Jazz Articles about Steve Knight

About Steve Knight

Album Review

Chicago-based jazz man Steve Knight started playing guitar when he was 12 years old, and as he puts it, traded his skateboard for an inexpensive guitar, which “was quite righteous-sounding playing 'Smoke on the Water.'" He has come a long way since then, and For Years Gone offers plenty of evidence to prove this. Knight's self-produced 2022 debut Persistence (Self Produced) struck a chord with jazz guitar fans, and his sophomore release shows him developing his ...

Album Review

Steve Knight: For Years Gone

Read "For Years Gone" reviewed by Thierry De Clemensat

by Thierry De Clemensat
April 18, 2025

If you have a fondness for albums imbued with a nostalgic air, this one should resonate with you. Writing for All About Jazz, Jack Bowers described the previous album, Persistence (Self Produced, 2022), as: “captivating on every level--harmonic, melodic, rhythmic... This entire production works beautifully, regardless of one's particular taste in guitar heroes." Here, the art of crafting an acoustic trio takes center stage. Steve Knight never seeks to dazzle the listener with ostentatious virtuosity, though he possesses ...

Album Review

Steve Knight: Persistence

Read "Persistence" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
August 11, 2022

Yet another guitar-led trio, this one by Kansas-born, Chicago-based Steve Knight who also writes in the manner of one of his role models, George Benson (Knight composed seven of the album's dozen numbers including two versions of “Sharps Disposal"). Although the recording's title refers in part to the eighteen months it took Knight to write the song “Persistence," it could well signify how difficult it is for jazz musicians to make a decent living these days or to find a ...

Album Review

Steve Knight: Persistence

Read "Persistence" reviewed by Richard J Salvucci

by Richard J Salvucci
August 8, 2022

Readers have surely heard of a “sniff test." It is an informal assessment that something, particularly in finance, just does not look right. It is usually intuitive rather than formal. But many analysts employ one before turning to more elaborate kinds of examinations to verify their suspicions. Music has no sniff test, but it does have a “sit still test." Can one sit still while something plays? If not, that is probably a good thing, unless it is ...