2024. Glassmeyer's Live Band with Mark Raudabaugh, JP Ruggieri, and Ethan Jodzievicz. Photo: Jared Ichtenberg

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Matt Glassmeyer composes and improvises typically with the Wurlitzer, acoustic piano, reedless tenor saxophone (aka buzzaphone) and standard tenor saxophone, amplified contra-alto clarinet, shuitar and other percussion. He plays with a wide variety of exploratory musicians and improvisers from Nashville, New York, Chicago and elsewhere. As a solo endeavor, he records under the project name Meadownoise.
 
Matt weighs discovery and catharsis equally. He is the inventor of the reedless saxophone (Bift, Global Abacus Supply, Meadownoise, The Wood Brothers, The Jack Silverman Quartet, Coupler, Rix Glassmeyer). In 1997, Murfreesboro, TN, Matt invented the shuitar, which is both a vertical technique for playing drumset beats on an acoustic guitar as well as a custom instrument (The Morpholinos, Rix Glassmeyer, Meadownoise, Hompulon/Tom Spiker, Church of Cleanliness). Matt has built 180 shuitars for players in 11 countries. With the Wurlitzer electric piano, Matt has developed a range of extended sounds (Glassmeyer's Live Band, The Jack Silverman Quartet, Winston Harrison). He amplifies the contra-alto clarinet with a mouth pickup to achieve a synth-like bass sound (DDYGG, Meadownoise, Lambchop, Rix Glassmeyer). Matt has deeply explored saxophone sounds beginning with extensive use of electronics in the mid 1990s (The Jongleurs, Twelve 20 Six, Bift), modified mouthpieces and quarter tone fingerings (Delphian Jazz Orchestra, Bift, The Jack Silverman Quartet, Tone Barter.)

Matt grew up in Nashville, influenced not as much by the standard Nashville aesthetic but by the musicians (including his father, Steve, and his friends), the instruments, and the record collections that pervade the city. In his late teens and early twenties he explored the excellent jazz, Cuban and South American music of Miami. Matt finished his studies at the University of Miami and made three records with The Jongleurs, touring the US. Following that, he spent time in Nashville sessions, international tours, with The Sidemen at The Station Inn playing fiddle tunes on saxophone, and a winter in a Broadway pit. New York was home from 1999-2005. He was a part of eight albums and years of recorded improvising with the community there.

Matt is involved in the rapidly growing improvisational community in Nashville as well as the rock, ambient, electronic, string music scenes there.  He also regularly performs in New York City with various groups including Brian Drye/Eric Hastings Ocean State and Dan Lyn's keyboard trio. Four albums with his solo project, Meadownoise, are available at the adventurous label,  YK Records.

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For ongoing activity click Instagram and YouTube links below. For album videos, click the Vimeo link.