On his 2022 album Cascadia, flugelhorn player Dimitri Matheny celebrates the Pacific Northwest.
"Sometimes I'll do that. I'll be inspired by a person or a place, and I'll write a portrait or a landscape," Matheny said.
That same year, Matheny celebrated the Pacific Northwest in the KNKX studios with a few of Seattle's top jazz musicians: saxophonist Jay Thomas, pianist Bill Anschell, bassist Phil Sparks, and drummer Mark Ivester.
In New York, Matheny was a protégé of the flugelhorn master Art Farmer before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he gained attention with his own band.
After making annual trips to play in the Pacific Northwest, Matheny relocated to Centralia, a city in southwest Washington, with his sweetheart Sassy, who's actually from the dry landscapes of the Southwest.
"She grew up in the Lonesome Desert, and when we came up here and she saw the evergreens and the clouds and the mist...she just fell in love with the Sound and everything," Matheny said.
Matheny compared notes on the Pacific Northwest with his good friend, pianist Darrell Grant, who moved from the center of the jazz universe in New York City to Portland, Oregon. Matheny said they both love the Northwest's slower pace, and he laughed that it may be more welcoming than back east.
"He was like, 'I don't understand this place, man. I go to the session. I'm trying to bring my New York vibe into the session, and everybody's all smiling and coming over and introducing themselves and bringing me coffee.' But then he fell in love with it too," he said.
Matheny loves the local people and community, and when he was collecting songs for this then-untitled Cascadia album, he noticed his new Pacific Northwest home had made an impact on his art.
"I realized once we were in the session that everything is suggestive of this place and the people here and the land here and whatnot. So, that's where we ended up," he said.
But, not every song on Matheny's Cascadia has connections to the Pacific Northwest. At the time of this interview, his dad had recently passed away, and Matheny wanted to honor him with one of his favorite songs, the Glen Campbell hit "Wichita Lineman."
"I only have a few heroes, and one of them is my father. He was a great guy," Matheny said. "He died during the pandemic, but he had lived a nice long life, and you know, very happy guy, great guy, and that was one of his favorite songs."
Matheny continues to celebrate his family, friends and his Pacific Northwest home as he performs regularly throughout the region.
Songs heard in this episode:
- "Evergreen Girl"
- "Bourdain"
- "Wichita Lineman"
