Jaiman Crunk

Jaiman was born into a musical family in the San Francisco Bay Area. His great grandparents were vaudeville performers - one grandfather was a singer and the other one was a guitarist. He was given his first guitar at the age of 5. He remembers his grandfather playing and teaching him many other songs of his era as a child. He also remembers his grandfather taking him to hear the fabulous Duke Ellington Orchestra, (with Johnny Hodges, Paul Gonsalves, Cootie Williams, etc.), in San Francisco at the age of 12, which left a lasting impression on him of the enormous spiritual power that Ellington’s music has. His aunt played the organ at the local church and at family gatherings where the family would play and sing together. Jaiman’s parents regularly held jam sessions at their home where he got to meet and play with many great Bay Area musicians when he was growing up.

Jaiman studied music both formally and informally with a number of great Bay Area artists. In fact, he takes a lesson from everything that he hears. One influence from his youth that he remembers in particular was one of his grandfather’s close friends – guitarist extraordinaire, George Cordoba, with whom Jaiman studied for years. Jaiman vividly remembers George’s version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, which completely took him away.

Jaiman spent a lot of time in his youth playing in the Bay Area jazz, R&B and blues scenes in numerous groups and venues and had the fortune to play with many great local artists – some known, others unknown, but equally as talented.

Jaiman moved to Europe later in his life where he had the opportunity to play with many great American “ex-pat” jazz artists, (some known, others unknown but equally talented), as well as a number of European jazz musicians and groups from West Africa and South America playing in Europe.

Jaiman has spent most of his musical life playing music composed by others in small clubs. In October 2012, he decided to release a CD of his original compositions entitled “Encounters, on the Seattle- based label, Origin Records.

Jaiman’s music reflects everything he’s experienced in his life, everyone he’s met, everything he’s heard and everywhere he’s been – it’s just that simple. Jaiman recently moved to Seattle from Europe. The single largest influence on his music today is the beautiful, but not always serene, nature in the area.

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