Please join us select Friday nights from 7-10pm with hosts Clif & Nelda Swiggett for our
'Jazz at The Tasting Room' Music Series
Friday, June 27th
Greta Matassa
Clif & Nelda are thrilled to feature one of the Northwest’s true jazz masters, vocalist Greta Matassa. Greta’s 40 year career has been a whirlwind of exciting opportunities and experiences. Over the last 20 years she has become established as one of the greatest jazz singers of her time. Working with top jazz musicians in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. In 2016 She was featured with bassist John Clayton’s group in a centennial tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. Greta will be joined by the great Clipper Anderson on bass, as well as Jazz at the Tasting Room hosts Clif and Nelda Swiggett. This jazz duo and married couple, each highly accomplished musicians, has made music together since the night they first met in 1987. Nelda is an award-winning composer, teacher, and OA2 recording artist who has headlined many of the Northwest’s top jazz venues. Clif started playing jazz trombone as a teenager in New York, toured with the Glen Miller Orchestra, shared the stage with jazz greats including Bill Watrous, Phil Woods, and Dizzy Gillespie. Since moving to Seattle in 1985, he has performed, recorded, and toured with dozens of northwest jazz, funk, and salsa bands.
In the Pacific Northwest, where she built her career, Greta Matassa wins wide acclaim; 8 times, the readers of Earshot, the Seattle jazz magazine, have voted her the best jazz vocalist in the Northwest, including 2021!
She was inducted into the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame in 2014. Jim Wilke, the Seattle jazz maven and host of the syndicated “Jazz After Hours” radio program, praises her versatility. “She has a fearlessness in approaching material,” Wilke says, “that makes her like an instrumentalist in a jam session.”
Bassist and producer John Clayton says “One of the best jazz singers we have to boast about these days.”
Her 40 year career has been a whirlwind of exciting opportunities and experiences. Over the last 20 years she has become established as one of the greatest jazz singers of her time. Working with top jazz musicians in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. In 2016 She was featured with bassist John Clayton’s group in a centennial tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.
She has recorded 11 CD’s. Her latest release “Portrait” on Origin Records is receiving rave reviews.
Coming Up:
Aug 29 Jacque Willis
Sep 26 Jacqueline Tabor
Oct 10 Cherrie Adams & Rick Leppanen
Nov 21 Travis Ranney
PAST SHOWS
April 25th with Kate Olson
Clif & Nelda are thrilled to feature the extraordinary musicality of saxophonist, composer, and band leader Kate Olson. Kate’s a creative tour de force who’s been helping shape Seattle’s music scene since her arrival in 2010. She was recently named Earshot’s Instrumentalist of the year for 2025. Buckle up for a night of great music!
Kate Olson is an improvising saxophonist and music educator based in Seattle, WA. Since moving to Seattle in 2010, she has done her best to infiltrate the local, regional and international improvised music scenes. She can be heard performing with her own projects KO SOLO and KO ENSEMBLE, and as a collaborator with the Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble and Electric Circus (led by Wayne Horvitz), Birch Pereira and the Gin Joints, Battlestar Kalakala (formerly West Seattle Soul/the Pulsations), and with such Seattle staples as cabaret producers Can Can Presents and Verlaine & McCann. Kate has a BA in Music (Jazz Emphasis) from the University of Wyoming and an MM in Improvisation from the University of Michigan, and is currently on the jazz faculty at Pacific Lutheran University and University of Puget Sound.