When Alan Matheson was eight years old he began studying the piano with a goal of becoming a composer. However one day his father, who worked in the record business, brought home an LP of a solo by Bix Beiderbecke, a prominent jazz soloist in the 1930s.
When Matheson listened to this solo “a penny dropped,” he said, and he realized that Beiderbecke sounded like “he’s composing while he plays.” This is how Matheson discovered his love for jazz, an art form of expression that combined the two things he loved, composing and playing.
Currently, Matheson teaches, performs, composes and arranges all over Vancouver at many schools though predominantly at UBC. His work takes him around the world performing and collaborating with many other musicians. This is how he met Wade Mikkola.
Mikkola is a well-known Finish bassist who met Matheson while the two were invited to perform at the Tartu Jazz Festival in Estonia. Their friendship grew as Mikkola said they had “similar views on jazz history and the evolution of music,” and that they would “share recordings with each other,” as they were both interested in scholarly music analysis.
Now, after releasing an album together in 2013 called Duetti they are playing together in a concert for the Music on the Point Series at UBC’s Roy Barnett Hall on February 6.
They will be playing a variety of music from original compositions to jazz classics by legendary artists such as Duke Ellington, Billy Strayhorn and Stan Kenton to music of Finish composer Oskar Merikanto who is of special interest to the two.
Mikkola and Matheson discovered that there was a relationship between Merikanto’s music and the jazz music of the 1920s and 30s. However, it is not that Merikanto created music of the future, but rather, as Matheson said, “it is more what became jazz.”
“When jazz musicians looked to expanding their harmonic vocabulary in the 20s and 30s they looked to classical composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century,” said Matheson. This is how jazz music would have been influenced by the styles of Merikanto’s time period.
This relationship is very interesting because it shows that the evolution of two distinct art forms are very much intertwined. While many see a contrast between classical and jazz, the two genres are influenced by each other.
Mikkola and Matheson both agree that audiences should listen for the melodies and harmonies in the pieces they will be playing at the concert. Besides Merikanto, the other composers, Ellington, Kenton and Strayhorn, have strong melodies in their music.
Matheson will be playing trumpet and the piano while Mikkola will be playing the bass. It is a personal setting and will seem “like a conversation between two people through music,” said Mikkola.
It promises to be a fantastic concert and you will not be disappointed, regardless of your knowledge of classical or jazz music.