Music pours out of Matt Ulery.
Since moving to Chicago 25 years ago, the Rockford-born bassist, 43, has put out 15 albums of originals, a body of work that defies generalization. He’s composed for jazz bands, classical ensembles and even berimbau, a single-stringed Afro-Brazilian instrument best known for accompanying capoeira matches. In 2020’s “Pollinator” — a 1920s-inspired brass band release — he even traded his upright for a sousaphone, an instrument he hadn’t played since high school.
But in an average month, Ulery isn’t only playing his own music. Like so many working musicians, he’s stringing things together. He estimates that, on average, he performs in the city nightly, mostly as a sideman. When we meet up at a coffee shop in Lincoln Square, Ulery has his bass in tow, returning from a day of teaching at Northeastern Illinois University. He juggles that job with other teaching posts at Loyola and Roosevelt University, the latter his alma mater.
So, when on Earth does all that composing happen?
“I don’t have an issue with finding the muse,” he admits, almost sheepishly. “If you’re always open to a little spark of an idea, you can capture that spark. The hard part is sitting down and doing the work.”
A residency this month at Hungry Brain gives Ulery a platform for his uncorkable creativity. Ulery brings four different groups to the West Lakeview venue, including his Pollinator band and sprawling Nonet. He wraps the residency with his new Mother Harp band, a thrashing union of punk rock, jazz and folk. The group releases a self-titled album the same day on Ulery’s Woolgathering Records label.
“Mother Harp” — taking its name from a piece Ulery composed in 2019 — is Ulery’s most dramatic pivot since “Pollinator.” Though Ulery can often be spotted around town on electric bass, “Mother Harp” marks the first time he’s played on the instrument in any of his releases as a bandleader. The album’s searing, adrenaline-laced sound is new to his recorded output so far.
“It’s like extremely melodic punk,” Ulery says, “and electric bass is a higher-energy than upright bass. It just is. You can turn it louder and it sounds better instead of worse.”
Ulery acknowledges it’s a little ironic that it took him so long to record an album on bass guitar. The instrument has been part of his life far longer than the double bass, with roots in his childhood hobby of plucking out songs on his father’s old acoustic guitar. Thing was, the guitar was missing all its strings except the lowest two.
“Someone was like, ‘Oh, you’re actually playing the bass notes. Try this (bass guitar),’” Ulery recalls.
Later, as a teenager, Ulery led what he calls “parallel musical lives.” Some nights he sat in with old-time swing bands, playing with a fake ID; others, he played in ska-punk band with friends, like any ’90s kid worth his salt. You won’t find ska rhythms in “Mother Harp,” but you will find its distinctive horn-driven, rhythmic spirit.
Those rhythms tend to be flowing yet asymmetrical — another ghost from Ulery’s musical past. For much of the 2000s, Ulery played in Eastern Blok, a quartet which infused classical and jazz with Balkan folk music. For example, the melody of “Five Pocket,” off “Mother Harp,” seems to bounce along inexhaustibly. Though the groove underneath it is lopsided, the tune never stumbles.
“When people say ‘odd meter,’ I used to think, What’s so odd about it? But it’s just an odd number,” Ulery says. “Playing in Eastern Blok, I really developed a more intimate understanding of the odd-meter folk dances.”
From an outsider’s perspective, “Mother Harp” seems to fuse two very different facets of Ulery’s musical life. Ulery himself doesn’t see it that way.
“What was my folk music, growing up as a white suburban kid? It was punk and third-wave ska,” he says. “I was a teenage dancer, going to shows with friends, moshing or skanking. It’s all there.”
Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.
Matt Ulery’s Hungry Brain residency continues with performances by his Pollinator band April 17 and by Mother Harp, celebrating its album release, on April 24. Both begin at 9 p.m. at Hungry Brain, 2319 W. Belmont Ave.; hungrybrainchicago.com
