Jack Jezzro - Christmas Jazz Guitar: Instrumental Jazz for the Holidays (2018)

Jack Jezzro is a musician and producer who has enjoyed a long and successful career as a studio musician, accompanying a wide variety of major artists on their recordings, as well as crafting his own albums in which he shows off his talent and versatility as a guitarist.

Jezzro was born in Rivesville, West Virginia on December 2, 1957. He had a keen interest in music from an early age, starting to play the piano when he was just three. He taught himself to play guitar from listening to records by Chet Atkins, and in his teens, he learned to break down the individual parts from songs he loved by Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, and the Doobie Brothers. After high school, Jezzro studied at West Virginia University; their music school didn't have a program for the guitar, but Jezzro could also play the bass, and his skills on the instrument led to him to a membership in the Charleston Symphony Orchestra while still attending WVU. Jezzro went on to attend the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he was mentored by noted bassist James VanDemark. Just as he did at WVU, Jezzro soon joined the local symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, as a bassist, while also honing his chops as a jazz guitarist. In 1981, he relocated to Nashville, Tennessee, where he became the bassist with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for ten years. In the mid-'80s, he made his way into the prestigious world of session work when he became part of the Nashville String Machine, a string section for hire that regularly appeared on recordings by some of the major stars of country and pop music, from Garth Brooks and Faith Hill to Bruce Springsteen and Matchbox 20. In 1988, Jezzro stepped out as a solo artist with the release of his first album as a headliner, Step on It, which was released in Japan by Pony Canyon Records. (A revised edition of the disc was released in the United States as A Day's Journey.) Over the next 30 years, Jezzro would release a steady stream of jazz, country, pop, Latin, and inspirational albums (most through the Green Hill label) that focused on his tasteful but expert guitar work and his interplay with other musicians. Jezzro also continued to work steadily as a session player and a producer, overseeing his own sessions as well as those of other Green Hill artists. His work as an artist and producer has earned him one Grammy nomination and seven Dove Award nominations to date. The prolific bassist has played on or produced over 300 albums, and in 2017 alone, he produced By Request: Most Requested Songs for jazz pianist Beegie Adair, released his own album Sinatra on Guitar, and brought out a sequel to his 2010 album Christmas Jazz titled Christmas Jazz 2. ~ Mark Deming