RYAN MACKSTALLER >> GUITAR >> MUSIC >> ETC >> BROOKLYN, NY

Guitarist, composer, and improviser Ryan Mackstaller grew up in the Metro Detroit area and spent his formative years performing with some of the most talented and forward-thinking musicians in the Detroit and Ann Arbor music scenes.

This time marked the formation of numerous groups including the Ryan Mackstaller Trio, whose 2002 debut release Nice Day for a Swim (independent) drew critical praise for its blend of the jazz guitar tradition with post-Rock tendencies; JusThis, a bass-less trio that allowed the guitarist to stretch his instrument's capabilities while paired with multi-reedist Dan Bennett; a Quintet which incorporated the human voice as a textural and melodic instrument; and Bottomed Out, a twin saxophone band whose debut release Push (envoi, 2006) is best described as "punk jazz."

His tenure in the Detroit/Ann Arbor scene also saw a forging of a long-term musical relationship with saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer Andrew Bishop who has teamed up with Mackstaller in Bottomed Out, Mackstaller's Quintet, and the Hank Williams Project (2006, envoi), Bishop's ambitious revisionist exploration of the sounds from his native Kansas, as well as countless other small group projects.

In 2005, Mackstaller and Bishop formed envoi recordings as an outlet for the music they were producing from a meta-community of musicians that linked Ann Arbor and Detroit to New York and Europe. To date, envoi has released three full length CD's and plans the release of two more by the end of 2007.

2005 also marked the year in which Mackstaller relocated east to Brooklyn and emerged on the New York scene. He quickly reconnected with drummer Gerald Cleaver--the two Detroit-based musicians had first met a few years prior--and the two joined with bassist Chris Lightcap to form the Median Trio, an extension of Mackstaller's original guitar trio. The guitarist also performs in Cleaver's latest ensemble NiMbNl which features some of New York's most exciting young players.

Mackstaller's newest project, Apostles of Light, is a duo with drummer Ziv Ravitz. The two, through their instruments, laptops, and effects pedals create improvised music that runs the gamut from ambient to noise to melodic Rock to free jazz freak-out. The duo is currently finishing up a recording to be released in the summer of 2007 and a US tour in the fall to support it.

Read an interview Mackstaller did with One Final Note in 2005:

"Guitarist Ryan Mackstaller’s JusThis Trio from Detroit played to a captivated audience on April 9, 2005 at Luna in DePere, Wisconsin, highlighted by a Tom Waits-inspired medley that literally left everyone speechless. Look for this name in the future." -Mark Patel, One Final Note

OFN: What have you been listening to lately?

RM: Late 60s Free Stuff—Ayler, Shepp, Sun Ra, and Art Ensemble of Chicago. I’m planning to do a Don Cherry project this summer so I’ve been re-listening to his recordings, especially the duo records with Ed Blackwell. I’ve also been checking out a lot of electronic stuff that a DJ friend of mine hips me to; I’m most excited by Matthew Herbert’s stuff.

OFN: What is your most memorable live performance?

RM: Probably playing the Toronto Jazz Festival with this band called the Articles. It was the first touring band I played with and it was the first gig I played where I got the energy and intensity of a packed club. Plus, I was like 18 or 19, so being that young made it even more exciting.

OFN: What is your most memorable concert-going experience?

RM: Seeing Ornette Coleman last year in Ann Arbor. The music was heavy enough, but then Ornette muttered some ten or twelve words at the end of the concert about the light of the universe being inside of each one of us and it intensified the profoundness of the concert to far beyond music for me. Ornette blew my mind in one sentence far greater than entire books or schools of philosophy.

OFN: Who is the one musician with which you would most like to play?

RM: Living: Ornette.

OFN: Who is your biggest non-musical influence?

RM: I’m influenced a lot by books, film, and visual art. Sometimes I’ve written or improvised music to match images or short scenes I have created in my head. I find writing or improvising music this way to be incredibly freeing because it is a way to bypass musical clichés and familiarities. Instead I think more in terms of mood, intensity, density, and development as opposed to chord, scale, etc. I guess that isn’t a ‘who’, but rather a ‘what’.

OFN: What is your first musical memory?

RM: At some point I had upgraded from my plastic Playskool records to my parents’ turntable and I remember trying to cut the record like I saw DJs on TV do. I probably scratched the hell out of Let it Be.

OFN: When did you know that you wanted to be an improvising musician?

RM: I was 15 years old and my guitar instructor had just introduced me to some serious jazz guitarists via a mix tape. I think when I heard Wes Montgomery I was blown away by the energy of the music and also it seemed like there was so much joy coming from the musicians. Plus, I had no concept of improvising outside of the rock or blues tradition so I was like, “Wow, I want to figure out what this thing is all about.”

OFN: What is your ultimate goal as an artist?

RM: I would like to carve a path where I can sustain a dynamic body of work that reflects on the different stages of my life and artistic development. The ultimate goal within that statement would be to create incredibly personal music that connects with people.

OFN: If music was banned tomorrow, what would you do?

RM: I would go back to school to study to be an interior designer. I would try to get involved with building and designing homes and living spaces.

OFN: Can music save people, and if so, how?

RM: Well, first off I feel that music can affect people on three levels: emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. I think if music is going to ‘save’ an individual—altering their perception and understanding of the world—they definitely need to be interacting with it at the later level... But when I think of “saving” people—from poverty, injustice, despair, or even declining culture—art alone is far from enough. So I guess I feel art and music are more healing forces than saving forces.

-Courtesy of One Final Note webzine

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