Frank Presley's interview with saxophinist Matt Keegan 18

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July 2004

“It wasn’t just rock and it’s not just Jazz. It never is. It’s all just music to me.”

Frank Presley:

Matt Keegan who are your musical heroes and what are the most important things you’ve learnt from them?

Matt Keegan:

It’s such an in depth question. Off the top of my head, I guess the first saxophone player I really got into and whom I love his sound was Joe Henderson. I was a big fan of the way he sort of made a saxophone sound and the way he played Jazz and approached it. So that was a big influence and I had an album of he and John Scofield together so I started listening to those two guys and John Scofield is another big influence. Just the sort of rocky and the more funky elements that he brings to the music and through John Scofield I discovered Eddie Harris who is a fantastic saxophone player and one I fell in love with and wanted to sound like basically. Then of course there are other people like well Miles Davis of course is a really big influence in his use of space and just focus and playing. People like Stevie Wonder and I could go on. Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Keith Jarrett, especially his European quartet and his American quartet not the recent one but the one that doesn’t play so many standards. Not that I don’t like that but I think he wrote some amazing music and I’m just sort of getting into that as well at the moment.

Frank Presley:

You mentioned Jan Garbarek recently as being an influence.

Matt Keegan:

Yeah he’s in that Keith Jarrett European quartet. He’s the saxophone player in that. Jan was someone when I was younger I could never get into just because his sound is very different from the general saxophone tradition. But even the sound that I like coming out of Eddie Harris and Joe Henderson and those guys. Stan Getz is someone like that I love as well. It’s a dark sort of hard to describe when you’re playing the saxophone sort of like a harder reed kind of sound. It sounds like you’ve got to make more of an effort to play the thing but Jan’s is a very bright sound, it’s still a very beautiful tone. I’m just learning and I got past that and I’m into his music and he’s a beautiful sax player and I’m glad that he’s sort of becoming more a part of me now too.

Frank Presley:

So were there some thoughts and influences with the tune ‘Norway’ (off the album ‘Moving Sea Between’)?

Matt Keegan:

Not actually, ‘Norway’ is more about a trip. I went to Norway and my experiences there and the beauty and the grandeur of the country. I wasn’t actually no thinking of Jan at the time but I guess thinking back maybe a little bit something like that snuck in there I’m not sure.

Frank Presley:

Were you performing in Norway?

Matt Keegan:

No I didn’t perform I was living in Sweden and studying music there and I was playing some music there as well but I made some friends with a group of foreigners as you do when you’re in a foreign country you sort of hang out with. You don’t really hang out with the locals you hang out with the other people who are foreign and a couple of those were Norwegians and so they took me to Norway on a skiing trip for a week on a remote mountain at the beginning of the alps in their grandfather’s cottage with no electricity or running water and it was an amazing experience.

Frank Presley:

Matt what is the favourite part of your job performing, composing or recording?

Matt Keegan:

Well I have a favourite but each of them is a very integral part of my life and becoming more and more a part of my life and I love each of them. Recording in a good studio is every musicians, It’s like being a kid in a lolly store or toy store. You go into some of these studios and there are these beautiful microphones and machines and getting a chance to record your music and get it down to tape if that’s the way you choose to do it. I also love composing. Composing to me is like building something. It’s like creating it. You start with a little musical phrase and out of that you develop it into like a piece of music that you start rehearsing with the band until you get it sounding or looking the way you want. Sort of like sculpting or building a table or a chest of drawers. You sort of get it just right until you’re happy with it but definitely my favourite is performing and getting on stage with other people and getting into the moment and really trying to connect with the other people in the band on one level and through that hopefully out to an audience on some level I hope.

Frank Presley:

Does composing come easy to you? Dale Barlow once said that he tried to compose at least one piece once a day.

Matt Keegan:

In some ways it comes very easy and in some ways it’s very hard. Often when I’m walking or having a shower that I suddenly hear something in my head and I think that’s kind of cool and it’s only a little bit and I’ll quickly go and write it down or play it for a bit or write it down and I’ll come back to it a week later or whenever I have a spare moment. Then from that musical phrase I sort of, the way I compose anyway, I build from there what logically to me comes next. I let the music dictate the way that the piece grows. I don’t try and force anything on to it. So I love doing it. For me it’s one of those things where you start doing something like that and you get so lost in it and hours and hours pass and you don’t realise it’s been so long that you’ve been sitting there. Your cold and hungry but still doing it. It’s sort of like WHY?

Frank Presley:

You also take credit on the album for playing the maestro. What is a maestro?

Matt Keegan:

On a few albums that I’ve recently recorded I’ve been using it and my names become synonymous with this maestro and I think people think I’m some kind of power freak. “Oh the maestro leading the band”. But no it’s actually a box. The way I describe it, it’s like a shoebox. It looks like an organ with the big buttons that say bassoon or strings and you press these big chunky buttons. It comes with a mouthpiece that you stick on your sax and you plug in a wire that goes into the box and then I run it through a whole bunch of guitar pedals and some other things to make it sound a little bit better. It takes the sound of the saxophone and puts it into an electrical pulse or whatever and makes these weird weird kind of sounds that come out of it that I really love.

Frank Presley:

So what sort of sounds are you trying to create on ‘The Pint’? (from the album Moving Sea Between- Jazzgroove records)

Matt Keegan:

Well this is very early days in my maestro use. I recorded the album a few years ago now. I’ve developed my maestro sound since then but I was just trying to get the best sound out of the machine actually. I had something in mind a kind of drum and bassy kind of sound and some sort of keyboardy kind of sounds.

Frank Presley:

I suppose some Miles Davis influence?

Matt Keegan:

Miles was actually a big influence on my playing of the maestro because of his use with the wah wah pedal and I think that’s one of the funkiest things ever so I’ve tried to recreate that sound that’s very true with the way I play the maestro. On this I play with the wah wah pedal

Frank Presley:

There’s a current trend to play the horn over top of a DJ playing the turntables.

Matt Keegan:

I do a lot of that kind of stuff as well down at the Opera Bar (Sydney Opera House) with my friend James Fletcher who is a great DJ. It’s just the way the world is going no. There are not so many dance bands and things. But luckily DJ’s are smart enough to realise that things are a little bit hipper if you get some live musicians in there to help the sound and it can be really fun especially if the DJ is good and can spin good beats and you can get some interesting interactions going. I use my maestro a lot in that situation. It gives me a really great chance to put some really weird effects over the strange things the DJ might be doing.

Frank Presley:

One of the first times I experiences something like that was at the Umbria Jazz Festival in 1998. A trumpet player by the name of Ben Neill and he’d welded all these different bells on his trumpet. It was like a real monster. He was up there with about two or three lap tops and doing these pre programmed beat sounds and playing this monster of a trumpet. He had about 5000 people captivated in the middle of Perugia.

Frank Presley:

Matts been in and out of Australia for the past six years. You’ve been playing in the US with a rock group. Tell us a little about that.

Matt Keegan:

Last year in particular I spent the entire year in the states with a rock group who I met 4 years before that when I was an exchange student from the Sydney Conservatorium to UCLA and I met these guys who started a band so I was part of that. I got along really well with these guys and got to put my five cents into the whole process and I kept going back to try and be involved and finally after a few years of hard work, I got my visa and went over and spent the whole year last year touring in a bus in a band around America. Which is like a dream come true for a lot of people, especially me. We were supporting much bigger rock acts in the states. It was definitely a rock band but there was room for improvisation and I got to play a lot of solos and it was a great experience.

Frank Presley:

Were you the only horn?

Matt Keegan:

I was the only horn so I had to find ways to blend in with the band. I don’t like the idea of the only horn sitting around waiting for a chance to take a solo. I like to be part of the band as much as I can. I guess the maestro is my way of doing that as well. There is a little bit more of an opportunity to get involved with the sound and using that as an option but also just using my sax, just finding parts to play and not just sound like they’re tacked on but a real integral part of whets happening with the music. Musically that was a really good challenge for me to find ways to do that. Also just getting the chance to play in front of large audiences, sometimes we’d be playing in front of a couple thousand. The most was 5000. There’s just a different energy that you get and you learn how to channel your own energy through your instrument, to keep those people not entertained, of course you want to entertain them but it’s more about ‘wow’ feeling your vibe I guess and just having them react from that and if you can throw your heart and soul into what you’re doing. Sort of a direct link with them. I learnt a few tricks on how to incorporate them into what I was doing.

We did some support for Sheryl Crow and Dave Matthews Band and Live and Blues Traveller, a very popular band in America.

Frank Presley:

Do you think it’s changed the way you approach Jazz now?

Matt Keegan:

Most definitely. I bought my Jazz influence to the rock band but I took away a rock influence from the rock band into my music. It wasn’t just rock and it’s not just Jazz. It never is. It’s all just music to me. Just the way I approach writing and playing and listening.

Frank Presley:

Does that mean we’ll be hearing more maestro in your music?

Matt Keegan:

Not necessarily. I am trying to. I find it a challenge to write for the maestro. I’ve started writing some things and I’m getting into it more. You can get a bit tired of it too, that whole sound. Definitely. I play in some different bands here in Sydney where I use maestro pretty exclusively, in particular a hip hop band ‘Ends and Means’ which are starting to do well here in Sydney and I use a lot of maestro on that. I’ve got some friends saying we’ve got the CD but we can’t hear any sax, saying ‘what’s going on?’ and I’m saying ‘well I’m all over it. Listen closely’.

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