Updated: February 9, 2024
Born: January 1, 1970
Guitarist Peter Janson lives in Boston Massachusetts and has been forging his own path as an independent solo guitarist since 1999. Building what he considers a meaningful life, Peter’s music events are an important part of that - he performs concerts, tours regularly, founded his own Eastern Woods Music label, gives guitar workshops, and he directs jazz ensembles and private guitar lessons at the University of Massachusetts Boston. There aren’t many jazz guitarists today focusing exclusively on solo guitar, but for Janson playing solo jazz guitar is both his passion and love - he is inspired by the solo guitar works of players like Pat Metheny, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Wolfgang Muthspiel, as well as jazz legends such as Joe Pass, Earl Klugh, and Jim Hall. Now growing in international recognition, Peter signed worldwide sub-publishing deals with STOMP Music Korea and with UK based SUPREME SONGS Limited in October 2022.
Growing up in Cambridge Massachusetts, Peter listened to his father, an accomplished amateur guitarist, play solo guitar every day. Given his first guitar at the age of seven, Peter starting doing pop gigs at age 15. For the last twenty-five years he has performed extensively throughout North America; most notably at Carnegie Hall and the Montreal Jazz Festival. His music has been placed in video games, commercials and news documentaries, charted on Billboard for 11 weeks in top 10 (as a session guitarist) and has a growing base of fans from 137 countries. His latest recording, Getting To Here, is in rotation on over 75 radio stations globally, as well as on streaming formats.
“As a musician, I have continued to grow through the exploration of numerous genres. After many years, jazz form, language, and sensibility has returned to become the place I can make music. I didn’t want too formal a structure to work on, but rather an improvisational base. There is a need for me to work as a solo guitar player - exploring styles and improvising. It gives me joy and helps me understand life in a way nothing else does. I embrace traditional elements, acoustic nylon-string sounds, and form, and merge them with sound enhancing tools and chance. I see no important difference between genres, just as I see no difference between making music and the everyday aspects of life. Performing music, reading a novel or poetry while sipping a cup of coffee, teaching a student, they are all related.”
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"Peter Janson's music has the substance of great jazz presented in an original and accessible style. Truly great!” ~ Steve Hunt, keyboardist (Allan Holdsworth, Stanley Clarke, Billy Cobham, Angela Bofill, Elektrik Market) "One of the most enjoyable evenings I have had, attending a concert, in almost 40 years – and I have been to LOTS of concerts." ~ Lee Greene, concert reviewer, Jacksonville Review, Medford OR
Primary Instrument
Guitar
Location
Boston
Willing to teach
Beginner to advanced
Credentials/Background
Peter Janson directs jazz ensembles and teaches a variety of courses, including private guitar instruction, at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is a long-time artist-educator in its Performing Arts Department and is proud to be serving the students of such a wonderful minority majority campus. Additionally, he is available for private guitar instruction, via Zoom, (not through UMass) with schedule by arrangement. $100.00 per 90-minute session.
Clinic/Workshop Information
Chick Corea
piano
Grant Green
guitar
Pat Metheny
guitar
Wes Montgomery
guitar
Wolfgang Muthspiel
guitar
Joe Pass
guitar
Ralph Towner
guitar
Lionel Loueke
guitar, acoustic
Mary Halvorson
guitar
