Performer

I am a professional jazz guitarist with over a decade of experience performing throughout the Bay Area and beyond. My work spans a wide range of ensembles and contexts, from straight-ahead jazz to jazz manouche.

I earned a BFA in Jazz Guitar from The New School for Jazz, where I studied with Chico Hamilton, Benny Powell, Peter Bernstein, Andy Milne, Howard Alden, and Ed Cherry. After returning to the Bay Area, I continued my studies with the legendary Calvin Keys until his passing in 2024.

Currently, I am a member of the acclaimed Hot Club of San Francisco. I’ve performed with the group at Django festivals across the U.S., as well as at Yoshi’s, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, and Blue Note Napa. My original compositions “I’ll Call You Back” and “HWY 17” are featured on the HCSF’s latest album and have received airplay on KCSM 91.1.

Additional performance highlights:

  • Touring with Swedish multi-instrumentalist Gunhild Carling

  • Performing with Keshav Batish & EKTA at the Monterey Jazz Festival

  • Co-founding Modern Jazz Hot Club

  • Leading a Grant Green tribute concert at San Francisco’s historic Peacock Lounge

  • Performing in New Delhi with local artists at The Piano Man

As a freelance guitarist, I regularly perform throughout the Monterey and San Francisco Bay Areas at concerts, private events, and venues.

Educator

I am a passionate and inclusive educator with over a decade of experience teaching guitar and music in a variety of settings—private lessons, ensembles, workshops, and classroom-based courses.

Current Teaching

I am a Part-Time Lecturer at Skyline College, where I teach:

  • Guitar I–IV

  • Guitar Ensemble

  • World Music

Previous Teaching Experience

At UC Santa Cruz, I taught:

  • Intro to Jazz

  • Jazz Ensemble

  • Survey of Jazz Guitar Styles

  • Introduction to American Popular Music

I also worked as a teaching assistant in:

  • West Javanese Gamelan

  • Musics of South Asia

  • Opera Workshop

  • Intro to Music Fundamentals

I was honored to twice receive the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the UCSC Music Department

Other Teaching Highlights:

  • Taught a sold-out rhythm guitar clinic at Freight & Salvage’s Django Reinhardt Festival

  • Led the workshop/performance series Improvising Across Idioms, featuring cross-tradition collaborations

  • Taught Analysis of the Music Industry at the University of the Pacific

  • Taught private guitar students for over ten years

Scholar

I hold a PhD in Music from UC Santa Cruz with an emphasis in cross-cultural musicology. My research centers on the history, aesthetics, politics, and labor economies of jazz and Black American music.

I have presented my work at academic conferences including:

  • Society for American Music

  • Rhythm Changes

  • Documenting Jazz

  • Northern California chapters of SEM and AMS

MA Thesis

My MA research explored 1950s–60s Hammond B3 organ trios and soul jazz, combining archival research and jazz criticism. I applied Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s theory of signifyin(g) and the trope of call and response to analyze performance and cultural meaning, situating these groups in broader African American sacred and secular traditions.

Dissertation

My dissertation draws on five years of ethnographic fieldwork and 45 interviews with Bay Area jazz musicians. I argue that their working practices challenge neoliberal ideals and resist the co-optation of jazz by corporate management culture.

Using a Bourdieuian framework, I explore how musicians balance the roles of artist and professional while affirming collective value, Black musical labor, and non-competitive forms of community. I also critique the use of jazz and “jamming” as metaphors in business literature, and highlight feminist interventions in jam session spaces.

Grants and Fellowships

I have received multiple awards in support of my scholarly work, including:

  • President’s Dissertation Year Fellowship

  • Arts Research Institute Equity & Innovation Grant

  • Arts Dean Fund for Excellence

  • SSRC Dissertation Development Fellowship

A man playing an electric guitar on stage, surrounded by microphones and musical equipment, with dark curtains in the background.

At the Peacock Lounge in SF with my Grant Green Quartet

Musicians performing jazz on stage, including a guitarist playing acoustic guitar, a double bassist, and two other guitarists, with a dark red curtain backdrop.

At the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley with The Hot Club of SF

Two smiling men posing for a selfie indoors, one with light skin and short brown hair wearing a gray jacket, the other with darker skin, gray hair and beard wearing a black hoodie with red and white text.

With the late great Calvin Keys

A diverse group of musicians holding guitars, posing together on stage for a photo.

Skyline Guitar Ensemble Fall 2023

A group of six musicians performing on stage with guitars, a violin, a ukulele, and a microphone, in front of an audience, against a wooden wall background.

Performing with artists from “Improvising Across Idioms” series at UCSC Recital Hall

Group photo of students and teachers in a classroom, with some adults holding guitars and musical instruments, smiling and posing for the picture.

Lecture/Demo in Hong Kong school with the Hot Club of SF

A man in a suit giving a presentation at the Jazz Conference in Amsterdam 2022, with presentation slide titled 'Creative Labor and the Gig Economy in the San Francisco Bay Area' and a sign on the podium reading 'Jazz Then & Now Conference, Amsterdam 2022, August 25-28'.

Presenting at Rhythm Changes Conference

A man in a blazer presenting in front of an audience in a conference room with a projected slide showing four images.

Presenting at Documenting Jazz

A man in a blue shirt sitting at a table with a silver MacBook, a black coffee mug, and other laptops, next to a large monitor displaying the presentation title 'The Gig Economy' and the subtitle 'Neoliberalism and the Working Practices of Bay Area Jazz Musicians' in a conference room.

Defending my Dissertation