Pikes Peak Jazz Guitar Summit: Joel Harrison

Joel Harrison, the renowned New York City jazz guitarist, performs for 1 night only at The Armadillo Ranch as part of the Pike Peak Jazz Guitar Summit along with his accomplished band members Gary Versace on piano, Gregory Tardy on bass, and EJ Strickland on drums.

The Pikes Peak Jazz Guitar Summit will also feature top regional and touring artists including Wayne Wilkinson, Colin McAllister and Steve Langemo, bassist Jason Crowe and others.

Joel Harrison:

Guitarist, composer, arranger, lyricist, writer, educator, and vocalist, has “created a new blueprint for jazz” (New Orleans Times-Picayune). A Guggenheim Fellow (2010) whose compositions have been commissioned by Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, New Music USA, the Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, and the Mary Flagler Cary Trust., he has released 23 CDs as a leader on seven different labels.

Harrison’s music may be founded on jazz but veers into classical, rock, country, and all manner of American roots music. Succinctly described by the New York Times as “protean… brilliant,” he is also an active film composer, having worked on the Oscar-nominated Traffic Stop and the Sundance awardee Southern Comfort.

Harrison is the founder and director of the Alternative Guitar Summit, a yearly festival devoted to new and unusual guitar music. Pat Metheny has called the Summit “one of the most interesting and distinguished forums for guitar on the planet.

Harrison is the author of “Guitar Talk: conversations with visionary players” as well as “Modern Jazz Standards for Guitar.”

Gary Versace:

is one of the world’s premier jazz keyboardists, boasting performances and recordings with John Scofield, John Abercrombie, Kurt Elling, Maria Schneider, and Al Foster. Versace is equally skilled at piano, organ, and accordion. Gary teaches at Eastman School of Music.

New Orleans native Greg Tardy played with Elvin Jones in the early 90’s and has gone on to appear with a who’s who of jazz greats such as Bill Frisell, Andrew Hill, Joshua Redman, and Betty Carter. He teaches at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

For over 16 years drummer, composer, and bandleader E.J. Strickland has toured, performed, & recorded with The Ravi Coltrane Quartet, The Marcus Strickland Quartet & Trio, The Russell Malone Quartet, & countless other world renown artists.

He currently leads his own bands; The E.J. Strickland Quintet & The E.J. Strickland Project. His playing has been described as emitting “fields of cumulative energy, clouds of feather-touch and heavy-handed syncopations, latent with power like an oncoming storm” His style is one of versatility, drawing from many different genres: Jazz, World Music, Hip-Hop, Afro-Cuban Music, etc.