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Chris Jentsch

Chris Jentsch (guitar) is a recording and performing artist working primarily in jazz and contemporary improvisational forms. Based in Brooklyn since 1999, his main ensemble is Jentsch Group in its trio, quartet, nonet, or large configurations.

Jentsch is also a composer of jazz and concert music having been awarded grants/commissions from NY State Council on the Arts (3), Meet the Composer, the Composers Assistance Program of the American Music Center (2), American Composers Forum (2), Maelstrom Percussion Ensemble, Penfield Commission Project, and Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works Program.

Jentsch’s first CD Media Event was released in 1998 and features his working trio from that era. His second CD Miami Suite (1999) presents original works for large jazz ensemble. His third CD featuring the ACF-commissioned Brooklyn Suite for Jentsch Group Large was released in 2007 on Fleur De Son Records, as was a follow up, Cycles Suite, in 2009. Fractured Pop, a CD/DVD documenting Jentsch Group Quartet was released in 2017.

(on Brooklyn Suite) “…soaring guitar and kaleidoscopic soundscape…” - Howard Mandel

“Jentsch displays contemporary guitar mastery throughout (his CD Media Event). When you think of the traditions of the guitar in late 20th century, ‘emotion’ is the word that is often conjured. For Jentsch, add intellect, substance, and style to that guitar-emotion definition �" a delicacy and charm that spans the history of the music.” - AllAboutJazz.com

“…a very promising guitarist. On Exploring the Planet Jentsch fires up his electric for a snaky, delay decorated solo. All kinds of cool noises come out of Jentsch’s guitar.” - CADENCE Magazine

“Skilled NYC electric guitarist recalls Bill Frisell's more aggressive side, both in his use of effects (distortion, delay, volume pedal) and in his jarringly inserted open-string notes. His work in acoustic settings ranges from straight-ahead and boppish to intense and driving, without ever getting totally ‘out.’” - Listen.com

Awards

Featured in Scott Yanow’s book, The Great Guitarists (2013 Hal Leonard).


Tags

3
Album Review

Chris Jentsch Group No Net: Topics in American History

Read "Topics in American History" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Guitarist Chris Jentsch's newest project is a suite that treats various periods of American history to a somewhat skeptical, alternative viewpoint. It doesn't attempt to tell a chronological story but instead hopscotches through topics like the Civil War, Westward Expansion, the Cold War and post-World War II suburban sprawl with a constant sense of unease and caution. Jentsch uses a nine-piece group here, giving him room to play with brass and reed voicings as well as feature his ...

2
Album Review

Chris Jentsch Group No Net: Topics in American History

Read "Topics in American History" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Brooklyn-based guitarist / composer Chris Jentsch writes with clear images in mind and invites the listener to see and hear them as he does. On his sixth and latest CD, Jentsch draws on a longstanding interest in historical events and trends to describe in musical terms Topics in American History ranging from 1491 (the year before Europeans led by Christopher Columbus landed in the New World and changed the North American continent forever) to the harrowing decades of the Cold ...

4
Album Review

Jentsch Group No Net: Topics in American History

Read "Topics in American History" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Don't let the album's title fool you. Guitarist/composer Chris Jentsch's Topics In American History isn't a disguised syllabus for a college seminar. Jentsch's liner notes reveal an abiding interest in American history, but his modus operandi is to use pivotal aspects of the nation's past as springboards for creative, immersive music. Although using just a nine-piece band, Jentsch's compositions feel designed for a larger unit, and they certainly do justice to the sweeping tableau of America's rich--and sometimes fraught--legacy.

5
Album Review

Jentsch Group Quartet: Fractured Pop

Read "Fractured Pop" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Chris Jentsch is a guitarist who, from the evidence of this recording, enjoys splashing around in the wide pool of music between jazz and rock. His work here goes all the way from grooving hardcore jazz to ambient nature sounds with a lot of fun things going on in between those two poles. The title track starts out on a folkish acoustic guitar riff joined to Matt Renzi's climbing tenor sax, establishing an overall style of jazz improvisation ...

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Interview

Chris Jentsch: Cycles and Reflecting on the Journey

Read "Chris Jentsch: Cycles and Reflecting on the Journey" reviewed by Ludwig vanTrikt


John Coltrane once said, “Let the music speak for itself." The guitarist/composer and band leader Christopher Jentsch adds an interesting twist on that subject by opting to describe himself when asked about the broader subject of how to capture his music in his own words. “I think of myself as a composer/guitarist working with contemporary improvisational forms on the fringe of jazz, but jazz that is inclusive of rock/pop, world music and classical genres. I also strive generally for a ...

328
Album Review

Jentsch Group Large: Brooklyn Suite

Read "Brooklyn Suite" reviewed by Michael P. Gladstone


Guitarist/composer/arranger Chris Jentsch has produced a highly original forty-five minute work in the titular Brooklyn Suite, as well as two other new compositions. Jentsch has lived in the New York borough of Brooklyn since 1999 and pays homage to the sights and sounds of his adopted home. Jentsch did the same for another city on Miami Suite (Blue Schist, 1999).

Brooklyn Suite is an ambitious work, impressive in its creativity. The influence of the orchestral writing ...

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Album Review

Jentsch Group Large: Brooklyn Suite

Read "Brooklyn Suite" reviewed by Mark F. Turner


A resurgence and appreciation of large ensemble jazz suites is on the rise, as witnessed in the acclaim attending recordings such as the Maria Schneider Orchestra's Grammy nominated Sky Blue(ArtistShare,2007). But while scores for larger collectives are not unusual, it is less common to find them centered on orchestra and guitar. Enter Brooklyn Suite by guitarist/composer, Chris Jentsch, who helms just such a group, articulating his statement of “what my life sounds like" in Brooklyn, New York. ...

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Interview

Guitarist/Bandleader Chris Jentsch Interviewed at AAJ

Guitarist/Bandleader Chris Jentsch Interviewed at AAJ

Source: All About Jazz

John Coltrane once said, “Let the music speak for itself." The guitarist/composer and band leader Christopher Jentsch adds an interesting twist on that subject by opting to describe himself when asked about the broader subject of how to capture his music in his own words. “I think of myself as a composer/guitarist working with contemporary improvisational forms on the fringe of jazz, but jazz that is inclusive of rock/pop, world music and classical genres. I also strive generally for a ...

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Performance / Tour

Chris Jentsch (Mon) Steve Lehman QNT (Tue) Soul of the Blues (Wed) Gnu Vox (Thurs) Ben Allison QT (Fri) & More This Week at Cornelia Street Cafe

Chris Jentsch (Mon) Steve Lehman QNT (Tue) Soul of the Blues (Wed) Gnu Vox (Thurs) Ben Allison QT (Fri) & More This Week at Cornelia Street Cafe

Source: Jim Eigo, Jazz Promo Services

CORNELIA STREET CAFE 29 Cornelia Street, NYC, New York212-989-9319 between West 4th and Bleecker Sts, Greenwich Village 1 Subway to Sheridan Square; A, C, E, B, D, V, F to West 4th St. This Week At Cornelia Street Cafe Mon Jan 22 8:30PM 21 CENTURY SCHIZOID MUSIC PRESENTS: CHRIS JENTSCH (Chris Jentsch, guitar and compositions;John Mettam, drums;Chris Lightcap, bass;Dan Willis, reeds) SET 1 30 Minutes for Guitar, Drums, and Tape ...

"The interesting thing is that he's using avant-garde techniques, but in a traditional framework…”
– Will Friedwald (New York Sun)

“In its scope and detail and eternally recurring inner logic, Cycles Suite may be the Finnegans Wake of big-band jazz. …a moving and elegiac journey through complex emotional terrain.” - Richard Gehr (from the liner notes)

"Chris Jentsch's seven-part homage to his home borough (Brooklyn Suite) is at once grandly orchestral and strikingly personal. The entire band seems to radiate from Jentsch's pensive guitar pulse, blending jazz, classical and rock ideas into a multidimensional reflection of everyday life." - Forrest Dylan Bryant, Jazz Times

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Primary Instrument

Guitar, electric

Willing to teach

Beginner to advanced

Credentials/Background

Teaching since 1990. Jentsch attended the Berklee College of Music and holds liberal arts and jazz guitar degrees from Gettysburg College, the New England Conservatory, and the Eastman School of Music. He earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Jazz Composition from the University of Miami in 1999 and is published by the University of Northern Colorado Press, Advance Music, and Fleur de Son Records. Available to teach in New York City, particularly in Brooklyn. ChrisJentsch.com for more information.

Clinic/Workshop Information

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Fractured Pop

Fleur De Son
2017

buy

Cycles Suite

Fleur De Son
2009

buy

Brooklyn Suite

Fleur De Son
2008

buy

Media Event

Blue Schist
2000

buy

Videos

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