Matt Otto Embraces the Beauty of the Fleeting on New Album Ephemeral

There’s a certain kind of truth you only arrive at with time: that the moments you try hardest to hold onto are often the ones that pass through you the fastest. A blink. A taste. A flash of light. A name you haven’t said in years. A hug that lands deeper than you expected. The heat of an argument. The best summer of your life. The cold bite of the worst winter. Some linger longer than others—but none of them stay.

They are ephemeral.

That idea sits at the centre of Matt Otto’s new album, Ephemeral—a project that doesn’t just reference impermanence as a theme, but treats it as a musical philosophy. It’s an album shaped by reflection, by lived experience, and by an artist who has spent years moving through different cities, scenes, and stages of life—now distilling what matters into something direct, heartfelt, and resonant.

Matt Otto is currently the Associate Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Kansas (KU), where he teaches Jazz Theory and Performance, Jazz Combo, Mindful Musicianship (a meditation-focused course designed specifically for musicians), and private lessons. His approach to teaching reflects the same depth that runs through his playing—technical, yes, but also grounded in presence, listening, and the internal life of the artist.

Before KU, Otto also worked as an Adjunct Professor at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, teaching online courses in jazz improvisation, theory, and performance—adding another dimension to a career that has consistently balanced artistry with mentorship.

His own musical education reads like a map of serious study and creative exploration. Otto pursued music performance and composition at Indiana University, Berklee College of Music, The New School Jazz (BFA), and the California Institute of the Arts (MFA). Along the way, he studied under a formidable list of mentors, including Lee Konitz, George Garzone, Billy Pierce, Charlie Haden, Andy McGhee, Don Hawkins, and Paul Carman, among many others—artists known not only for mastery, but for pushing the music forward.

Otto’s path has also been shaped by geography. He lived in Japan for six years, New York City for seven, and Los Angeles for six—years that placed him in constant conversation with different musical languages and communities, and led to performances alongside a wide range of artists.

While in Los Angeles, he also co-founded the Los Angeles Jazz Collective (lajazzcollective.org), an initiative built with purpose: to create opportunities for creative jazz composers and performers to showcase original work, and to establish ongoing jazz outreach for young musicians in and around the city. It’s a meaningful detail in Otto’s story—because it shows that for him, jazz isn’t only about the stage. It’s about infrastructure, access, and keeping the culture alive.

Ephemeral begins with a simple but expansive observation: life is made of moments that disappear as soon as they arrive. Otto frames it through sensory snapshots—an echo through a canyon, a bell or meditation bowl ringing until it fades, the sudden glow before sunset. Even memory becomes part of the impermanence: people you once knew closely, emotions you felt intensely, seasons that shaped you. And then there’s music—perhaps the most ephemeral art form of all.

Sound waves vanish the instant they’re created. For centuries, melodies survived only if someone remembered them. Notation and recording may preserve the notes, but the essence of music—its immediacy, its presence—still lives in the now. Ephemeral leans into that truth, not as something to mourn, but as something to honour.

In that spirit, Otto’s writing on this album reflects a clear shift: away from complexity for complexity’s sake, and toward pieces that feel emotionally precise.

“At this point in my life I mostly try to write songs I hear in my mind and that I personally like the sound of,” he says. “I’ve mostly stopped writing complex, long-form difficult music and instead focused on short, heartfelt pieces that have a vibe and are easy for good musicians to work with right away.”

What’s striking is how he describes the change—not as a calculated reinvention, but as a natural evolution.

“I don’t think this is a conscious decision,” Otto adds. “It’s just what tends to happen when I sit down to write… I feel like I’m a simple person and my music is beginning to reflect that more as I age.”

That’s the origin story of Ephemeral in its most honest form: an artist arriving at simplicity not because it’s easier, but because it’s truer. Because after years of study, travel, performance, and teaching, the goal becomes less about proving what you can do—and more about saying what you mean. Ephemeral is, ultimately, a project about letting things pass without losing their meaning. About accepting that the most powerful moments—musical or otherwise—don’t last forever, and that’s exactly why they matter.

In choosing shorter, vibe-forward compositions designed for great musicians to connect with immediately, Matt Otto is creating space for the listener to feel the music as it happens—like light fading, like an echo thinning out, like a bell’s final shimmer before silence. And in a world that constantly demands more noise, more speed, more permanence, Ephemeral offers something quietly radical: presence.