Turn Up The Quiet
John has recorded a collaboration with the wonderful jazz vocalist Ron Gill entitled Turn Up The Quiet. It was released by Whaling City Sound in May 2010 and features Ron's voice in duet with John's sensitive guitar on half of the tunes, and with piano and acoustic bass accompaniment on the other half of the tunes. John plays the acoustic bass on those songs and the pianist is Gilad Barkan. We have copies now so click on the Turn Up The Quiet link to check it out!
Composing Music For Jazz Performance - now available!
John has been writing columns for Just Jazz Guitar Magazine for a number of years and has compiled the educational materials into two books that are now available. One book concentrates on writing Blues Tunes and the other concentrates on Standard Songs and Jazz Tunes. Each book includes a CD featuring performances of the musical examples. These books provide an opportunity to learn some of John's great tunes, and will help musicians learn to compose their own songs. Click the Books link!
Raising The Roof
On January 12, 2010, John's recording Raising The Roof was released by Whaling City Sound. It features the virtuosic musicians who collaborated on Encounterpoint, John's successful 2008 release: John on guitar from Boston; Koichi Sato on keyboards from Japan; John Lockwood on bass from South Africa; and Zé Eduardo Nazario on drums from Brasil. Raising The Roof remained in the top 10 on the JazzWeek Radio Chart in spins in the USA for more than 2 months, reaching the Number 2 position! Click on the Raising The Roof link to check it out!
Becoming a musician is an organic process, a matter of natural growth over one's lifetime. If you love the process, you keep doing it. If you keep doing it, you keep getting better at it. The fact is, I love the challenge of trying to play some little tune better, the challenge of hearing music and understanding what I hear better, the challenge of making little black dots on a piece of paper blossom into sound. I love to compose music that is both sophisticated and accessible, music that I put in front of a good player and that person can do great things with it almost without effort. The key for me, when it comes to what makes something musical and attractive, is interactivity and communication. I hope my music is able to demonstrate my moods and feelings, and I hope it inspires people to experience their own moods and feelings.
