KEEGAN MATTHEWS QUARTET
at Ella’s Americana Folk Art Cafe
No Cover – 9pm
Keegan Matthews (of Leisure Chief) is an Orlando, FL native who draws heavily from John Coltrane’s approach to modal harmony, Weather Report’s spontaneous attitude, and Macintosh Plus’ vaporwave textures.
The Keegan Matthews Trio features Youtube sensation Juna Serita – a virtuosic electric bassist from Tokyo, Japan. And on drums, Rion Smith from the band(s) Sam Rivers and the Rivbea Orchestra, Shak Nasti, and The Blue Man Group.
Keegan’s trio will be performing newly written and arranged original music along with the music of Herbie Hancock, Flying Lotus, and many more!
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Keegan graduated from the University of Central Florida with a B.M. in Jazz Studies, where he studied jazz piano with Per Danielsson and classical piano with Laurent Boukobza. He also studied with Jeff Rupert (Maynard Ferguson/Sam Rivers), Richard Drexler (Jeff Berlin), Marty Morell (Bill Evans), and Dan Miller (a student of Barry Harris). Other notable teachers in the Orlando area: Danny Jordan (Maynard Furgueson/Sam Rivers) and Liana Georghita.
For the past 10 years Keegan has been mostly teaching professionally and gigging as a sideman. Among those artists are Roosevelt Collier, Anthony Cole (Central Ayre Productions), Matt Lapham (Shak Nasti), Ito Colon, Bobby Koeble (DEATH), Rion Smith (Sam Rivers, Shak Nasti, Blue Man Group), Juna Serita, and many more! In June 2021, Keegan was invited to Jammcard to be a member by Jae Deal.
Notable past performances with Leisure Chief: Gasparilla Music Festival, Rockin Robinson, Orange Blossom Jamboree, Orlando Fringe Festival, and perhaps most notably, Suwannee Hulaween where they shared the stage with national bands including Ghost-Note, Snarky Puppy, String Cheese Incident, Primus, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Lettuce, Railroad Earth, The New Mastersounds, The Nth Power, Tauk, Dumpstaphunk.