I started learning to play fiddle tunes when I was seventeen and had a crush on a gal who was into the folk and folk dance scene in the Boston area where I did most of my growing up. I told her I had a mandolin that I'd found in my grandfather's closet and she gave me Cole's 1001 Fiddle Tunes and circled a few tunes for me to learn. I had some facility because I'd been playing the cello since fourth grade so I picked up a flat pick and gave it my best effort. It didn't end up getting me much traction with the girl, but it did introduce me to the magic of a fiddle tune, each one a little world unto itself -  beautiful melodies that are compact, symmetrical, generally with an A and B part that elegantly represent the yin and yang of musical form. I went on to get a degree in music and I studied fugues, sonatas, counterpoint and I appreciated the evolution and sense and beauty of these forms. But with my love of mandolin and clawhammer banjo it was fiddle tunes that I started to write in my mid-twenties. There is a variety of inspirations for these. When I sit around and play by myself it's generally a mixture of drills & exercises, tunes that I already know just for fun and sometimes to improve my playing of them, and sometimes it's just whimsical improvisation. Out of the latter a little melodic phrase may appear. I record this so I won't forget it, then let this phrase lead to another, always in search of that beauty of melodic shape that I loved in all of the traditional tunes that I had learned and played so many times. After completing a standard 8-bar A-part (which is generally repeated in a fiddle tune, sometimes with a second ending, sometimes without) I'd look for a contrasting beginning for a B-part, then let that lead me down a compelling path through the next 8-bars. I'd keep recording my progress so I wouldn't have to worry about forgetting something. Some folks might call this following the muse. I try to name the tune immediately after writing it so there is some organic connection to the moment. Full Moon is pretty obvious. Another is The Fallling Waters of Arden - I wrote that while out on my back deck with my sprinkler going back and forth, and the name of my neighborhood is Arden. All Full Up was written after a big meal. Chelsea Town was written while I was in London with Footworks, performing in the first London Run of Riverdance. I don't have a very good long-term memory so these tunes are almost like snapshots from my life, helping me stay connected with my past experiences. 
 Then there are tunes that I have written when feeling some emotion. All My Children emerged while I was watching a video of my younger brother playing with his young children in far off Israel where he lived at the time. I wrote Julie's Waltz after a dream I had of an old flame. 
 Another category is events. I wrote the Samolynn Waltz while selling hotdogs in downtown Nashville around 1982 for the wedding of friends Sam and Lynn Bush. I wrote Black Mountain Air for the wedding of some other friends who were married in Black Mountain, North Carolina. I wrote For Carol for a favorite aunt who had died.
   After recording my first CD, Brand New Old Tyme Way on Rounder Records, I did occasional shows to promote the project. For one of these shows I hired Jim Hurst on guitar, Missy Raines on bass, and Casey Driessen on fiddle. There was an alchemy in this configuration that made my tunes really come to life and I did a good bit of touring with these wonderful musicians from 2000 to 2003 as Mark Schatz and Friends. It culminated with the recording of my second solo project, Steppin' in the Boiler House.
  Included here is a selection of my compositions drawn from these two solo projects. 

 I met Bela Fleck around 1977 in Boston at an old-time jam session. He was playing with the Boston based progressive bluegrass band, Tasty Licks, and I was in my last couple of years of study at Haverford College outside of Philadelphia. I was coming back to Boston as much as possible because I'd fallen in love with a dancer in the folk dance group Mandala with whom I'd played with the previous year when I took a year off to study at Berklee College of Music. When I was in Boston we'd get together and play jazz standards - he on banjo and me on mandolin - I was able to combine my nascent fiddle tune chops with the rudimentary jazz harmony I'd learned at Berklee to keep up with Bela who was already a banjo phenom at age 17 or 18.  I eventually joined Tasty Licks on bass with a strong vote from Bela, we went on the Kentucky together to play in a band called Spectrum, and I played on his first two solo projects, Crossing the Tracks and Natural Bridge. He called on me to join the juggernaut Bluegrass aggregation of Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, and Tony Rice for landmark recordings Drive (joined as well by Mark O'Connor here) and The Bluegrass Sessions.  This band appeared at a handful of festivals and legendary club The Birchmere over a span of several years and I considered myself a very lucky guy to be part of that cream of that generation of bluegrass music, sometimes called New Acoustic Music. 
  Bela helped produce my two solo projects and remains a good friend. 
 

  After trying to learn the ropes of the country music scene in Nashville from around 1981-1985, I got a call from Jimmy Gaudreau, with whom I'd played in Spectrum, asking if I wanted to do weekend of shows at the Birchmere with Tony Rice, one of the iconic bluegrass guitar players and singers of our time. Tony apparently liked my playing and subsequently called and asked if I wanted to play some more shows with him. I had my head wrapped around trying to be an electric bass player for a major country act, and told him as much. To his credit, he was totally chill and just said that he'd call, and if I was available I was welcome to come play with him. After a handful of shows my better sense finally kicked in and I committed full-time to the gig, eventually becoming Tony's Road Manager and good friend. I played on several projects with him in this time period including Me and My Guitar, Native American, Tony Rice Plays and Sings Bluegrass, and The Bluegrass Album Band, Volume 5. The sound of his voice and guitar still really get to me - there's real undefinable magic there!

After my five year stint with Tony Rice I joined Tim O'Brien who had recently left the prominent bluegrass band, Hot Rize, to launch his own solo career with the formation of the O'Boys which was an acoustic power trio with me, guitarist Scott Nygaard, and Tim on mandolin, bazouki, and fiddle. Tim is another force to be reckoned with in the acoustic music world. He's stylistically versatile, he has a beautiful, powerful voice, he writes songs with depth and subtelty that range from humorous flings to heartbreak, political satire, and soaring, hopeful love songs. And he's got a groove when he plays that's a mile deep. I toured with him from 1990 to 1998, often joined by his sister, Mollie who shared the family gene for virtuosic vocalizing. One of my favorite CDs to this day is a collection of Bob Dylan songs that he did acoustic versions of called Red on Blond. We still do occasioanal shows together and it's always a treat!

I had the unique good fortune to be able to play a number of shows with the great entertainer, song writer, multi-instrumentalist, flatfooter, story teller, river boat captain, John Hartford. This guy was a true original and he was huge inspiration to me and pretty much everyone else in the acoustic music world. I did a number of dates with him between 2000 and 2003, and played on a recording of his called Good Old Boys. Ten years after his passing his guitar player, Chris Sharp, got all of the fellars together who'd played with John in the last years of his life to do a collection of his songs and tunes called Memories of John which was Grammy nominated. It had many special guests including old friends, Bela Fleck and Tim O'Brien doing all John Hartford songs and tunes.