Jazz pianist, organ player and composer, Matt Wigler seems to defy the musical laws of nature — some tacit notion that says you have to have lived a little to play the blues. Speaking to him about the genre he loves so much, the gigs he’s had all across the country and Canada, the albums he has released and the performers with whom he has collaborated, (such as Deanna Bogart and Buckwheat Zydeco) it is natural to assume the man has been around — that he has studied, paid back student loans and pounded the pavement for work in the clubs.
Little wonder, then, the surprise bordering on disbelief at learning this “seasoned” player is a junior — in high school. Moreover, that he will be featured in a documentary on blues pianists to be broadcast on PBS stations nationwide. And finally, that he will be performing with a trio tonight at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage with drummer Mike Aubin and bassist Scott Ambush of Spyro Gyra.
“Matt has a maturity … well beyond his age,” Ambush noted. “There is an old soul in there; one that is a really great piano player.”
| IF YOU GO |
| Matt Wigler |
| Where: Kennedy Center Millennium Stage |
| When: 6 p.m. Sunday |
| Info: Free; 202-467-4600; kennedy-center.org |
Of course, Matt Wigler will be the first to say he learned from his betters. After what he calls, “general lessons” at the age of 5, followed by an auspicious meeting with a musician who turned him on to jazz and blues when he was 8, he discovered his passion and — to be sure — never looked back.
“Any opportunity to grab a lesson with a great player is good,” said Wigler, who just finished a master class with Cyrus Chestnut and took lessons from Deanna Bogart, who would become a mentor and close friend. “I feel naturally that [jazz] is something I love doing, but I need to always be getting better … like there’s never a point where you have reached your destination.”
In a one-hour set at Kennedy’s Millennium Stage, the trio will be playing original music from Wigler’s two releases, “XIII (Thirteen)” in 2007 and his second CD, “Epiphony.”
Wigler said he is pleased to have developed a good working relationship with the myriad musicians he works with — most of them in their 40s and 50s.
“Playing with them is always pushing the limit,” he said. “It makes you work harder in a good way.”
