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| Josh Workman at Jazz At Pearl's Guitarist Josh Workman will give San Francisco music fans a taste of his versatile, effervescent talent when he plays Jazz at Pearl's in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood this Thursday night, January 11. Workman has been burning his way to just about every spot on the jazz/swing map since he first started performing in North Beach bars at the tender age of ten, hiding in back rooms when the police showed up. That was then. Now a young veteran, Workman has earned his name as one of the Bay Area's most fiery and versatile players during a career that has found him blistering the jump blues with swing revival band Indigo Swing, gypsy jazz with the Hot Club of San Francisco, funk-jazz with the Groove Collective and the Jazz Passengers in New York City, world music with D'Vash and straight-ahead bop with Larry Vuckovich's Young At Heart Ensemble. The high-profile proof of Josh Workman's talents in all these genres came with the release of his 2004 CD, Jumpin' at the Border. In a profile appearing shortly thereafter, the San Francisco Chronicle observed, "Even the most talented musician can have a tough time presenting a variety of styles on a single CD. There's always the danger of turning the recording into a hodgepodge that satisfies no one, no matter how dazzling the individual numbers. Workman solved this puzzle with flair on Jumpin' at the Border. The CD showcases Workman's ability to plug into bebop, Brazilian, blues, Latin and gypsy jazz. The 'solution' is the pulsing energy that sweeps through every track, in every style, and unifies the proceedings." Through studies with guitar greats like Ray Scott, Bruce Forman, Jim Hall and Vic Juris, at places like Berklee School of Music and the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, and on bandstands across America, Josh Workman has grown from those early days of musical precocity into a nimble, exciting guitarist, capable of lighting up a room with his good-natured energy and multi-faceted talents. He's toured across the U.S. and Europe with Indigo Swing during the height of the swing dance craze, cracked the whip-like rhythms of the Django Rheinhardt-styled Hot Club of San Francisco, and led his own straight-ahead jazz ensembles and worked as sideman in many more. In fact, all of his many influences and experiences have contributed to Josh Workman's unique, creative, full-steam-ahead guitar style. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Jazz News :: home page |