A Blank Canvas: Matthew Stevens on the Fender Telecaster’s Chameleonic Appeal

Every week, hundreds of press releases land in my inbox. Most get a quick scan before I move on to the next thing. The announcement for Matthew Stevens’ new self-titled album might have met the same fate had I not happen to notice a guest appearance by guitarist Dylan Day, whose music I had become fascinated by while preparing an interview for this Substack.

The record turned out to be a fortunate discovery, to say the least. Though Stevens has spent the last two decades building a reputation as a guitarist and collaborator—working with artists including bassist Esperanza Spalding, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, trumpeter Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, and saxophonist Walter Smith III—the thing that drew me most strongly to the album was not the guitar playing itself. Rather, it was the overall sound of the record: the interplay of acoustic and electric textures, the sharp attention to timbral detail, and the sense of space around the instruments. I found myself listening not to any one part but to the sound of the record itself, which felt every bit as important as the notes and their durations.

Born in Toronto and now based in the Boston area, where he is an associate professor at the Berklee College of Music, Stevens has followed a musical path that has taken him well beyond the traditional boundaries of jazz guitar. In addition to three previous albums as a leader, his work has touched everything from adventurous improvised music to singer-songwriter projects and ambitious studio productions, and those varied experiences seem to inform every corner of his latest record.

In a recent conversation over Zoom, Stevens reflected on the musical path that took him from Toronto to New York and eventually Boston, his evolution as a guitarist and bandleader, the challenges and rewards of collaboration, and the ideas that shaped the new record.

You grew up in Canada and later spent years in New York before settling near Boston. What shaped you musically during those periods?

Growing up in Toronto was a great place to be a guitar player, especially one who was interested in improvised music. There has always been a really strong music scene there, and when I expressed an interest in improvising and jazz, it was like, “Well, why don’t you just go see Ed Bickert play every week?” That was really formative for me. Not only Ed, but lots of other great musicians like Lorne Lofsky and Reg Schwager. And of course, Lenny Breau lived there for quite a long time. I feel like his influence permeated the guitar community and was pretty strongly felt in Toronto. So all of that was highly influential and really formative for me.

Your music seems to draw naturally from jazz, folk, ambient music, and Americana without ever sounding contrived. How did you arrive at that openness?

I think it was gradual. When you’re trying to earn a living as a musician, there’s so much that’s outside of your control. Opportunities come from all different corners of the music world, and I was always just trying to bring my best to every situation.

I didn’t start playing improvised music—I started playing in bands with friends in middle school. That’s really where I come from musically. That community and that way of making music and collaborating always felt very natural to me, so it was kind of omnipresent in everything I was doing.

As I started getting called to do different things, I became really aware of not wanting to feel like I was shape-shifting or putting on a different hat to play in a different corner of the music world. Some of the musicians I admire tremendously, like Daniel Lanois and Brian Blade, seem able to function really seamlessly in a variety of situations while maintaining a core sense of themselves and how they sound. They find a way to connect with what’s important about whatever music they’re playing.

I think I made a concerted effort to do that at first, and gradually it became second nature. At this point I really see it all as one much larger thing. I’m naturally drawn to seeing the continuity between these different musical languages and what carries over between them more than what separates them. It feels very second nature to me now.

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