized.
The musicians here are working professionals as well as creative artists. Right 
now, Yeakley really loves “playing live gigs and teaching” at a high school as well
as private lessons, educating LA’s youth on the elements and performance of jazz.
So while musicians here tend to their day jobs of teaching or nightly bar gigs, 
they are always improving upon their craft, finding ways to improve and ways to 
make a living while showcasing their art. So while LA may not be the storied musical
enclave of any specific genre, it most certainly is keeping the spirit of jazz alive
both in scope and creativity.

“There is no end point” for jazz, says Yeakley. “It can’t end.” People’s perceptions
or definitions of jazz may change, but the music has not stopped since it started,
and in every city it enters it will always remain. LA is no exception, and Yeakley
is out there to let Angelenos and the world know that if you’re in the city and “
feel like you need more jazz in your life,” to stop by one of his or his peers’ 
shows. If you want it, you can have jazz seven nights a week in this city.

![Image result for Matthew Yeakley](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/529c25f4e4b09392a6e96a61/
t/5355b1a4e4b0d272a27a3aaa/1425041989259/)

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