Show Info
Sunday, September 7, 2014
11:30am - 3:00pm
NO COVER
Bio
Matthew Kay was born in Greenville, SC and raised in Easley, SC. In school, he developed a talent for literature, winning awards and being featured in the school literary magazines. After performing with the South Carolina Children’s theater, he developed a love of dramatic art, performing at Greenville Little Theater and Easley Foothills Playhouse. After hearing Led Zeppelin III, he decided he had to play the guitar, teaching himself and practicing up to 20 hours a day.
In the car one day with Barry Kerr (brother of Ronnie Milsap’s drummer Alan Kerr), he heard a sound that would change him forever. “THAT is the sound I want to make,” he said. The sound: Return to Forever.
Three days later he bought To the Stars, one of Chick Corea’s most virtuosic and underappreciated albums. He began to study jazz privately as well as classical guitar. After meeting bass virtuoso Shaun Ritchie, a relative and neighbor of Barry’s, he began to perform live, playing sessions with Shaun, the Blue Note Trio, and the Carolina Classical Guitar Orchestra while teaching and searching for his own sound. Today, Matthew continues to teach at Palmetto Fine Arts Academy with bandmate Cameron Morris.
The real star of the show, though, is Blues Boulevard Jazz. Dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in performance, any musician who plays the BBJ stage can immediately hear the dedication put in to the sound system, the stage, and atmosphere. It seems to have been built with one idea in mind: the best EVERYTHING. While other venues are blissfully ignorant of jazz’s place in the history of American music, Blues Boulevard consistently commits to artists who refuse to compromise their love of instrumental music and exploratory rhythm and harmony.