Matthew Stevens

Known for his wide-ranging post-bop harmonic language and explorations into post-rock, hip-hop, electronic music, and contemporary creative jazz, guitarist Matthew Stevens has earned widespread acclaim as a boundary-pushing musician. Drawing from the trailblazing paths of Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, and John Scofield, he first attracted notice during the 2000s through collaborations with Grammy-nominated trumpeter Christian Scott and has since appeared on recordings by equally adventurous figures such as Esperanza Spalding, Ben Williams, and Harvey Mason. On his own, Stevens has produced a series of stylistically hybrid releases: Woodwork in 2015, Preverbal in 2017, the 2018 session In Common with saxophonist Walter Smith III, and its 2020 follow-up In Common 2. In 2021 he issued Pittsburgh, his initial album of solo guitar pieces, before rejoining Smith for In Common III two years later.

Stevens was born in Toronto in 1982. He began piano studies at age seven and took up guitar four years later. An affinity for jazz soon developed, leading him to complete his training at Boston’s Berklee College of Music in 2004—the same institution where he first met trumpeter Christian Scott. After graduation the two musicians launched a sustained partnership that yielded the 2006 release Rewind That (itself Grammy-nominated), 2007’s Anthem, and 2012’s Christian aTunde Adjuah. Stevens also belonged to the forward-looking hip-hop/jazz/fusion ensemble Next Collective, which recorded Cover Art in 2013.

His first album as a leader, Woodwork, appeared in 2015 and featured fellow Next Collective member Gerald Clayton on piano along with bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Eric Doob, and percussionist Paulo Stagnaro. Around the same period he contributed to projects led by Ben Williams, Harvey Mason, Linda May Han Oh, and others. In 2016 he participated in bassist/vocalist Esperanza Spalding’s Emily’s D+Evolution.

Preverbal, issued in 2017, found Stevens integrating guitar with synthesizers, sampling, and electronic programming while again working with Doob and Archer. The next year he recorded the acoustic album In Common alongside saxophonist Walter Smith III, vibraphonist Joel Ross, bassist Harish Raghavan, and drummer Marcus Gilmore; he also rejoined Spalding for her Grammy-nominated Twelve Little Spells. In Common 2 followed in 2020, this time with bassist Linda May Han Oh, pianist Micah Thomas, and drummer Nate Smith. In 2021 Stevens fulfilled a long-held goal by releasing Pittsburgh, a collection of original solo guitar compositions, before returning once more to Smith for In Common III in 2022.