Ronnie Matthews discusses his decision to become a professional musician

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Ronnie Matthews discusses his family's reaction to his decision to leave med school for a career in music

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Ronnie Matthews discusses composing and performing

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Q: “Do you consider yourself a composer as much as a performer, or is it kind of half and half, or…”

A: “Yeah, I personally think I need to do a lot more composing. I do like to write. I've written a few things that not only I like but, you know, other people appreciate, too. I think probably the most well known is a waltz entitled 'Jean Marie' that I wrote for my wife that has been recorded, you know, let's see, about four, five, or six times, you know, by different people. Woody Shaw, as a matter of fact, did it on two different albums. Frank Foster wrote an arrangement that was done, for a Japanese label I believe, for a 22-piece band. I myself have recorded it a couple of times on a trio album that I did a long time ago for a Japanese label as well as ... oh, I was on both the Woody Shaw albums, right, and one was for a 7-piece. The 'Concert Ensemble' was an album that we recorded live in Berlin and the other is a quintet album with Frank Strozier playing alto. Both of those albums have that particular composition on it and people seemed to like it. I remember even Dexter Gordon wanted to record it, but at that particular time it had been recorded so many times by so many different people. He said, "Well, you know, I think I'll wait a little bit and ... "