Bassist, composer, and educator Matt Smiley navigates his broad sonic world with imagination, openness, and artistic vision. Smiley merges his deep roots in the jazz bass tradition with modern explorations of sound, texture, and improvisation from the world of contemporary composition, making him a favorite and frequent collaborator of creative musicians across a variety of musical genres.
As a performer, Smiley has toured nationally and internationally, appearing on stages, festival performances, and university residencies in the United States, Costa Rica, and the Netherlands. He has performed with bandleaders and composers including David Murray, Terrell Stafford, Christian Wolff, Greg Osby, Vinny Golia, Tony Malaby, Walter Thompson, and Sam Newsome. He leads frequent workshops and lessons on free improvisation, jazz bass, and composition, working with educational partners including Denver University, University of Colorado Boulder, and Casper College.
Improvisation and collaboration are the common threads across Smiley’s recorded albums as a bandleader. His discography includes Endgame Trio’s Apocalypse Scorpion, an explosive improvisatory trio with Alex Nauman and Dru Heller; Seafoam Blue, a collection of original folk songs with violinist and vocalist Aimee Niemann. His recent album Binnen Buiten features his mentor David Pope on tenor saxophone, playing open improvisation, and jazz standard forms.
Smiley recently recorded an album of freely improvised music with Soundpainting creator Walter Thompson on piano, and Ron Coulter on drum set, to be released in 2025. Smiley also completed a fall 2024 Colorado tour with St. Louis based violinst Alex Cunningham and percussionist Ron Coulter, with a studio recording of the trio to be released in 2025.
At MacDowell, Smiley wrote music for a modern jazz octet to be recorded in April 2025 at Mighty Fine Studios in Denver, featuring David Pope on tenor saxophone. The recording will be released as a double CD, and will be available on streaming. The recording is a follow up to his album For, released in July 2024.
