Matt Otten - Jazz Guitar
News
For latest announcements, check the News page.
August 2022: The courses Talking Jazz Guitar and Blues Forms for Jazz Guitar are available as an online course for the first time, at the Matt Otten Learn Jazz Guitar Community (podia.com)
If you want to learn more about this new platform, Podia.com, read this.
Solo Jazz Guitar Standards: a book with 16 original arrangements of 16 jazz standards for solo guitar performance!
A new book 'George Gershwin for Solo Jazz Guitar' has been released in November 2021 . Check it out!
#1 New Release on Amazon
The Matt Otten Quartet is available for your venue or event!
Welcome to my web site. You will find a lot of educational material and links to lessons and products, and links to music, and information on private lessons.
You can also find a lot of my music on YouTube.
Also check out the Matt Otten Quartet!
Already know what you want? Go directly to Buy DVDs or downloads or online courses.
Smoke, New York City, with Mike LeDonne
All CD-ROMs have been upgraded to DVD format
Matt Otten started playing guitar at the age of 10, took lessons in classical guitar for seven years, during which he already became interested in jazz, started listening to the great jazz pioneers, and began to study the art of improvisation himself. In the years that followed, he continued to teach himself, hooked up with musicians, and soon started to be recognized by fellow musicians as a serious jazz player.
During the nineties he met singer Maria Harp, and they ended up producing several albums together. For the second album, Matt wrote and arranged the music, and the album was recorded with a crew of internationally renowned guests, such as (the late) Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, Gary Willis, Pino Palladino, Hein van de Geyn, and Amina Figarova. Their third album together was an intimate album of just guitars and voice called 'Up Close'. Matt has also taken part in several other CD albums as a sideman, and has released his own 'Secret Combination'. Matt has become known for impeccable taste and tone, and a fluent style that appeals not only to jazz lovers, but a wide audience of music lovers; Matt crosses over from straight ahead jazz to contemporary jazz and back.
Around 2005, Matt started posting some videos for fun, and these became incredibly popular. He went on to produce educational materials, CD's and DVD's, which are now helping guitarists all over the world to develop their improvisation skills. In 2018, Hal Leonard published a book of his solo guitar arrangements; a second book with all Gershwin tunes has been published in November 2021.
Listen to Matt Otten on: Spotify | iTunes
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Matt Otten is an endorsee of Peerless Guitars.
There are free lessons and solo examples on this site, as well as much more extensive packages of Jazz Exercises, and smooth jazz and mainstream jazz solos, which will get you into the ''jazz thing'', with ebooks, xtensive TABS/notation, fretboard videos, introduction videos, and backing tracks!
If you prefer all-video instruction: there are three additional video DVD-ROM (DVD for your computer) available:
- DVD Loop Fun: this one is no longer available, but check Instagram for free samples.
- Talking Jazz Guitar: lessons based on full (original) tunes, chords, scales, comping, improvisation, it's all covered in the 2 hours of lessons with backing tracks. In-video fret board animation shows everything in detail. The original DVD is now available as an improved online course.
- DVD Private Sessions: this DVD contains a set of video lessons in a very informal setting; the next best thing to having private lessons, talking about tunes, jazz standards, techniques, theory etc. This DVD contains nearly 4 hours of jazz guitar instruction.
- Blues Forms for Jazz Guitar: a journey from basic 3-chord blues to advanced jazz blues, also available as an online course.
Photograph by Jean-Jacques Abadie