

OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS with Matthew O'Connell
- Interviews / Q&As
Matthew O'Connell is a 23 year old jazz guitarist and recent graduate of DCU’s Jazz and Performance BA program.
He won the inaugural ‘Excellence in Ensemble Performance’ award, a collaboration between Dublin City University, Improvised Music Company and Magy’s Farm. IMC's Louis Scully caught up with him for a chat on Zoom.
LS Hi Matthew. So what kinda stuff are you listening to?
MOC I primarily listen to a lot of hard bop jazz, so music from the 1960s like Hank Mobley, Sonny Stitt, Charlie Parker. The likes of Wes Montgomery. Only in recent years I've gotten into more modern jazz guitar players like Kurt Rosenwinkel, Maggie Lund and people like that. Prior to jazz, I was self-taught. I played a lot of rock music, pop, gospel. I went through a phase just listening to saxophone players rather than guitar players, which is maybe a bit strange.
LS When did you start playing the guitar?
I was 10 when I first started playing. I think I heard the solo in ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ and then I wanted a guitar for my birthday.
LS And when did you develop an interest in jazz?
MOC I would have been about 18. I was looking to do a music course and my teacher Leigh McCormick suggested maybe going down the jazz route because I was into gospel and funk and stuff like that. She recommended DCU. It wasn't until the first few months of doing the course that I got into jazz. Maybe the end of 2019.
LS How do you research & collect music?
MOC I spent a lot of time after school on YouTube. You know the way the algorithm works, you watch one video, then it recommends another, and you kinda fall down this path. And then I also had people recommend stuff to me. I remember I met a guitar player David Kennedy—who does a lot of stuff with the Dublin Gospel Choir—he pushed me on to different music with more advanced harmony and stuff like that.
LS You said you were listening to a lot of sax players. Were you listening purely out of enjoyment, or more studying it?
MOC I did spend a lot of time transcribing, so just purely listening and then trying to figure out what exactly they're doing. But I did listen for enjoyment as well. I think that's why some people struggle to play jazz, because they don't actually like listening to it. I think that's a big thing. During COVID, all I listened to was jazz. You couldn't really go anywhere and I needed to get out of the house so I’d go out the backyard and put my headphones on and listen, trying to figure out what they were playing, and visualize me playing the guitar, trying to figure out. Trying to get it down to the instrument without having the instrument in my hands. I found that was really good.
LS It sounds like you were playing air guitar in the garden.
MOC Pretty much, yeah! I just wanted to primarily focus on using my ears. I think another big part of this music is being able to use your ears, rather than just having the technical ability on your instrument.
"I discovered Kurt Rosenwinkel and I just was like, okay, that's what I want to do...he's just unbelievable really and kind of pushes the limitations of the instrument."
LS Have your tastes changed over time?
MOC I'd say about a year ago I discovered Kurt Rosenwinkel and as soon as I heard his sound, I just was like, okay, that's what I want to do. He had elements of rock, blues, the hard bop stuff, bebop stuff. He just had this sound that I really, really liked, and also because it was coming from the guitar. He's just unbelievable really and kind of pushes the limitations of the instrument. I wanted to follow his path a little bit. And then that led me down to other stuff like Mike Moreno, Tom Oldendorf.
LS So what's the plan now that you've graduated? Are you writing music?
MOC I'm teaching a lot. I'd like to do more stuff with this quartet, maybe next year look at recording an album. And also just play around on the scene a bit, get more experience.
LS Nice. And what can the audience expect on May 30th?
MOC Yeah so it's a quartet with myself, drummer, Michael McCarty, Aidan Gray on bass and Darragh Hennessy on piano. We'll be performing a lot of my own original compositions mixed with some standards and some tunes from people like Kurt Rosenwinkel and Aaron Parks. It'll be a diverse range of stuff.
LS And you won this award, can you tell me a little bit about that?
MOC Yeah, at the end of fourth year you have to do a 40 minute performance, with at least two long form original compositions. The composition element is marked as one thing and the performance is marked as another. And I think I, I think I scored highest in both of them combined.