Mikiya Matsuda is a steel guitarist and sometimes string bassist living in San Francisco, CA. He is the leader of the Alcatraz Islanders, a swing-era Hawaiian group, and a regular sideman with various traditional jazz and western swing dance bands in the Bay Area. Mikiya graduated from Amherst College with a B.A. in music, studied privately with steel guitarists John Ely and Alan Akaka, but mostly learned (and continues to learn) the instrument by listening and playing along with old western swing, country, Hawaiian, and mainland jazz recordings.