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Rick Peckham

Rick Peckham is internationally active as a jazz guitarist and educator. He has presented performances and clinics on six continents and specializes in a unique blend of styles, including jazz, rock, blues, fusion and country finger style performance.

Currently a full-time professor in Berklee’s Guitar Department, Peckham has been a faculty member since 1986, and served as Assistant Chair of the Guitar Department, with 1100 guitar students and 60 guitar faculty, from 1992-2013.

The internationally released album Left End, with drummer Jim Black and bassist Tony Scherr was named one of the best releases of 2005 by DownBeat Magazine. He organized the college’s honorary doctoral tributes to Roy Haynes, Joe Zawinul, Jack DeJohnette and John Scofield, featuring then-Berklee students Kurt Rosenwinkel, Matthew Garrison, Antonio Hart, Abe Laboriel Jr., Melvin Butler and Seamus Blake. Several then-Berklee students he has coached include Lionel Loueke, Lage Lund, Frank Möbus, Jeff Parker, David Rawlings, Brooks Robertson, Matt Stevens and Nir Felder. His Berklee Jerry Reed/Chet Atkins Guitar Ensemble performed to high acclaim at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society Convention in Nashville in 2014.

Some of his published works are two 12-week online berkleemusic.com courses: Berklee Guitar Chords 101 (2007 UCEA award for best online class) and Berklee Guitar Chords 201, the DVD Modal Voicing Techniques, and Hal Leonard books Berklee Jazz Guitar Dictionary and Berklee Rock Chord Dictionary. His updated edition of Modal Voicings for Guitar is soon to be released by Hal Leonard.


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Rick Peckham Trio: Real Time

Read "Rick Peckham Trio: Real Time" reviewed by Mike Jacobs


The semi-trashy, primal majesty of Rick Peckham's sound may initially throw more than a few jazz listeners but it soon becomes clear why he's a longtime assistant chair of the Berklee Guitar Department. Joined here by bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Jim Black, the music put forth on this track and on the rest of Left End (Peckham Music, 2004) feels something like Bill Frisell meets Neil Young at Wayne Krantz's house--and you just might want to be there.

269
Album Review

Rick Peckham Trio: Left End

Read "Left End" reviewed by Jerry D'Souza


Guitarist Rick Peckham has played as a sideman on several albums, bringing his personal signature to the music. On this, his debut as leader, he elevates that presence, aided by two fine musicians in Jim Black and Tony Scherr.

Peckham is fine tuned into jazz, as evidenced by his cover of the Thelonious Monk tune “Evidence," as well as the group's “Free 1" and the fleeting “Free 2." And though the harmonies may not be those of jazz ...

164
Album Review

Rick Peckham: Left End

Read "Left End" reviewed by Sean Patrick Fitzell


The opening twangy guitar riff off the title track of guitarist Rick Peckham’s Left End suggests an edge usually associated with rock music, a feeling solidified by the propulsive groove of drummer Jim Black and bassist Tony Scherr (both with plenty of rock in their backgrounds) to push the leader’s statement further. And that’s just the first 30 seconds.

Peckham’s debut as a leader draws on early classic rock guitar influences for sound and attitude and infuses them with improvisational ...

168
Album Review

Rick Peckham: Left End

Read "Left End" reviewed by John Kelman


For the first album by the assistant chair to the guitar department at the Berklee School of Music, one might expect a heavily jazz-centric affair and, given Rick Peckham’s vintage, one that would be heavily informed by alumni like John Scofield, Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell. And, to be sure, there’s a certain outward edge a la Scofield, and some reference to the skewed Americana of Frisell territory. But while Left End may demonstrate these allegiances, they are just as ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Left End

Self Produced
2004

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