Guitarist, Matthew Yeakley, has been a staple of the Los Angeles jazz community for more than the last decade, appearing in clubs and concert venues almost nightly. In 2020 alone his guitar playing can be found on avant garde jazz records, Christmas vocal jazz records, and nationally televised music competition shows. While maintaining a busy performance and recording schedule, Matthew keeps up his own artistic endeavors with his upcoming trio release, Fragile Lucidity (Orenda 2020) and his first solo guitar album Lost (Orenda 2021), which follow up his previous albums Clean Numbers and Dirty Words (Orenda 2016).

Matthew is also an avid jazz educator, working as the combo director in the award-winning Harvard-Westlake School’s jazz program, as well as a clinician for the Herbie Hancock Institute’s “Jazz in the Classroom” project. In 2012 he published 10 Arrangements for Solo Guitar, and continues to travel for guitar clinics to teach the art of solo guitar playing.

As a performer, Matthew has shared the stage with such jazz luminaries as Kamasi Washington, Theo Crocker, Ambrose Akinmusire, Walter Smith III, David Binney, John Beasley, Hadrien Feraud and Marquis Hill, to name a few. This is where Matthew can be heard at his best, interacting with his bandmates, and making split second decisions in search of musical transcendence.

Matthew is a Southern California native, born in Los Angeles raised in San Diego. He studied guitar at the Musician’s Institute in Hollywood with some of the giants of the Los Angeles guitar world. Matthew is an endorsing artist with Eastman guitars and currently resides in Los Angeles.

www.matthewyeakley.com