PETER C. MATTHEWS

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Phone: 540-463-2050
email: Pete4bass

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Peter Matthews, a professional bass player since 1972, is an adjunct lecturer in the Art, Music & Philosophy Dept. of John Jay College, where he was teaching MUS103, Rock and Jazz (the syllabus has recently been expanded to cover the history of popular music in the US from 1840 to 2000, from minstrelsy to rap). Mr. Matthews is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Music Dept. of the Graduate School of CUNY, studying Ethnomusicology: his provisional dissertation topic is "The Rise of Modal Jazz and Fusion Music, 1959-69".
Mr. Matthews arrived in Manhattan from England in 1993 to enroll in the CCNY Master's Degree program in Jazz Performance and study with Distinguished Professor Ron Carter (bassist with the mid-60s Miles Davis Quintet); he graduated in 1995.
Mr. Matthews began his professional musical career in 1972 when he switched from playing blues on electric guitar to bass guitar and joined a rock band. He first toured the US in 1973 with Japanese percussionist Stomu Yamash'ta's Red Buddha Theatre, performing at major venues like the Greek Theater in Los Angeles and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
Performing on electric bass as a rock and R&B musician, in 1975 Mr. Matthews recorded an eponymous album for RCA with his rock band Stars. After Stars broke up in 1977, he moved to the Canary Islands (Spain) in 1980 to join an international salsa group. Returning to London in 1983, Mr. Matthews found himself playing more jazz than rock and fusion: this led him to buy an upright (acoustic) bass, which soon became his first-call instrument.
Between 1970-90, Mr. Matthews combined professional music-making with journalism. Working both as a copy editor, and also as a feature writer for publications including Rolling Stone, Melody Maker, Time Out London, TV Times and BBC Radio Times, he has interviewed such artists as Paul McCartney, Kris Kristofferson and the late Frank Zappa.