Biography

Jerry Jennings has an energy on the guitar that is reminiscent of many of the old school blues-rockers– Clapton, Beck, Farner, and Gilmore – while in the chordal realm, he reaches for the less traveled colors. His compositional influences include more open jazzy forms on one hand, such as Chic Corea or maybe Weather Report, while his concise arrangements are in more of a typical pop tune format, like a Steely Dan song. “My attention span is short, probably from a lifetime of fluoride in the water supply. Either way, I have somewhat of a pop mentality and admire an ability to distill many jazzy flavors into a simple verse-chorus-bridge format.”

Jerry developed his playing style in the 80s traveling the globe as a sideman in many styles; mainly blues, rock, jazz, and country. In the 90s he began composing, and currently has three jazz-rock fusion albums, the 3rd of which, “Shortcut to the Center”, is produced by Ronnie Montrose. His latest musical direction is country songwriting. “I have three instrumental albums, and I will always be into instrumentals. But lately I’ve been developing a great appreciation for country lyric writing”. Due to be released in early 2012 is an artist rendition of a newly written freedom oriented country song called, “The Guns of Freedom”. “I’ve developed this obsession with freedom over the past decade or so. I think about how without it, I could never have chosen my line of work. I’d probably be picking strawberries for my living if I was in Cuba or somewhere. Or just sitting in prison or dead. So yea it has to be protected at all costs. And so many young people have been deliberately led away from thinking that way, so I’m hoping to reach an audience with it and swerve attitudes just a few degrees back in the right direction.” Jerry was unable to finish the song until he purchased a cowboy hat, which he now wears semi-religiously.

Jennings also writes instruction books for guitar, bass and drums. “I love to communicate, whether through music, or about music. It never loses its fascination for me. Writing instructional books and dvd’s helps me to get other people to where I am musically.” Currently there are five titles and a sixth on the way, called “Triad Magic”, which is an introduction to chord theory on the guitar.